by Diego de los Reyes | Aug 21, 2014 | Television
Writing television is hard. I guess. I’ve never done it. The How I Met Your Mother finale aired on March 31, 2014, almost five months ago. I watched it on the floor lounge of my residence hall with a crapload of candy. Oh, I’m not kidding: But here’s a more accurate representation of my initial thoughts: an abridged version of my Twitter timeline that day. [View the story “HIMYM livetweet” on Storify] I’m with Todd on this one. I don’t know why people ask for “five year plans” with shows. Is it (depending on the show) that the creator know where it’s going? Yeah. Should that be set in stone? Hell no. In this case, the Thomas and Bays decided let footage shot ten years ago dictate the ending. It didn’t matter, to them, what the show might’ve become. So here’s what bothered me the most about the HIMYM finale: Knowing the ending, they did THIS?!: Okay, fine. They were set to have Robin and Ted end together, disregarding the character development of the last few seasons, and their very-real reasons for breaking up way back in Season 2 (the show’s best season). Then why write an episode explicitly about Ted letting Robin go, complete with Robin floating away like a balloon? Why let Ted struggle with that decision the whole season (and maybe even bfore then), then solve it, and then bring it back in the last 3 minutes of the entire show? Removing Robin’s agency: Not only do Barney and Robin break up because Barney can’t handle that she, a journalist, travels. Something he already knew. And yet, they break up...
