A lot has been said about the episode that ended
the nine year story that Ted bored his kids with. Millions have been left
outraged and confused with the sudden bait-and-switch in the last five to ten
minutes of The Last Forever Part Two. For all of you who’ve been living under a
sound-proof rock, SPOILER ALERT! To summarize, Ted and The Mother (whose name
was finally revealed to be Tracy McConnell) were an instant click, the moment
they met, then they lived in blissful happiness, had two children they loved
and adored before, BOOM! Tracy passes away of a sudden illness, Ted and the
kids mourn her loss, and six years after her death, he sits his kids down to
tell them the longest, most winding dinner time story ever conceived; at the
end of which, his kids (who have been shown to be incredibly adept at reading
subtext, because HONESTLY, even I did not see this coming) realize that this
isn’t a story of how their dad met their mom, it’s a story of how much their
dad is crushing on their Aunt Robin. And they encourage him whole heartedly to
go get her. Twenty five years after he saw her across a crowded bar.
For
someone who had no prior knowledge of HIMYM, I’m sure the previous paragraph
must have made you clutch your heart with a wistful “Awww”. Same goes for all
those people who’ve always shipped Robin and Ted. Please bear in mind that I do
have anything personal against the ship, everyone’s choices vary. But I have
never seen a couple that contrast so spectacularly! Yes, it’s all very well and
good that opposites attract, but would I be wrong in saying that Robin was more
of the guy in the relationship than Ted?
Through
nine seasons, Ted was always about making the grand gesture for Robin; whether
it was stealing the Blue French Horn to get her to be his girlfriend, or
putting up Christmas decorations synchronized to Highway to Hell just to cheer
her up (even though he didn’t know what was really making her upset). And
Robin, with her career driven persona and her dislike for (and later, inability
to) have children seemed to be so utterly wrong for Ted.
I must
admit, when I saw the season of finale of S08, all I could think was “THIS is
the Mother?” However, over the course of season 9, I grew to love Cristin
Milioti so much. The writers put so much warmth and humor into Tracy’s
character that Milioti executed so effortlessly. I doubt someone like her would
EVER exist in real life; she’s too perfect. She gets along with everyone in
some way or the other, because, of course, her character was written to be that
way. She’s like the universe’s personally created jigsaw piece meant to fit
into Ted’s own crooked and jagged life. Her entry into his life was also
perfectly timed- he had just decided to finally let go of the woman he was
smitten with for close to a decade and start over.
The
finale was an hour long to be sure, but there were far too many time leaps and
loose ends to tie up for it to be done in a manner that offered enough justice
to everything.
For all
those who say that Barney’s character regressed; I would beg to differ. It was
shown that no woman that he loved as a soul mate was ever able to change him,
be it Robin, Quinn or Nora. But the birth of his daughter turned his life
around a 180 degrees. He finally saw the world differently. If he needed a
child for it to be so, obviously, it would never have happened, had he been
with Robin. Despite this, I did not like seeing them get divorced. By and
large, Barney and Robin were (again, WRITTEN) to be perfect together.
I did
not enjoy how Lily was merely reduced to a sniveling mama with just the one
dialogue “But Robin promised to be here for all the big moments!” all
throughout the last bit of the finale. Marshall’s struggle in the dog-eat-dog
world of corporate law, which clearly did not appeal to him, was again,
severely downplayed.
The
Apartment did not get its due of farewells. That space bore witness to the
turbulence in the lives of the whole group and I feel they should have paid
some kind of homage to it.
The Mother’s
time spent with Ted was again shown only in snippets, which left me asking for
more. The banter and chemistry between Tracy and Ted is just so HAPPY, for lack
of a better word, you cant help but wish that they had eternity to spend with
each other.
I think
that Robin was dealt the worst hand of cards. She was always shown to be
travelling, jet setting to the ends of the world for her job which made her
miss out on everything her friends went through. She eventually had a divorce
and by the time she realized that Ted could quite possibly be the one for her,
he was blissfully happy with Tracy. Had Robin Scherbatsky’s character been a
more driven, aloof one, it would have been a very good feminist stand- to have
a strong, empowered female lead, focused unblinkingly on being on top of the
media world- would have been better. But Robin has been shown to be hurting and
torn between her career and her friends. It makes me wanna think, ‘Now girly,
wouldn’t it have been wiser to just compromise?’ Eventually Robin ended up all
alone with just her dogs for company, which (despite being the ardent dog-lover
I am), I cannot imagine myself ever doing so.
The
scenes depicting Barney meeting his daughter and Tracy’s death were far too
fleeting; over before the feels even hit you. I must admit, I watched the
entire finale with almost clinical detachment whereas episodes like How Your
Mother Met Me and Gary Blauman had me bawling. When the creators could spend 22
episodes stretched into 72 hours’ worth of events, couldn’t they have shown an
epilogue that their viewers could have clicked with better?
Ted saw
himself losing Robin to her career. He saw himself losing her to his best
friend. More than once. Still, till the very end, he wished her no ill will. I
wonder how many of us could have managed to do that. To love with such
determination. And to continue to love, despite distance and circumstance. I
think it must have been intensely painful to love someone like that. That’s why
Ted deserved Tracy; someone who had also loved and lost… They were meant to
replace the unhappiness of each others’ lives.
Even
though he stressed that he felt thankful for every moment he spent with Tracy,
I still felt like the creators of the show made it look like Ted was merely
whiling away the time before he could make Robin his again.
If I
could, I would lock away the memories of the whole finale debacle very deep
into the recesses of my brain. In my version, Tracy wouldn’t die, and she and
Ted would live happily ever after, as would Robin and Barney and Marshall and
Lily. The moral of the finale is to show us that life is never fairy tale
perfect. But when you’ve been executing nine years of universe scripted
perfection, couldn’t I ask for just one piece more?
~ I
