Yes, this is a blog post about the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Yes, it contains spoilers of the series finale. If you haven’t seen it, then stop reading. I don’t want anyone mad at me for something I cannot control.
How I Met Your Mother began in 2005 under the premise of an older man telling his teenage children the story of how he met their mother. Anyone who watched the show for any amount of time realized that entire seasons went by with nary a mention of the Mother. This was never a story about meeting her. This was a story of a lonely guy, Ted Mosby, living in New York and trying his best to find his way in life.
While the show was ultimately extended beyond its reasonable lifespan thanks to a network that had found a cash-cow, the final season seemed to redeem some of the goodwill fans had been losing. The “concept” season, in which the entirety of the ninth season was compressed into the weekend leading up the wedding of Barney and Robin, revived the storytelling style of the first years of this show.
Sprinkled throughout the season were Lost-style flash-forwards and flashbacks, further propping up the story. The series finale featured an even more compressed timeline, covering 2013 to 2030 in the span of an hour. Lily and Marshall have their children. Marshall becomes a judge, then announces his intent to run for the State Supreme Court. Barney and Robin realize, three years into their marriage, that things aren't working out. They divorce. Robin devotes herself fully to her career, distancing herself from the group in the process. Barney goes back to his womanizing ways until he finally gets a girl pregnant. While he had mocked the idea of love (revealing his heartache from the failure with Robin), Barney professes his undying love to his daughter the first time he holds her.
Of all these characters, Robin’s story seems to mirror her introduction to the series. She started out as a career-oriented woman who rarely went for relationships. As her friendship grew with the gang, she became more personable. The hurt from the failure with Barney drove her back into focusing on her work, and lingering feeling (for Barney or Ted?) drove her away from the group.
The constant through it all was Ted Mosby. His desire to find “the one” encapsulates the desire of most people. He was an everyman, but he was such an everyman that he often became a supporting character in his own story. His search for a relationship that would last carried him through a few failed relationships and many straightforward refusals. But he kept going, which is more than can be said for some people.
At Barney and Robin’s wedding, Ted finally sees the Mother for the first time. He later runs into her at a train station, and they begin to discuss the strings connecting them throughout the series (the roommate, the yellow umbrella, etc.). They begin dating and they actually end up having two children before they even get married. The marriage finally happens in 2020. By 2024, the Mother will have fallen ill and died, all of which had received subtle hints this season.
Ted is telling this story to his kids in 2030. His kids, though, realize the truth behind the story. It wasn't about their mother. This story was about Robin. It was always about Robin. While the love Ted and the Mother had was real, and deep, it was also over, thanks to her passing. Like any other person, Ted is basically voicing 25 years’ worth of regrets while masking it as a sweet, nostalgic story. The kids give their blessing to Ted pursuing Robin once more (now as a 50+ year old man). The series ends much as it began, with Ted standing outside Robin’s apartment, holding up a blue French horn.
And it was that ending that basically ripped apart the fan base of How I Met Your Mother. We've seen for nine seasons that Robin and Ted only kind of work. We were forced into some deep emotional investment with Barney and Robin, only to have it all ripped away in the last episode. We were committed to the idea of Ted and Tracy (the Mother) finally getting together and making it work. And it was all taken away from us.
But that’s life. In reality, not all stories flow with the same rhythm all the time. Some parts are faster and some parts are slower. Sometimes entire blocks of detail are crammed into a short span of time while other times the storyteller wastes a half-hour of your life on insignificant details. The fans, apparently, wanted perfection from a show that was anything but perfect.
The comments I've read call out the show for creating the investment in the Mother, only to rip her away from us so quickly. But that happens in life all the time. As a kid I remember having friends in school, and suddenly they were gone because their parents moved away. There’s nothing that I or anyone else could do. The decision was made by adults, and we were just kids. I remember being told that loved ones had months to live, and they were gone within weeks. That’s what life does. Life throws events at us; hardships, trials, tribulations, elation, celebrations, and rapturous moments of enlightenment. Each time it throws an event at us we have to keep going. When I graduated college I didn't celebrate for days on end…I pretty much intensified the already on-going job search the next day. Life doesn't slow down. And the best we can do is deal with the hands we’re dealt.
For the fans desiring a perfect ending for all characters…when is the last time that happened? Not just in TV, but in real life. Life is never perfect. Far more often than not we mess up. First impressions are quite often bad. The words never come out as they do in the movies. The first kiss is never as perfect as it is on TV. Life, in all its glory, is a series of missteps and imperfections. We just have to handle it as best we can and see where it takes us.
It would take the better part of nine seasons for Ted to actually meet the Mother. Like any other long-running shows, the series had its ups and its downs. Some seasons were flat-out better than others. Some episodes shown like diamonds in the rough. Some story lines slogged through messy character chemistry.
In short, it was a story about life.
No comments:
Post a Comment