So, yeah, let's get it all out there: How I Met Your Mother's series finale stirred up a massive controversy when it aired this past Monday. Some people liked it, a lot of people hated it, and others just laughed it off. (I think my favorite reaction was from one of our commenters, who called the finale the "Red Wedding of sitcoms," based on the Twitter reaction.) Personally, I fell into the "loved it" camp, although I understand I'm in a very small bracket. That said, looking at Season 9 as a whole, my opinion is largely with the masses -- that is, it was mostly a waste of time.
What Made HIMYM Different: The Good and the Bad
Before it even began, there was a lot of skepticism surrounding the idea of a single weekend in a season -- especially for the last season. Not just that, but it was Barney and Robin's wedding weekend. We didn't know it at the time, but -- given that co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas already had their ending mapped out -- this was a pretty terrible idea, mainly because the wedding had almost nothing to do with the ending. Moreover, the execution of these episodes was all over the map.At its worst, How I Met Your Mother: Season 9 was not only irrelevant, but unfunny too. Take Marshall's cross-country road trip with Daphne (Sherri Shepherd) -- which lasted a whopping 10 episodes -- or Barney and Robin dealing with their families and wedding minutia. (Remember when they did a whole episode just on Barney pulling a "Parent Trap" on his mom and dad?) That's not to mention episodic duds like "Knight Vision," "Bedtime Stories" (the rhyming episode) and "Slapsgiving 3" -- all of which contributed nothing to the season at large.
That's not to say Season 9 didn't have a few bright spots. Most of these were in flash-forwards with the Mother (aka Tracy McConnell), who was wonderfully played by Cristin Milioti. Her brief glimpses of screen time were few and far between, but they did offer good context that later served her more substantial appearances. "How Your Mother Met Me," for example, was a very strong entry that gave us our best look at what made the Mother tick. It's unfortunate that there weren't more episodes like this scattered throughout Season 9, as "How Your Mother Met Me" was really the only episode that gave the Mother the spotlight.
Some later installments carried a bit more gravitas: "Bass Player Wanted," "Unpause" and "Vesuvius," to name a few. Still, there were yet more episodes that came across as "just good," including "Sunrise" (good lord, that Robin/balloon visual) "Rally," "Daisy" and even HIMYM's penultimate episode "The End of Aisle."
In fact, of all the episodes this season (including the finale), "Gary Blauman" stood out as the most in keeping with the show's classic tone and feel. For one, unlike many episodes in Season 9, the story hung on one simple conceit, which proved very effective as each character recalled their own encounter with Gary Blauman. The episode was funny, sure, but it also delivered a great ending, which used a long tracking shot to establish where many of the show's guest stars and recurring players ended up.
As for the series finale (which I gave a glowing review and still stand by), of course, it was impossible to please everyone. The reaction has obviously been divided, and it's probably one of the most love/hate finales to come out in years. However, the actual ending should have come as no surprise to fans. The Mother dying, for instance, was a theory that's been around for ages. Even before Ted's speech in Season 8's "The Time Travelers," the "Mother is dead" theory was one that originated near the very start of the series.
IGN's How I Met Your Mother: Series Finale Review
This again comes back to the inherent problem with Season 9, which is that it stretched out the wedding weekend for way too long. Perhaps if the series had ended at Season 8, like it was originally supposed to, there wouldn't have been such an outcry. Initially, we weren't going to get to know the Mother over the course of a season -- rather, we would have only seen her in the last few episodes of Season 8 (if even that). In that case, her impact on the show wouldn't have been as meaningful, and the ending we got likely would have been better received.On the other hand, if the Mother had been introduced earlier in the series -- say, Season 6 or 7 -- the creators would have had more time to integrate her into the group and make her eventual death seem more important. In truth, Milioti wasn't even on the show that much: about 13 episodes total. (That's less time than either Victoria or Zoey, by the way.) So how were fans supposed to make a real connection with her if she was barely in half of the final season (mostly in a cameo capacity)?
Likewise, Ted ending up with Robin was another "twist" that fans should have seen coming. As Thomas told IGN just earlier this year, "How I Met Your Mother started with a guy who spots a girl from across a crowded bar, and that's Ted and Robin... It's so built into the DNA of the show, and we're heading towards this huge finish for the series." Again, maybe if the show had ended sooner, the outrage wouldn't be as deafening.
Really, it all comes back to the fact that Barney and Robin's wedding was a huge red herring, which is another reason why a show like How I Met Your Mother shouldn't have gone on any longer than six seasons. The thing is, there's a giant risk in leading the audience on for too long, to a point where they've settled on character changes that occurred, hell, two or three seasons ago (even if they were completely uncharacteristic). The longer it goes, the more expectations build. In the case of HIMYM: Season 9, that couldn't be any truer, as the creators stretched the wedding weekend so thin that any tiny sliver of answers were dissected into oblivion.
As I mentioned in my finale review, there was easily a whole season's worth of material in "Last Forever," and while it might have been a shame to see any other finale than the one we got (I stress here, in my opinion), it certainly would have made a lot more sense to make that the storyline for Season 9 instead of Barney and Robin's wedding.
But regardless of what you thought about the season as a whole, you have to admit that the ending made sense, at least on some level. I mean, if the last few seasons were widely regarded as the weakest, then there's really no reason to get upset about a finale that satisfied those early years. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "I hated the last few seasons of the show, and I hated the ending that was a break from the last few seasons of the show." If you fall into that camp, then I strongly urge you to take another look at the series as a whole (as mammoth as it is), because the finale did offer resolute endings for all five of its main characters.
Also, it's not really fair to fall back on the series' title as an excuse either. Considering the show's vehement pride in its misdirects, why wouldn't "How I Met Your Mother" be a giant smoke screen too?
Having said all that, in terms of just Season 9, yes, it was mostly a stunted mess. Save for the occasional answer to a long-awaited question (the slaps, the kids' names, the locket, etc.), there was very little room (literally) for the characters to grow, change or do much of anything that didn't in some way pertain to the wedding -- and that, ultimately, was the season's fundamental flaw from the very beginning.