Even after the years it's been over, it's still hard to believe that what could have been one of the all time classics was completely and irrevocably torpedoed in one episode flat. What the hell were they thinking?
shareI was just thinking about this last night. Such a shame.
shareDear friend:
I love this show too. I'd watched this show over 10 times. Indeed I didn't expect a happy ending for everyone. But! What they arranged for Ted & Tracy, Barney & Robin is totally sucked!!!
Divorce of couple Barney & Robin is predicable. But, however, nevertheless, you took last season, almost 22 episodes to describe happy future & true love between them. And only took less than 5 F-word-ing minutes to describe how they decided divorce.
On the other hand, Tracy's death shows no shock by an extremely flat way. What the F-word were they thinking? That moment should be a tear point! We had waited mother for eight seasons. The whole 8 seasons!!! She just died in what..., 10 seconds I guess. Anticlimax and disappointed me.
Even I saw thier another cut version that Tracy stay alive, the effect is still the same. Anticlimax. When I saw Ted ran toward to Robin's apartmaent at the last. I felt more angry and sad than touched.
Well, I still love this show. Just couldn't swallow the ending still like you.
Agreed. I hated how they made it seem like Robin and Barney were soul mates, got married, and then divorce after 1 fight? It would make sense if they showed multiple issues with them being unhappy but it wasn't very detailed.
shareI don't know, I thought they made it pretty obvious that Barney was hating his life just following robin and her career around, and we know that Robin would hate being held back from her career by any man.
I agree with you guys in thinking the last season was bad, particulrly the pacing was awful. However, Robin and Barney getting divorced didn't bother me that much bc in real life I don't believe for a second they'd ever stay married forever. It was dumb to have an entire season dedicated to their wedding if that was gonna be the case though.
That's what I mean! I was sad when they divorced, I'll admit. But it would've made more sense if they didn't dedicated the entire season around their wedding.
shareYeah, and the weird thing is, after watching it all again (which is what spurred me to write this), something odd happened: I actually came around to the idea of Tracy dying, and Ted ending up with Robin again at the end of it all. From the perspective of hindsight, as you watch through the entire show, it really is clear that this is indeed all just a story to highlight how much he loved Robin. There's no way that he'd tell such a long story about how he met his wife, and as the daughter pointed out, barely include the wife at all, and yet focus so intensely on Robin the entire time, if the wife was still alive, and he had no ulterior motive to tell the story other than to illustrate how they met.
So basically, to me, it makes sense that the mother is dead, and he's trying to get approval for his next move--going after Robin again. So yes, after watching it all again, I actually appreciate the ending--in the grand sense of the series as a whole.
HOWEVER!
That in no way means that they executed it properly, or that they are off the hook. They completely BOTCHED it. Let's go over it:
-They basically erased 6-7 seasons worth of character development for both Barney and Robin.
-After erasing GOOD character development for Barney, they essentially expect us to buy him going above and beyond that character development and COMPLETING a more full arc in 5 seconds flat because he has a baby. Wow. May as well have no had the other, actual character development before, if all you need to do was give him a baby, and then he instantly arcs, writers!
-It's a bad idea to have an ENTIRE SEASON (the final season no less) center around a wedding, if you're going to have them divorce in 1 minute flat. This goes especially since you were building up to this wedding for the majority of the seasons...
-If you are going to center the entire last season around the wedding, it better be GOOD. It wasn't. Season 9 dragged like hell.
-As you said, they killed the mother off in several minutes, and unceremoniously so. It was a complete insult. And then, because we have no emotional attachment to it, it makes it seem completely absurd and an insult to injury when Ted just goes back to Robin. Of course, as I stated previously, I actually think it makes sense, but because of their execution, all sense is thrown out the window, and it comes across as them spitting in your face when you watch it happen.
-The finale, with Robin basically disappearing from their lives, betrays all preceding seasons, which go out of their way to make it clear that these friends have always been close, up until the point at which Ted tells his story. In fact, it even contradicts in the finale itself, where the kids are like WE LOVE AUNT ROBIN, AND WHENEVER SHE COMES TO DINNER, BLAH BLAH BLAH... Well, if they call her aunt Robin, and they love her, and they know her enough for this to make sense, how then is Robin basically a ghost in their lives, as the finale paints her?
-There are more issues, but I can't think of them at the top of my head.
Honestly, I would have preferred the mother not dying, but if they really wanted to go that route, they needed FAR BETTER EXECUTION. As it stands, what they gave us was a disaster.
I agree completely. I hated the last season, it did drag on forever. That's why I felt like they should've given us more time with the mom. I wish they would've included her in each episode and given her a bigger part. It would've made the ending suck less.
It seemed like they rushed to get to certain plots without any detail. In example, Robin and Barney's divorce. It happened within minutes. It was like the writers just wanted the audience to understand they divorced and to be perfectly okay without any explanation. Especially after it took so long to finally get them back together in the first place.
Then the mother dying. They only have her for a few episodes then kill off her character immediately. It was an insult because the audience was anxious to finally meet her throughout the entire show. They didn't do any justice with her character. Like I said, she was more of a side character plot to have Ted and Robin end up together.
Honestly, you summed up how I feel. I don't like Robin and Ted together but I feel like most of the reason I dislike them together is because I feel like they don't work well together and because of everything you said.
They spent so much time trying to tell us Robin and Ted was a bad idea and Robin and Barney being so great for each other that it felt like a betrayal for them to spent so much time on Robin and Barney's relationship only to have it crumble so quickly in the finale. Plus, I feel like they did too good of a job making it seem like Ted was over Robin from about mid season 3 or early season 4 until season 7 when he suddenly was still in love with her somehow.
Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained. The end.
Yeah, the problem is that their original idea for the show's ending was completely contradictory to the direction the show started heading in season 3-4 onward. And then like you said, in season 7, his love for Robin just reemerged out of nowhere. Oh wait, I know where it emerged from: it emerged from the fact that the writers were too stubborn to accept the fact that the show had grown beyond their original intention for the finale.
I still think, however, that the absolute worst thing they did was with Barney and Robin. Not even necessarily that they ended up getting a divorce, but that this was explain in like 2 minutes, AND MORE SO, that despite them knowing this was coming, they STILL MADE US WADE THROUGH AN ENTIRE SEASON OF THEIR WEDDING. WHAAAAAT!?!?!? For a show that had such sharp writing for so many seasons, this is just unforgivable from a writing perspective.
Honestly, that's my biggest problem with their divorce. It isn't really that they got divorced, it's the fact that they spent all of the last season on their wedding, only to have their marriage end like five minutes into the finale.
Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained. The end.
THANK YOU!!! I am so glad SOMEONE agrees!! Check out my post, I definitely share your thoughts.
shareIt literally ruined the show for me. When i randomly see a repeat of any ep on tv i have to quickly change the channel
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