Seriously, is it even possible?

Last night, 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother culminated in an hour long series finale.  The episode began with Ted Mosby still never having even laid eyes on the titular mother, so I went into already concerned.  How were they going to give me all of the moments that I wanted to see between Ted and the mother?  It just wasn’t possible.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: My worst fears were realized.

Bummer #1) After a season of Barney and Robin’s wedding, we find out that 3 years later they got a divorce.

Bummer #2) Robin gets too preoccupied with her job and basically never sees the gang anymore, breaking Lily’s heart (and mine).

Bummer #3) The mother dies.  Yeah, you read that right.  On a show called How I Met Your freaking Mother, the mother dies.

Bummer #4) After sitting through 9 seasons worth of story telling, Ted’s kids tell him that it is so obvious why he has been telling them all these stories.  It has not been to tell them how he met their mother, but how he may still have feelings for their “Aunt Robin”.  This was mainly a bummer because I never really “got” Ted and Robin.

Whilst I am beginning to come around to the finale a little bit more, I was initially crushed.  This entire show has been building up to Ted meeting his soul mate, the one.  Or at least that is what I thought.

I have to at least respect that they hoodwinked all of us, because, yes, in theory it makes sense that this has been leading up to Ted ending up with Robin seeing as how the show has mainly centered on their on again, off again thing.

SPOILERS OVER

Mainly, the finale got me thinking about series finales in general.  Has there ever been one that has been universally adored?  In short, no.

I have to imagine that this is in part due to the fact that when you build a relationship, whether in real life or with a TV show (personally, my favorite kind of relationship), and you loved that person/show, the goodbye is always going to be the hardest part.

That is why I am trying to look on the HIMYM finale with some optimism and instead think of all the good times we had.   And not that I wanted to throw my TV out the window over this crushing major disappointment (*salute* Major Disappointment.)

– Ellen