It’s hard to put into words the disappointment and confusion I felt Monday night after the How I Met Your Mother series finale aired. I didn’t really think about what I didn’t like, I just jumped to the “I don’t like Ted and Robin together” argument and stuck to it. But now that I’ve had some time to think and read tons of blogs and (unfortunately) comments on blogs about the series finale, I think I can actually articulate just what I didn’t like and why I think the finale was – simply put – awful.

This finale had a message to send. A message about life’s twists and turns, about how you can move on from tragedies and good can come from them. It’s a good message and I respect the finale for that. Unfortunately, this message is ripped apart by the execution of the episode and the way the show grew in the past couple seasons and is replaced with a message about if you wait long enough, the girl you’ve been wanting for years will finally give in and you’ll live happily ever after.

This ending is not a bad ending. It could be a feasible ending, but the way the show grew, it wasn’t. Had, say, Ted never pined over Robin for so long and figured it was worth a shot years down the road, had you seen Barney and Robin struggle through their divorce (or had them not marry at all), had you seen Ted and his kids mourn over Tracy’s loss – these things, I think, needed to be included in either extra episodes or the finale. As it stands, the show jumps through time too much, too fast, while the entirety of Season 9 is one weekend. Season 9 could have easily been the wedding early on and then what happens as life progressed for them – how they split up and came back together.

Instead, we have the current series finale.

This show ultimately hit its lowest point when the kids told Ted that his story was about how he loves Robin. The same Robin that the show told you wasn’t a good fit for Ted. The same Robin that Ted finally gets over in the last few episodes of Season 9. The same Robin that has always been the superior choice according to the show. It makes sense why the finale progressed the way it did when you look at it as a story about Ted’s obsession with Robin. The show needed a way to get to this ending from where it was, and it needed to do that through Barney and Robin’s divorce, Ted having kids, and Tracy’s death, and that’s exactly what the show did to achieve it.

For a show that’s always been about a personal journey of moving on and dealing with life’s struggles, Ted certainly has life go his way at the end. He gets the kids, and gets the girl the show has told you, the audience, that he’s been in love with the whole time after telling you, the audience, the she would never love him and he would never love her that way again a few episodes back.

And I hate that.

Just Sayin’.

P.S: The kids scene was horribly acted and they look like they’ve completely gotten over their own mother dying. That’s awful.

P.S: While Barney and Robin regress believably in real life based on the time leaps, it is way too fast when it comes to storytelling, which is why I think so many people are mad they grew them so much in seasons 8 and 9 and then threw it all away in 15 minutes. A show can’t be all realism.