How to End a Sitcom: Thoughts on the Final Season of How I Met Your Mother

I’ve said before that I am a fan of How I Met Your Mother.  In fact, I’ve said it is one of the best comedies of the 21^st century and this generation’s Friends (and I’ll stand by those claims).  But critics have been a bit hard on this CBS hit, claiming it stayed too long as it wraps up its final season on its ninth year.  Now perhaps I didn’t feel the long delay of the never ending story of how Ted Mosby telling his children how he met their mother because I binge viewed the first half of the series one summer and have only been watching live for the past three years.  (If you want to see some mock rage about this see this amusing trailer that kicked off this season of his grown up kids reading him the riot act for this long delay:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u02vOZoI4Pw ).  But regardless, when the network announced the show’s cancelation I was not surprised, but I definitely didn’t breathe a sigh of relief as some did.   Instead, I looked forward to the last season with a mix of excitement and sadness that one approaches any favorite show’s closure.

Because I’m not always the most thorough television fan, I didn’t know beforehand the premise of the final season.  I had assumed we’d meet the mother early on (since the season finale of the eight season had her within arm’s reach of Ted) and that the final season would give viewers a glimpse into the start of their relationship.  I should have known better.  When the season started and I soon realized that the entire season would be one stretched out weekend (the weekend of Barney and Robyn’s wedding) leading up to the titular meeting of the mother, I was skeptical.  Even though I love wedding-themed episodes, I wasn’t sure there would be enough to work with and I felt like we’d lose out on getting to know the mother.  It turns out that this ending device is the appropriate one for the show.  First of all, there is plenty of comedic potential in a stretched out wedding weekend (from strip poker with your mother in law to a Canadian-themed rehearsal dinner).  Second of all, as a friend pointed out, there compressing one season into a single weekend allows for long-running in-jokes (“Thank you, Linus”).  But, most of all, it fits the show’s premise of delayed gratification.  Fans knew as they watched Ted embark on countless relationships over the years that it wasn’t going to end in a happily ever after, and yet they watched on.  In many ways, perhaps avid followers of the show should have always known to expect that final meeting on the very last episode.

Since the show is known for its flashbacks and flashforwards, the confinement of the season to the Farhampton Inn and one singular weekend doesn’t allow it to get tiresome.  Fans are rewarded with trips to the past and the revisiting/continuation of storylines (slap bet, anyone?) and a few poignantly placed flashforwards give viewers the glimpse into the future that the show itself will not provide in real time.  Further, a wedding is a perfect event for reuniting former cast members and fan favorites (like Barney’s family).    And, although Ted won’t met his future wife until the last episode, viewers do get to meet her (and watch her meet everyone of his friends before him), in almost every episode leading up to the end. 

So, all in all, I am really enjoying watching this show come to a close.  However, my giddy excitement about making it to the last episode has now turned to nervous apprehension after reading some conspiracy theory articles about how the show will end. Some predict that the reason Ted has been telling this long drawn out story of how he met the children’s mother is because she has long been dead, perhaps soon after they were born.  With textual evidence to support this prediction and the producer’s claiming that the final episode will be heartbreaking, I now wonder if these theories are right and if fans are in store for the most depressing sitcom finale ever. 

I guess the saving grace is that CBS is launching How I Met Your Dad next year so if this show leaves us depressed, hopefully the new spinoff can quickly lift our spirits and give us a new cast of quirky friends to entertain us for a half an hour a week.  (Although, if I’m a betting television scholar, I’d wager that the show will pale in comparison to its ancestor).