10 years later, why the finale of How I Met Your Mother is absolutely perfect

The sitcom is celebrating a very special anniversary this week: 10 years ago the grand finale of the romantic adventures of Ted Mosby was broadcast. An incredibly divisive conclusion, which we really want to defend today.

As we celebrate this year the 30th anniversary of Friends and the 20th anniversary of the most cult ending of cult series (with a special 100% Premiere Special Friends currently on newsstands), his designated successor, How I met your mother, just celebrated his own birthday. On March 31, 2014, Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall and Lily said goodbye after 9 seasons and 208 episodes. 10 years later, Alyson Hannigan blows out these ten candles on Instagram. The opportunity to delve back into one of the most controversial finales in television history.

Because the conclusion of How I Met For a decade, there has been a spectacularly divisive image. “I would say that 40% of viewers liked this ending”said Josh Radnor (Ted) in 2016.I know she shattered expectations, made people cry, and was not what people imagined. In that, it was consistent with the DNA of the series and I think it will age well. Let's talk about it again in 10 years and we'll see…“

Oops. Ten years later, the end of How I met your mother is still controversial. Even today, many angry fans have difficulty digesting this punchy epilogue. And yet… Spoiler alert!

Boldness deserves respect

If there's one thing you can't take away from the sitcom, it's its ability to be daring. In his way of telling stories, How I met your mother was able to impose a new tone for almost a decade. And when it's time to say goodbye, Carter Bays And Craig Thomas (the two creators) have innovated again, by writing a final season taking place only over three days, during the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding. A plot twist with some holes and inconsistencies, it is true, but frankly refreshing and original. Until the end, the series sought to create, surprise and disconcert. And the finale remained faithful to this idea.

While sitcoms generally tend to say goodbye in a big, sloppy, sentimental happy ending, in the form of a victory lap, How I met your mother tried something else. Something more realistic and more dramatic. Yes, they dared to kill the “mother”! In a completely improbable tragic twist for a comedy series, they dared to kill the one they sold for 200 episodes! A total shock but completely controlled, because it is imbued with very strong emotion, which gives this final episode a unique and timeless signature. Of course, some may have felt betrayed, because risk necessarily implies disappointment. But “without audacity, there is no glory”, right?

An explanation consistent with the mythology of the series

That said, the authors did not shock for the sake of shocking. This surprise ending was carefully thought out and it fits beautifully into the 9 seasons that preceded it (which is saying something). Indeed, Ted Mosby spends nearly 70 hours telling his children how he met their mother. How can such an application be justified? Why does he insist on detailing the smallest nooks and crannies of his youth? Carter Bays And Craig Thomas provide a brilliant answer: Ted wants Penny and Luke to understand how much he loved their mother, but also how much he loved Robin. All this to have their approval to start his life again with her, now that he is a widower. In its final stretch, the message hammered out by the series is therefore very pragmatic: in life, you can fall in love with several people and sometimes, love stories do not turn out as you would have dreamed. How I met your mother is not a fairy tale. It's a New York tale, modern and realistic, as moving as it can be brutal.

The series avenged the fans of Dawson

And then the creators of How I met your mother have remained faithful to the origins of the series. In a finale that superbly echoes the pilot (the blue horn, what a nice nod), they chose to bring together Ted and Robin, the emblematic couple of the show. For a decade, it was their story that the sitcom told, with, in the middle, the Barney Stinson parenthesis. Certainly, the “awsome” author of the Bro-Code is cooler, more fun, more sexy than Ted Mosby. As Pacey ended up crushing DawsonBarney cast a lot of shadow on the hero of How I met your mother, to the point of being considered by many fans as the true protagonist of the story. But Carter Bays And Craig Thomas ended up putting the church back in the center of the village. While Kevin Williamson had given in to the more popular one, letting Joey choose Pacey instead of Dawsonthe creators of How I met your mother went through with their idea, ending their fable with the original couple: Ted and Robin. A persistence that commands admiration.

The perfect ending for Barney

Especially since everyone found their place in this finale. We saw Marshall and Lily evolve professionally, and we especially saw Barney evolve emotionally. Because let's be clear: his divorce from Robin was something totally inevitable. Who could honestly think that this inveterate seducer would change completely and accept the life of a tidy husband? And Robin, who has always claimed to be opposed to marriage, how can we imagine her as a tame wife? Their union made sense in the history of the series, as much as their breakup. How I met your mother would have simply betrayed the enormous concept that was Barney Stinson, if she had insisted on setting him up with someone. No woman can domesticate Barney… Except one: his daughter. A very touching little twist, which concludes his story magnificently. Barney is not a husband, a boyfriend, or a companion (in fact, we don't even know the identity of the woman with whom he had a child). But he will be a dad ready to sacrifice everything for his little one. Exactly the development he needed.

A little further than Friends

Finally, in its desire to show a realistic vision of life and relationships, How I met your mother went a little further than what Friends had done, 10 years earlier. The cult sitcom ended with Chandler, Monica, Ross, Rachel, Joey and Phoebe preparing to open a new chapter in their lives. How I put dared to go beyond and read a few pages of this chapter. Its finale dares to show what friendship becomes, when we enter deeper into our thirties. Nothing is the same anymore, and this heartbreaking scene between Robin and Lily, during the final party in the apartment, beautifully shows that it is sometimes difficult to stay close, as time passes. We will never know if the friends from Central Perk managed to remain inseparable, despite work, children, conflicts. As if to preserve an image of absolute perfection, the last episode of Friends maintains a certain modesty, refusing to show Joey's distress, the day after Chandler and Monica's departure. The MacLaren gang laid themselves completely bare in their finale. How I met your mother did not spare his fans, and some still hold a grudge against him. After all, the more you love, the harder it is to say goodbye.

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