Well, I told myself I was going to write once I was less emotional about the ending, but screw it, maybe the emotion will help.  As with any final farewell to a series there will always be criticism and disappointment as well as those who applaud the last moments of the show.  In the How I Met Your Mother series finale, there were many aspects that I expected and yet overall I felt it was a little depressing in the way they showed the aging years of the “MacLaren’s Pub” gang.  A couple of episodes ago, when Ted was recounting to his future wife Traci about Barney and Robin’s wedding weekend and how Robin’s mother showed up and surprised her, for those of you who were paying attention, they dropped a couple of subtle but still very palpable hints that Teds future wife was going to die.  Hence, this was the main reason for him telling his kids this long story of how he met their mother.  So although,  I knew that ending was coming, it was sad to see the complete downfall of Barney and Robin’s relationship—not surprising, but still a little depressing as well as a lot of the more “realistic” moments in their aging years that they tried to portray. 

Even though, showing the harder and less fun parts of life makes the characters more real in a sense, the entire series has basically been built upon their “legendary” stories and experiences as well as Ted the incurable romantic who searches for the love of his life against all odds.  As cheesy and unrealistic as these two aspects are, they have been the two main factors that were the glue holding the series together for 9 seasons, and I didn’t feel them as present in this last episode as much as I had hoped.

To have the finale end on a more somber and realistic note was a little sad for me.  Marshall and Lily will always be a rock of a relationship and I love that they didn’t change that despite their ups and downs.  Barney, finally finding the love of his life in his daughter makes complete sense as well, and was a fitting ending for him.  And I was not surprised at all that they had Ted end up with Robin after the passing of his wife.   As soon as we knew that Barney and Robin had gotten divorced and already expecting Ted’s wife to die, that ending was easily foreseeable.

However, I do find it a bittersweet way to end the series because although as his children noted, a lot of Ted’s stories were about Robin and in the end (before she got married), they were also about his realizing that she was not the love of his life.  Traci was the love of his life.  She was his soul mate, mother of his children, and the cheesy, happy ending to his endless dating escapades.  So yes, part of me was hugely disappointed that they couldn’t just let him live happily ever after or ride off into the sunset.  Something about writers seems to make them feel they have to always give that sad dose of reality in the end, when some of us romantics have plenty of reality in our own lives and are perfectly happy with what I call a “musical” ending.  That’s entertainment!  Probably my favorite part of the entire episode was when Ted finally got up the courage to talk to Traci at the train station and they started piecing together all of the ways in which their lives had crossed over the years.  They were adorable together.

I will still always love the series and the finale wasn’t horrible, I just would have preferred it to be a little more upbeat and had more of the comedic elements that we’ve all come to know and love about the show.

But, now I want to hear from you!  What did you think?  Were you surprised?  Sad?  Happy?  Would you have changed anything about this ending?  Curious as to what all of the other How I Met Your Mother fans out there were thinking and feeling tonight.  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!