Assorted, Rambly Thoughts on the How I Met Your Mother Finale

Obviously, I'm not holding back with any spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, and plan on watching it at some point, obviously skip this post. Or read it now. I'm not your real mom. OR AM I? You don't know, because THIS SHOW IS RIDICULOUS.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a few of my reactions. For the record, I thought we were off to a really great start. At about 8:40, I realized this might not end well. At 8:50 I was starting to get into some serious angry texting with my friends. At 8:59 I threw the remote control across the room.

HOW ARE YOU GONNA DO ME LIKE THAT, CARTER BAYS? WTF DID I DO TO YOU?

So let's get into it. My thoughts are all jumbly, so we're going to go at this in a listy kind of way. For clarity's sake, or something.

Ted seeing The Mother for the first time
Loved it. Love it. Can't get enough of it. I got chills. I teared up. They could have ended the series right then and I probably would have been happy with it. (I'm glad they showed more of their relationship because I really do love them together.

Ted and Tracy have a surprise baby!
I love that they get knocked up before their wedding, and I love that they don't take a traditional path to marriage. 2005 Ted would have pushed for traditional everything, and it was so amazing to see future Ted be so cool and laid back about marriage. So refreshing! I loved it. And their cute little Thursday wedding was perfect. I've never been the biggest Ted fan (go figure), but this made me forget all that. THIS is what character development is supposed to look like.

Barney's Baby
Okay, this surprised me a lot, but I think I'm okay with it. I mean, I still think he and Robin should have worked it out (and they still could have, Robin would be a great stepmom to anyone, just not Ted's kids), but it was pretty adorable to see Barney fall in love with a baby girl. THAT is some full-circle character development. We'll just ignore all the RIDICULOUSNESS that went on between the divorce and the baby. Barney deserves better than that weird regression.

Friendship as an adult... life really does go on
This was probably the part of the episode that made me the most emotional, because that is some real ish right there. Friendships change so much when you're grown up - we've all been the Robin, leaving our friends behind, and we've all been the Lily, mourning the loss of a friendship. As heart wrenching as this part was, I liked it, and I'm glad they did it.

The Swarkles Divorce
I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we spent the entire season at Barney and Robin's wedding weekend just to see them get divorced ten minutes into the next episode. Divorce happens to happy couples sometimes. It's disappointing and messy, but it happens. If a Barney/Robin divorce was the plan, they should have spent less time at their wedding, and more time showing the downfall. I don't think I'd be as upset about their relationship ending if I had a better understanding of why it happened, because I have a pretty hard time believing that traveling around the world with the love of your life is THAT draining on your relationship.

Ted and Robin. 
Ugh. UGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. The reasonable part of me understands this pairing. Ted wanted kids, Robin wanted her career, so obviously they each end up with those things.. and then each other. But why should we believe it's going to work out this time? Robin is still a career woman, and Ted has the kids and the house in the suburbs. Who's making the changes here? Why does Robin say no to Ted for the better part of a decade, and then immediately fall for him as soon as he becomes unavailable? WHY IS THIS ALL THE WORST?

The Mother.... really is dead?
Are you kidding me?
For the record, I do "get" them killing the mother. Obviously, it's a dark ending, but that's what happens in life. Sometimes you lose people, way before you're ready. (Are you ever ready?)

But the real world is full of disappointment - do we really need it in our fictional lives too? Would it be so terrible to fall in love with a couple (or two, or three) and actually have them work out? Tracy is adorable, and may have deserved a happy ending even more than Ted. She loses her fiancé, spends the next five-ish years dealing with the grief associated with it, she finally meets the love of her life, and then she dies? Seriously? That's it? She said she always wanted to eradicate poverty... did she ever find a job in that field somewhere? What was the mysterious illness? Was it a short battle or a long one? How did Ted cope? How did it affect the rest of the gang? I would be much more okay with this ending if they didn't gloss over it so quickly, but it got a 30 second mention. A wedding that ended in divorce got an entire season. It just doesn't make sense, and quite frankly, I think it's lazy writing. She deserved more. We all deserved more.

Everything Else
I'm glad Marshall and Lily had a third baby, but I wish we knew a name/gender.
I wish there was at least one scene with Ted/Tracy's kids + Marshall/Lily's kids playing together (or something).
I'm glad Robin ended up with a bunch of dogs.
Did Lily pay Marshall back after Ted and Robin really did end up together?
There's no way that How I Met Your Dad show will be successful now.
Why was Bob Saget part of this at all?
WHAT ABOUT THAT PINEAPPLE?

Mostly, I'm just frustrated with how rigid the completely fake rules of television seem to be. Originally, the creators wanted Ted was supposed to be with Robin. Fine. But situations, people, places evolve after nine years - the fans accepted Barney and Robin together, and fell completely in love with Tracy. So why ruin all that? Who said you had to stick with your original plan no matter what? Things change - this show taught us that - so why didn't the creators? I just don't get it.

And anyway, what's so wrong with people living happily ever after?

PS - a lot of people have compared this to the LOST finale... but I loved the LOST finale. I actually thought it was perfect. Does anyone else think the two compare?

PPS - did everyone love the blog reference? I did!