How I Met Your Mother was an American sitcom that followed Ted Mosby and his journey to find the love of his life. Ted and his friends Marshall, Lily, Barney, and Robin found themselves in a variety of situations throughout the show’s nine-season run. The show had audiences glued to their TVs in the mid-00s eager to see what the crew got themselves into. When the finale aired a decade ago, viewers were livid with the ending.

10 Years Ago

In 2014, the final season of How I Met Your Mother aired. This final season revolved around the weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding. After nine years of building up the friendship and romance between the two, spending an entire season on their wedding weekend made us believe that the couple would be ’til death do us part. However, in the final ten minutes of the series, all that build-up became useless. 

Throughout the entire series, Ted and Robin have a will-they-won’t-they relationship. Robin puts her journalism career before everything. This caused a lot of friction in her relationships. However, the biggest issue was her not wanting to be a mother. 

Ted, a hopeless romantic, always wanted a family. He wanted a family with Robin for most of the show. However, she stood her ground and told him no. This led to their multiple breakups throughout the series. After putting their will-they-won’t-they to rest, fans believed that the writers finally put Ted out of the race for Robin. By the end of the series, it was clear that Barney and Robin were perfect for each other. Ted’s protagonist powers couldn’t stop that.

Protagonist Powers Strike Again

For a show titled How I Met Your Mother, the relationship with the mother is glossed over in a montage only to kill her off just as fast as they brought her in. While fans loved seeing the mother, her death left a poor aftertaste. After the mother’s death, Ted runs back to Robin, asking her out on a date showing that the growth from the past nine seasons was a complete waste.

If the entire final season had not focused on Barney and Robin’s wedding, their breaking up 10 minutes after they were married on screen would not have been a narrative blunder. The writers spent seasons building up the friendship between Robin and Barney. This gave them a more interesting will-they-won’t-they type of relationship as their friction came from their private matters. The writers gave them a relationship built on true friendship and understanding, something Ted and Robin never had.

Divorces happen all the time on television. However, for a relationship that had this much investment in its writing and with its fans, it comes across as a slap in the face. It was poor writing then, and it is poor writing now.  

The Backlash

Coming full circle isn’t new to television endings. However, in shows like Modern Family, there’s a difference in the family portrait at the start of the show and the end. Throughout the entirety of the show, the characters grow and develop into a loving family. Here, it shows how little Ted and Robin have not grown despite the number of changes they’ve had since the pilot up until the final ten minutes of the series. Why was this? Well, the ending of the show had been set in stone once the pilot aired in 2005. By 2014, the show had outgrown that ending.

Audience backlash spurred a petition to change the finale. In response, an alternate ending was released in the season nine DVD box set. This finale implies that Barney and Robin got back together during the wedding of Ted and the mother.

While there is that retconned ending, the original ending is still one of the worst, if not the worst, television endings to date.