CaseyMcCall

Dear Lord. The ending that everyone predicted (from "Time Travellers", "Vesuvius", the way Ted/Robin refused to die) but I never thought in a million years would actually happen. Totally obvious yet utterly shocking in its awfulness. The creators apparently knew the ending in S2 and just "forgot" about everything else to try and shoehorn their original idea into the finale. Robin and Barney apparently couldn't make any compromises to make their marriage work, despite them being willing to make changes for each other in S8-9. Robin is somehow still in love with Ted in 2030, a man she doesn't really know any more, despite not being in love with him when they actually hung out and knew each other from S4-9, to the point that she happily married someone else. Lily and Marshall were fine but everyone else's ending depressed me. Barney lost his wife and gave up on true love, and gaining a daughter doesn't make up for that (his daughter isn't a confidante or companion, and she'll eventually grow up and move on). Robin was the offensively cliched sad career woman (don't most successful journalists have partners and/or families? Why couldn't Robin have both?) Ted ended up "living in his stories" like Tracy warned him not to - with the blue french horn, he was still chasing the twentysomething dream of what love/romance might be rather than someone who he was actually compatible with. There was also an icky Nice Guy Syndrome wish fulfilment to Ted/Robin - Robin was Ted's "reward" for all his pain and longing, regardless of Robin's own feelings up to that point and their very real lack of compatibility. No idea why Ted's kids were 1) so bitchy about hearing about their dead mother or 2) so okay with Ted chasing someone who he'd apparently been in love with throughout his marriage to their mother. From their comments about the Cheers finale, I thought that we'd get an ending that was about everyone finally saying goodbye to their young Manhattan/McLarens life, growing up and moving on. I think there could have been real bittersweetness just in acknowledging how things change as time passes. I could even accept Barney and Robin divorcing and/or the Mother dying if it served a purpose beyond awkwardly slamming Ted and Robin back together. I rewatched the show on Netflix recently and refound some of my old affection for it, but yeah, that's gone now. Never watching this show again, or HIMYD. Classic case of the creators' "vision" blinding them to who their characters actually were and what their show had actually become.