Before I watched the finale illegally (Since I don't live in the US and it would probably be completely ruined for me before I would watch it legally) I watched the pilot again. What a good pilot. It might actually be one of the best comedy pilots ever. That bomb at the end: "And that's how i met your Aunt Robin". That bomb set the tone for years to come. The story always seemed to be really about Ted and Robin but we were continually promised The Mother. She was supposed to be "The One", the ultimate person for Ted, the reason he waited so long, the reason he got over Robin.
Throughout the series we got to know the characters, we saw them grow, mature, change. We saw them fall in love, fight, get married, get left at the altar, lick the liberty bell! "Legen-wait for it-dary", "Lawyered", and many other phrases and concepts (¡Slap Bet!) became staples of pop culture to a whole generation. I grew up with the show. Like most people, I had a Robin, and the show helped me move on. The characters became like close friends.
And so the finale came. And to some It might seem like it invalidated the whole series, or at the very least the last few seasons. The last three season were about Barney and Robin pairing and about Lily and Marshall coping with adulthood after having their first child. Ted, the storyteller, the romantic, fell into the background of his story. He started doubting himself, he started to doubt if his wait was worth it. He was about to move to Chicago to be far away from Robin and from the past! But he didn't. He met Tracy McConnel, the bass-player, robot-painter, renaissance (you all know how you read that) fair-lover, romantic and a bit of a detective mother of his children. That scene where they meet is beautiful, and give us a glimpse of the playful rapport we only wish we could have seen more of. And then, just like with the last minutes of the pilot, the bombs came.
Tracy and Ted have two children. After seven years they finally get married. And conspiracy theorists rejoiced, or wept at their foretelling. Tracy got sick. She died. As Ted finishes the story, we go back to his children, in a scene filmed eight years ago. And his children don't buy the story. It's about how he met their mother, but most of the time is spent in something else. The real reason Ted told the story, six years after the the love of this life died, is because he wanted to convince his children that he was in love with Aunt Robin now. Treachery!
But let's analyze the position Ted is in 2030. He fell in love with a girl, they were on-again off-again. she ended up rejecting him. He got left at the altar, fell in love with his greatest enemy. As the girl he used to love moved on he stopped believing for a while. She married his best friend. three years later got a divorce and then disappeared from his life. And in that time Ted got the marriage and the family he always wanted, he got his happily ever after. But how often do these happy-ever-after's occur in real life? People die. People try to move on. People sometimes get another shot at happiness.
We tend to think that there is only one person for us, and that out of the billions in the world, when we meet that person we'll know and they'll be perfect. Most people believe in "The One". Ted was the greatest believer in this, the romantic. But the truth is you can love more than once, there can be more than one person ideal for you. Italo Calvino's description of love in the Cosmicomics is perhaps my favourite, because it recognizes a very important part of love: choice. After the death of his wife, Ted could have chosen to mourn her forever. Perhaps in the beginning he did, but Robin helped him move on (by moving backwards, kind of). The last scene brings the series to a full circle, with a set-up practically identical to the pilot, with the blue french horn ("smurf penis"), Robin's five dogs (seems they're pretty lenghty dogs, or maybe she just kept buying dogs to avoid loneliness), and that look Robing gives him from the window. Ted is happy, and that is what counts.
Then again, I have me reservations on the series. Bays and Thomas destroyed Barney Stinson's progress as a characters (and then partly rebuilt it by giving him the true love of his life: his daughter Ellie), destroyed a relationship they forced onto us and convinced us was legitimate (Marshall and Lily had it alright though, with Marshall becoming a judge and a third child on the way). The series had a lot of low points, and was an exercise in misdirection. But I guess most of it it kind of made sense, Barney and Robin's relationship was meant to fail, as it probably would in real life. Maybe that's the problem, How I Met Your Mother spent so much time being the romantic tale, the search for love, the optimistic's journey. We were promised light at the end of the cave. And we saw the light, albeit for a little while. Then we went back through the cave and saw light back the beginning.
I think in the end How I Met Your Mother is more of an exercise on storytelling. On how we think, how we remember, on a man who lives in his stories. Pehaps most of what Ted tells his kids is half remembered, is filled with makeup in the ugly parts, is embellished by a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps Ted idealizes Robin in his memory because that's the shot he has now at happiness. We never knew Ted with Tracy, the whole series was as seen by Ted in a moment in his life when Robin was palpable and Tracy was the one who lived in his memories.
I rambled on a bit, I guess. I would like to hear your opinions, and I completely undestand the hatred towards the finale and how it feels like treason for some people, but I dont think it renders the series meaningless. It just changes its meaning. It did feel rushed. Years went by in minutes after a weekend took up a whole season. It felt that the writers shoehorned an ending that made sense in the context of the series as it was originaly envisioned, but felt a bit out of place because of the newer seasons. Perhaps if the series had ended after its fourth or fifth season it would have made way more sense and everyone would be happy. I am nonetheless satisfied. Mostly.
Italo Calvino was a romantic and a cynic somehow, a realist who nonetheless lived in his dreams and who idealized the world and the people, but was able to see the humour and the deception of daily life. Ted was kind of the same type of person. Maybe I am too.
From Cosmicomics:
"I had fallen in love. What I mean is: I had begun to recognize, to isolate the signs of one of those from the others, in fact I waited for these signs I had begun to recognize, I sought them, responded to those signs I awaited with other signs I made myself, or rather it was I who aroused them, these signs from her, which I answered with other signs of my own . . ".
Best regards,
Hector.
