For the past 10 years, Metal Injection has provided its readers with the highest quality metal content on the internet. As the site's readership grows, it's important to keep in mind that metalheads don't spend ALL their free time listening to Judas Priest and Lamb of God. We heshers are a complex lot with interests that extend beyond the world of heavy metal. With that in mind, I'm pleased to present my first Metal Injection foray into the world beyond heavy riffs and growled vocals. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
~ Shayne Mathis
Nowadays sitcoms aren't exactly the hip thing to admit loving. Sophisticated cable programs like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and True Detective have supplanted the traditional multi-camera network comedy as the masses' televised drugs of choice. Modern television audiences, it would seem, are far too cynical and jaded for the saccharine laughs provided by the Big 3 broadcast network's prime time comedies. I count myself among these laugh track weary denizens of the modern TV watching public, but I'm not ashamed to admit my love for CBS's flagship comedy hit How I Met Your Mother.
How I Met Your Mother (or HIMYM from here on) is the story of Ted Mosby, a New York based architect on an extended search for his soul mate. I've followed Ted and his group of friends' exploits for the better part of a decade so it was with equal parts anticipation and trepidation that I sat down to watch HIMYM's series finally Monday night. The season leading up to the finale was a nearly unprecedented experiment in episodic storytelling: The entirety of the final season, all 24 episodes, takes place over the course of a single weekend – the wedding of lovable lothario Barney Stinson and Ted's on again/off again love interest Robin Scherbatsky.
Ted and Robin's relationship began in the series's first season which culminated with Ted winning Robin over by stealing a blue French horn from a restaurant the pair had eaten at. After the first season, Ted and Robin's relationship devolved from a traditional boyfriend/girlfriend pairing to the status of "just friends." This is the opposite trajectory sitcoms featuring will they/won't they couples move in, and it's just one of the quirks that distinguishes HIMYM from the prime time comedy pack.
Over the course of the series there have been numerous story lines that teased at Ted and Robin getting back together. Even the penultimate episode hinted that Robin still had romantic feelings for Ted, but he ultimately rebuffed her, explaining that the Ted she loved didn't exist anymore and that she and Barney were meant to be together. Ultimately, Robin does accept that she loves Barney and the couple get married.
Now we find ourselves at the final hour long season finale. We were introduced to The Mother in the final episode of season 8, and season 9 slowly details how each member of the cast met her leading up to Ted's fateful meeting with the long-talked about Woman With The Yellow Umbrella. The meeting between Ted and The Mother, now known to be named Tracy McConnell, happens early on and the rest of the episode spans the course of 10-15 years into the future.
We quickly learn that Barney and Robin get divorced three years after their wedding because Barney can't handle Robin's budding career as an international news journalist. Barney goes back to his womanizing ways until he impregnates a one night stand. He initially rejects his role as a father, but embraces fatherhood once he holds his daughter for the first time. Lily and Marshall have another child and Marshall eventually becomes a judge in Queens, New York. At a party celebrating Marshal and Lily's move out of their NYC apartment, Robin confides in Lily that shr doesn't feel like a part of "the gang" anymore, and leaves to focus on her career. As these events unfold, we are also kept up to date on Ted and Tracy's relationship. The pair enter into an engagement that lasts 5 years and 2 children until they eventually get married. On their wedding day,Marshal announces he's running for the state Supreme Court and Robin makes an appearance, explaining that Tracy talked her into coming after Robin RSVP'd no to the wedding.
Ted and Tracy's story continues to play out and we learn that she becomes sick and dies. The story then flashes ahead 6 years to "present day," to the time frame Ted has been narrating the story from the entire series. His children immediately accuse him of telling them this convoluted tale as a way to get their permission to ask out Robin, who's come back into Ted's life at some point. His children tell him it's time to move on and that they like Robin. Ted shows up at Robin's apartment unannounced, again with the blue French horn, and the series comes to an end.
The general consensus seems to be that the finale was satisfying, but I have to disagree. Fans have been theorizing since the first season that The Mother was dead in "present day." I never had an issue with this idea because it seemed to fit with the ongoing theme of the show that things don't always end how we want them to. Likewise, Barney and Robin's relationship ended in divorce because that's the only way it really could have. Robin had always put her career first and Barney never stopped acting like a man-child. It's life; bad things happen to good people and vice versa.
My main issue is with the amount of plot the writers shoe horned into the final episode. The audience was never given much time with Tracy, so the revelation of her death was largely devoid of emotional impact. HIMYM has always been about Ted's search for love, but, in the end, the audience doesn't get a payoff. We see him meet The Woman In The Yellow Umbrella, The Mother, but we aren't privy to much of their budding romance.
It would have been more effective to eschew much of the ancillary characters' storylines in favor of spending more time with Ted and Tracy. Then, when her impending death was revealed, we'd have been able to feel something for Ted. It may have meant excising his reunion with Robin at the end, but, again, sometimes life doesn't have a happy ending.
But what's done is done. In the end, the finale was disappointing, but not on the same level as the aggressively spiteful finale of Dexter. We can safely assume Ted and Robin live happily ever after together and that's a better end than most sitcoms can expect to have.
