The Ending of How I Met Your Mother: 10 Years Later

but if you know you

[Music]

know but if you know you

[Music]

know it's crazy to think that it's been

an entire decade since the end of How I

Met Your Mother 10 years to conclude a

show that started almost 20 years ago it

honestly doesn't feel like it's been

that long time really does fly or I'm

just getting old I don't know man I was

a big fan of How I Met Your Mother when

I was a teenager as were a lot of people

it was a hit show by every definition of

the term the hype around this series was

no joke from its very first season to

its last How I Met Your Mother had pop

culture in a choke hold even if you

weren't watching it you just could not

Escape it it was everywhere as we all

know though this show

kind of dropped the ball they kind of

messed up at the end if you go around

the internet and encounter any top 10

list of the worst series finales of all

time I'm willing to bet that every

single one of them will mention the

series finale of How I Met Your Mother

very few shows have managed to rival the

absolute Scandal caused by that finale

it was kind of crazy and I can say as

someone who was watching the show week

to week for years experiencing the

ending along with the rest of the world

was just wild like we all love to talk

about bad TV endings like Game of

Thrones Dexter or Pretty Little Liars

which are all terrible don't get me

wrong but I don't think people truly

remember just how loud the anger was

when How I Met Your Mother ended cuz at

the time it did in 2014 we had never

really seen something like that happen

but now it's been a decade and I haven't

taken a look at the show's final season

in years and while How I Met Your Mother

has remained extremely relevant online

over the years I feel like most people

avoid talking about the ending it's kind

of an unspoken rule of the internet we

just collectively chose to forget about

it so recently I started getting really

curious to see how the ending of the

show has aged like I started to wonder

how I would feel about the ending now

with a completely different lens I mean

who knows maybe it wasn't as bad as we

thought it was back then maybe the

outrage wasn't entirely Justified or

maybe it was maybe in retrospect we were

too hard on it I don't know it picked my

curiosity 10 years is a long enough time

and that was starting to take over my

brain so I finally decided to sit down

and rewatch the ending of the show it

had been a pretty long time so there are

a lot of details I didn't remember

clearly which made it very interesting

to re explore so today friends we're

going to take a look back at how I met

your mother's ending 10 years later but

before we get into it lately I've very

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the best and let's get back to the video

so for the uninitiated How I Met Your

Mother is the story of Ted Mosby a young

and ambitious architect living in New

York City with his two best friends from

college and newly engaged couple

Marshall and Lily the story is actually

told from the perspective of Ted 25

years in the future the show is framed

around the scenario of him sitting his

future children down to tell them the

story of how he met their mother and so

he narrates the story of his life and

experiences tracing all the major and

minor events that led him to meeting the

love of his life throughout an entire

decade we witnessed the craziest stories

Ted lived alongside Marshall and Lily

but also with his strange friend Barney

a methodical and unethical womanizer who

leads him to meet Robin a Canadian

journalist who drastically changes the

course of Ted's life on the surface How

I Met Your Mother is sort of framed as a

serialized romantic comedy but the

reality is this is a show about life

we're following a group of friends as

they experience life the joys the

Sorrows the extraordinary and the

mundane the realities of being an adult

we see them fall in love we see them

heartbroken we watch them as they are

faced with the fear of starting a new

job having issues when getting a new

apartment being nervous on a first date

struggling with your career path the

pain of losing a parent the difficulties

of becoming a parent the Epic highs and

lows of high school football nope wrong

show it's a huge Melting Pot of

relatable human experiences through the

lens of a charismatic group of friends

you can't help but get attached to it's

not Reinventing the Wheel by any means

but How I Met Your Mother truly managed

to tell its story in an incredibly

Charming way that made it very unique

the show shapes its storytelling and

even its sense of humor through an

extremely clever use of time jumps which

which is a massive part of its artistic

identity the episodes are almost never

taking place in a linear timeline

instead they build tension twists and

comedic timing by constantly jumping

back and forth in different points in

time this unusual storytelling model is

not only ambitious but also allows for

the writers to get creative with how the

stories play out and it also paves the

way for a good amount of recurring gags

that in time became iconic inside jokes

for audiences true story how Met Your

Mother was a massive pop culture

phenomenon often referred to as the

successor of friends mainly because it

started airing in 2005 just about a year

after friends ended its 10-year run

leaving television and audiences with a

gigantic void to fill with a new super

popular sitcom about fun attractive

white 20s something it was perfect

timing and the show became an internet

darling that led to legend wait for it

Dairy meme and an insane amount of fan

theories about various plot points in

the show namely the very secretive and

highly anticipated reveal of the

mother's identity for eight seasons we

watch the friend group go through life

in a lot of different ways some of which

became massive plot points pertaining to

the title of the show Ted falls in love

with Robin they have an intense romance

but they don't work out eventually Robin

falls in love with someone else so does

Ted despite lingering feelings he gets

engaged he is then left at the altar he

falls in love again years and years of

failed romances occur as he relentlessly

looks for his one true love the mother

we were all waiting to meet Robin

eventually finds her true love in Barney

while Marshall and Lily get married

become parents and build a life as

adequately as they can audiences were in

love with these characters they were

incredibly invested in this story the

show was written in a very engaging way

with great twist and genuinely

jaw-dropping Cliffhangers and with all

of the little Mysteries making the show

talk there was a lot of Buzz and

excitement about its eventual ending all

was well the world was

happy and then came the final season

season 9 of How I Met Your Mother is

really weird and bad it's it's weird and

bad the season has a grand total of 24

episodes and takes place over one

weekend 24 episodes of TV that take

place in three days it is probably the

biggest stretching of time ever put on

television and it's just a weird

decision the season does have its

moments here and there but

overall from the first couple of

episodes you can just tell that

something about the show feels off the

vibe is different it's odd it doesn't

hit the same the dynamic between the

characters also feels a bit different

which is probably not held by the fact

that Marshall is not even with the rest

of the gang for half of the season it's

something that always felt weird to me

but recently I found out that Jason

seagull who played Marshall was

apparently very unhappy on the show

during its last few years and he

allegedly intended to leave the show

after season 8 he was not supposed to

come back for the final season but after

long discussions with CBS the production

managed to convince him to come back to

the show for the final season although

in a somewhat reduced role that would

allow him to focus on other projects and

not have as hectic of a shooting

schedule that and they probably offered

him a fuckload of money too so yeah uh

if you've ever wondered why season 9

makes this really weird decision to have

Marshall separated from the rest of the

cast as he goes on a weird side quest to

get to the wedding uh that's why but

anyways like I said the entirety of

season 9 all 24 episodes of it take

place during the weekend of Robin and

Barney's wedding at that point through

various storylines that happened

throughout the seasons we already knew

that this wedding is where Ted was going

to meet the mother so naturally the

writers used this entire season to build

up to that moment again a very strange

decision timeline wise but it is what it

is this is also the season that is all

about the mother and that is where all

of the fan theories about the show's

ending came to a head like I said

earlier the internet was obsessing over

the identity of the mother and over the

years got really crazy some fans firmly

believe that the mother was a character

we already knew and others were

convinced the mother had yet to be

introduced and was going to be played by

a super famous actress in a big surprise

reveal and everyone was theorizing about

who was going to be playing her Michelle

tractenberg was a huge rumor that last

it for years a lot of fans were

convinced she was going to appear in the

show as the mother Jessica Alba was

another name that floated for a very

long time I even remember a Facebook

group that was heavily supporting the

theory that the mother was going to be

played by Angelina Jolie like it was a

wild time on the internet then at some

point rumors started to emerge that

Rachel Bilson of the OC Fame was going

to appear on the show something that

apparently had been secretly in the

works for a very long time and fans were

convinced she was going to play the

mother Rachel Bilson eventually did

appear in the show but it was a red

hering because she was eventually

revealed to be not the mother but the

mother's roommate who briefly dated Ted

years before he met the mother some

people were also convinced the mother

was going to be Victoria one of Ted's

most important love interests in the

entire show she was a fan favorite and

no she did not end up being the mother

but it was later confirmed by the

creators that Victoria was actually

their backup plan to wrap up the show

with nolu sens in case it was cancelled

before they could end it the way they

wanted so the fans were half right with

this one these were just a few theories

among many of them but ultimately every

theory about the mother's identity ended

up being wrong and it turns out that the

writers had secretly told us that a very

a very long time ago more specifically

in episode 9 of season 1 it's the first

Thanksgiving episode of the show and it

ends with Ted Barney and Robin finding

themselves in a strip club Ted is

approached by one of the strippers who

introduces herself as Ember before

switching up and revealing to him her

real name Tracy and once we hear her

name this happens I'm Amber I'm Ted

actually I'm Tracy still Tad and that

kids is the true story of How I Met Your

Mother what I'm kidding that's how the

episode ends and what seemed like a

random joke at the end of an episode was

actually a gigantic piece of the puzzle

given to us by the writers but pretty

much everybody missed it on their first

watch me included it's by far the

biggest clue they ever gave us the kids

reaction to Ted meeting this stripper is

there because the kids recogniz I their

mother's name the show actually reveals

to us in season 1 that the mother's name

is Tracy therefore any theory that

didn't involve a woman named Tracy was

going to be automatically wrong and yes

as we now know from the end of the show

the mother's name was Tracy McConnell

and she wasn't played by Angelina Jolie

she was played by Kristen Mady who was

relatively unknown at the time she was

officially introduced in the final scene

of the season 8 finale and then appeared

regularly in season 9 as this mysterious

woman who meets Ted's friends in

different situations around the wedding

long story short the final season is

messy and after season 8 having already

been criticized for being largely

uneventful there was a lot of scrutiny

over how season 9 was going to play out

and for most of its run it was sort of

confusing and disappointing and it just

felt like it dragged for way too long

and audience could feel that as they

waited for the answers to all of their

questions 9 years is a long time to be

invested into a show and its story so

despite the season feeling tired there

was still a global sense of enthusiasm

about the upcoming

finale so how does it end how does the

show conclude well that's a pretty

well-known story but let's go over it

quickly the series finale of How I Met

Your Mother does fulfill the promise of

the title although it does it in a very

very clumsy way after a lot of

convoluted time hopping that shows

different points in the lives of the

main characters between the years 2014

and 2030 including Ted's wedding we

finally get to see the moment Ted met

the mother and for all the criticism I

have of the finale and of season 9 as a

whole I got to be honest the actual

scene where Ted and the mother meet is

really good it's so sweet it's a very

cheesy but Charming sequin that truly

delivers on the promise of this meeting

being so incredibly memorable to Ted

you're Cindy's ex- roommate right yeah

and you are the professor econ 305 Eon

305 I don't

teach oh no yeah excuse me I'm going to

jump onto the tracks now no no no no

don't it's so cute like on paper that

scene is perfectly executed there's

absolutely nothing wrong with

it the problem is what came right before

the scene and what came right after

right before the show cuts the scene of

the first meeting TED talks about what

Tracy means to him how getting to

experience life by her side was the

greatest gift he was ever given and how

he cherished every moment with

her even after she got sick yeah that's

when the show revealed that the mother

was hit with an unidentified disease

that brought on some dark times after

that we go back into time and you get to

see the scene where they first meet

closing the loop of the show and

catching us up to 2030 with future Ted

telling the story to his children we

finally get to see them react to the

entire tale their father told them and

it is in this scene that they officially

confirmed to the audience that the

mother is dead she was dead this whole

time she got sick at some point with

some disease and she passed away off

screen sometime in the year 2024 and

basically the whole point of this very

long story is that 6 years after Tracy's

death Ted wants to ask for his

children's blessing because it turns out

that he is still in love with Robin and

he wants to try and give their

relationship another

chance that's it that's it that's it

that is the end of How I Met Your Mother

that is how the show concludes now it's

been 10 years I just re-watched the

ending with a completely new lens and no

matter how I try to look at it it just

doesn't work it's like itchy it gives me

the same icky feeling of dissatisfaction

and irritation that it gave me and

millions of people 10 years ago every

time I watch this finale it feels like

I'm being Bamboozled but not in the

right way it's like a bad trick it's not

impressive The Twist comes out of

nowhere and feels weirdly out of place

and the reason for that is simple and

believe it or not it's not because of

the show's bad writing it's actually

because of the show's good writing let

me explain the reason why the series

finale of How I Met Your Mother doesn't

work is simply because unfortunately for

itself How I Met Your Mother did a

fantastic job at ending Ted and Robin's

Romance Rance it's as stupid as that a

very well-written resolution to their

romantic relationship is the reason why

the ending feels like a betrayal the

conclusion feels jarring and out of left

field because it doesn't feel faithful

to the story that was being told and as

a result it's a story that serves as a

fantastic vehicle for character

assassination basically the ending of

the show had been determined back in

2006 the reason why they had to lock it

in so early is because they needed to

shoot the part of the ending that

involved Ted's children they had to

shoot it then because they didn't want

to take the risk to have the show run

for too long say for example nine

seasons and have to shoot the ending

with the kids that would no longer look

like kids so basically since 2006 the

writers had an ending prepared that they

were unable to change and David Henry

and lindsy fona who played the kids had

to keep the secret of the ending for

almost a decade but the thing thing is

shooting it in 2006 was like signing a

contract this was now the only outcome

the show could have no matter what no

matter what road they took along the way

the Finish Line would have to be that

the mother died and that this was really

all about Robin and the fundamental

issue with that is simply that by the

time How I Met Your Mother actually

reached its end 8 years later in 2014

the ident

of the show had completely changed this

was no longer the story of Ted and Robin

it hadn't been in a really long time we

had been past that point for years this

was no longer the story of Ted and Robin

therefore this was no longer the story

that this ending was designed for and

that is why it made people so angry

after all this time after all of this

the show confirms in its last couple of

minutes that yes indeed this entire

series was about the love story of Ted

and Robin even though by this point

these two characters had not been

romantically involved for the majority

of the show and like I said

unfortunately for itself the show did

too good of a job at making people okay

with that there are several episodes at

different points of the show that are

dedicated to wrapping Ted and Robin's

romance up with a perfect little bow and

solidifying to the audience that they

didn't work out that they are now best

friends that Robin is going to be with

Barney and it makes perfect sense they

did an incredible job at concluding Ted

and Robin's romance and leaving it

behind and it's not something they tried

to like move away from episode 17 of

season 9 has one final storyline

dedicated to this very purpose again the

episode takes place on the morning of

Robin and Barney's wedding and Ted tells

Robin he still has feelings for her

which by the way is a real dick move Ted

is a petty [ __ ] a [ __ ] terrible

friend and a selfish [ __ ] but that's

another conversation in this episode the

show hammers in once again that Ted's

feelings are not reciprocated Robin

moved on years ago and this final look

at their romantic story ends with this

symbolic shot of Ted finally letting

Robin go this was the show's ultimate

reiteration of the reality that Ted and

Robin did not work together something

the show had been drilling into the

audience's heads for several seasons and

again audiences accepted this the show

made it make sense it wrapped it up

perfectly Ted and Robin did not make

sense together Ted had a very specific

vision of what he wanted out of love and

out of life and absolutely nothing about

that Vision was Robin Ted wanted to find

a wife have children settle down and

live in a beautiful home and carry the

perfect sedentary family lifestyle he

had always pictured for himself Robin

wanted to travel the world and pursue

her professional Endeavors she did not

want to have children ever and

eventually found out she was unable to

have children anyway and said Sing Down

living a quiet family life in a Suburban

home is the opposite of what she

pictures her ideal future to be those

positions were absolute Ted was always

going to pursue his family lifestyle

vision and he was not willing to budge

on that and Robin was always going to

put her career first and she was not

willing to budge on that the show made

it very clear Ted and Robin were not

compatible Ted had a hard time accepting

it but Robin had accepted it years ago

and she moved on and fell in love with

someone else this was no longer their

story it hadn't been since the end of

season 2 so when the show suddenly pulls

a 180 essentially negating the entire

story it's been telling for the last 7

years people rightfully felt betrayed

especially because some of their

favorite characters got ruined as a

result in the two-part finale Robin

suddenly switches up on everything she

believes in and tells Lily that Ted is