7 Reasons That Made How I Met Your Mother Pointless

“And that kids, is how I met your mother.”

The words have been spoken, the cast have made their final bow and the curtains have closed. How I Met Your Mother made it long enough to witness milestones and survive nine seasons.

I would be a hypocrite if I were to say that I was not disappointed with the show’s choice of ending; although, looking at all possible closing episodes, they landed it quite well. If Ted and the Mother lived happily ever after without Robin in the picture, it would have been “Aww,” just “Aww,” which is not as good as being speechless but if Ted ended up with Robin, as it did (though, not assuredly, see number three), it would have rendered the whole point and title of the show pointless, as it already did.

Frankly, that is the best ending they could ever have considering all the context clues they left hanging around the previous seasons. And with the writers sticking to their original plan for the ending, that was quite impressive.

Spoilers ahead!

1. The title of the show was pointless

I know this would be a silly thing to start with but writers are well aware that the title is the embodiment of the whole story wrapped into a few short words. Season one started with Ted telling his children about how he met their mother, and as we all know, all the stories that led to it. And after nine seasons, he finally said the words only to find out that he was just trying to get the approval of the kids for him to start again with Robin. The writers decided to play Déjà vu with the five dogs, apartment window and blue French horn. So is it really about how he met the mother? As Penny put it, his story was all about how he was so in love with Robin. So how would it work with Ted and Robin, let us move to number two.

2. Robin will still move places

Robin is Robin and Robin will always be Robin. The show have given us nine seasons to get a full grasp of Robin’s identity, a strong, scotch-drinking, hockey-loving, Canadian, independent woman who would give up anything, ANYTHING, for her work. We saw how it went down with Robin and Barney and it was just plain sad. How would it work with Ted? It would probably go down the same pipe as it did with Barney because Ted will not be able to handle Robin’s constant travels, popping here and there whenever her job pleases. Her job controls her. And as one blogger put it, “Robin was never The Mother that Ted needed and wanted in his life.”

3. What happened to Barney?

Barney had this epiphany in the form of his love child named, Ellie, which made him become protective of the ladies whom he used to whisper dirty jokes and have one night stands with. It was a wonderful epiphany, one of the most wonderful moments in the finale though everything that Barney became crashed down in one finale. All the big words, heartwarming and bold gestures, and the big changes that made me believe in change, even in the worst cases, were gone just like that, in the face of the Playbook II and his and Robin’s divorce. But what else happened to him? Did he end up with number 31? Are they living together?

4. And who the hell is Number 31?

Seriously, we need more than a number, we need a name. And who would believe that it would take an unknown woman to stop Barney from all his shenanigans. It was subtle, very subtle for a big man like Barney.

5. I need some more closure

We all need closure and the show failed to provide us one. It would have been easier for me to follow the rest of the story, even with a very heavy heart, if there were more air time for the mother. How did she get the illness? What is the illness?

I think it was a pretty devastating ending for everyone that the character who came in late (only in the last season) and was quickly and overwhelmingly loved by a lot of people lost her battle in an unknown illness. Great peoples need great endings, I believe in that.

AND WHERE DID THE PINEAPPLE COME FROM!? You promised.

6. The gang fell apart

We had previews, glimpses of Lily’s front porch over the past episodes and it all came down to a very heartbreaking finale where the gang literally fell apart: Robin and Barney divorced, Robin out and about, never showing up in some of the biggest moments of the gang, the Mother dying (yes, she’s totally part of the gang), Marshall and Ted losing their touch at the end (there were no scenes showing how close they really are anymore), Ted and Barney also lost their brotherhood or it somewhat waned, and probably the saddest for me, Lily losing touch with Robin.

Robin chose her work over the people she loved the most (see number two, again, point made) and she promised Lily to be there at the biggest moments of their gang but she was only present in Ted’s wedding.

Lily kept the gang intact, she was the glue holding all of them together and it was sad to see the gang who made me believe in a lot of things and have inspired me in many ways fall apart so unceremoniously and without any good reason to match the good reasons why they were all together in the first place.

7. So did the show

Though I applaud all the people behind HIMYM for having a great and long run, we all know it was time to say goodbye. If they had the show running for anything longer than nine seasons, the quality might worsen until it would make us grateful it ended. But eventually in the long run, the show lost touch with everything it stood for: the life long lessons which I know were taken very seriously by many people, including me.

Why take a lesson from a TV show? HIMYM is not just another TV show, it has touched many lives and it has explained to me things I could not explain and I could not ask out loud to other people.

It taught me a lot of things and they are not just things, they are life lessons. And most importantly, it taught me how to say goodbye. The ending has made it easier to move on, really. And I do not know when I will be watching the show again, from season one, because the ending really changed the way I looked at the whole show. It is as if all the wonderful lessons, epiphanies and of course the all-out funny jokes just went down the drain.