You know what I find interesting? How I Met Your Mother just like… disappeared from culture after the finale aired. Like sure you might still hear the odd, “Challenge accepted” or use that gif of Marshall hugging the pillow as a reaction image, but no one really uses the phrases in vernacular, no one talks about the episodes.
And I think it has to do with the fact that the finale betrayed fans badly.
Take Friends for instance. It still is a lasting cultural thing. I think we can all agree now in hindsight, that Ross is an absolute douchecanoe, but at the time, the majority of fans wanted Ross and Rachel to get together because it had been this thing that the show had told us through cues was MEANT to be.
In HIMYM, the entire show was predicated on MEETING the Mother, and we had ruled out that Robin wasn’t the Mother. More than that, they had shown us that Barney and Robin were actually perfect for each other. They had spent episodes and seasons redeeming Barney, and softening Robin and showing us why they were meant to be. And to see BOTH of those relationships forced apart for a series finale that they had written all the way back in season 1 that didn’t make any sense for the story they eventually told, was damning for the show’s legacy in culture.
I firmly believe that writers should be able to write the story they want, and if you want to listen to constructive criticism or do a little fan service along the way then great, but when you get to the finale? That right there is 100% for the fans. The finale is when you let go of the story completely. The finale is a love letter to the people who made your show continue for as long as it did. Good finales are why shows survive.
When you’re writing a work-in-progress, sometimes you have to abandon your original plan. Let that be a lesson.
This.
But, also, they actually succeeded with the Mother. I thought that ‘The Mother’ would never be able up to the hype and mythologizing Ted did, but y’know what?
Tracy McConnell lived up to the hype and more, and had amazing chemistry with Ted. And instead of writing towards the characters and the amazing performance on screen the showrunners force an ending they planned from almost a decade before.
HIMYM is also very much a lesson of listening to the characters and, if you’re writing for actors, to the truth of the chemistry that’s in front of them.
Another crucial lesson? Endings are important because if you botch that up, everything you did before that will just disappear into the ether of annoyance and anger.
I think the worst thing was they made us fall in love with Tracy and went ‘welp, she dies at the end’ which to me canceled out her value as a fleshed out character – which is an amazing feat in of itself with the number of episodes she was in – and turned her into this plot device that was brought into existence to give ted the kids he wanted so he can end up with ‘the love of his life’, Robin who never wanted kids.
I can’t even watch reruns of this show, the finale ruined everything for me
I stopped watching it a long time ago so when Barney and Robin got together and I heard about it I was so grossed out, because I hadn’t seen the build up and character development. When I heard the ending I was like “sounds fine”.
A friend of mine basically talked to me about it and laid out why it sucked and she like, seemed genuinely hurt by it, which I’m sure sounds so silly to some people but I thought… Well damn, they must have put a lot of effort into these characters after I stopped watching to get such a response.
Her talking about Robin even got to me. This character was sure of who she was and this was accepted by Barney, not Ted. But then in order to make conflict happen Barney decided he could no longer be on the move and deal with the lifestyle Robin has in her career and they break up and he ends up with a kid.
Ted has children, a life in New York and many strings keeping him permanently there. What does that mean for Robin? Does it matter? She’s just a childless romantic option that the men who love her have to maneuver around somehow.
I wanted more for Robin than a shoulder shrug at how this relationship would impact her life, her career, her goals. I wanted better for her than Ted.
Also Barney loved adventure. He loved coming up with dumb ideas of crazy things to do. It’s completely out of character for him to suddenly be sick and tired of traveling with Robin, the love of his life.
Their breakup scene was so forced it was like it was written by someone who hadn’t watched the show up until then.
Fun fact: she left Yahoo citing the staggering incompetence of management and development teams. She was brought in to salvage Yahoo and they proceeded to ignore her and belittle her every chance she got.
Sounds pretty classic. Bring in a woman to save the day, ignore her and continue to fuck it up. Then try to lay the blame on her when it fails.
We learnt about this concept in class, it’s called The Glass Precipice, also sometimes known as The Glass Cliff.
Women are often promoted in failing companies or risky CEO positions, that way, when something fails, they receive the blame. In these positions, they are often not listened to, belittled, and ignored, They also face more media attention for their failures than male counterparts.
“Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil’s rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355.”
letitrainathousandflames 