A Tale of Two Endings

How I Met Your Mother does not get enough credit for being a great show, and it is understandable why. The show has a lovable cast and an entertaining plotline, but it is ruined within the last 42 minutes of the show. What some people do not know, however, is that there is an alternate ending. Could the writers redeem themselves and the show or was it too late? Warning, there are spoilers ahead.

The entire show, all 76 hours of it, is centered around Ted Mosby’s story of how he met his wife, so you can only imagine the outrage from fans when, in the final episodes of the show, they killed her off. The show ran for nine seasons, and we only met the mother at the end of season eight. The next season is spent teasing their meeting in the days leading up to Barney and Robin’s wedding. In the last episodes of the series, the mother dies, Robin and Barney divorced, Marshal and Lily, move to Italy and have more kids, and Ted falls in love with Robin. How did this happen?

The problem is that they filmed the final scene during the first season so that the kids would not age. Ted and Robin seemed like end game during season one, but over the course of nine years, both seemed to move on. Therefore it is not a surprise that fans were let down by the ending. Nine years of character development down the drain.

After fan outrage, an alternate ending was created. Personally, I prefer this ending. Ted and Robin remain friends but maintain their personal growth. Barney and Robin’s marriage lasts, and Tracy lives. The problem with this ending is that throughout the show the writers drop hints that the mother will die. Ted says things in the show like “if I could only have more time with you” and there are shots of him crying when Tracy says, “what kind of mother would miss her daughter’s wedding?”. Tracy is dying and will miss her daughter’s wedding. So, while the ending is better, it does not fit with the show either.

So what should they have done? The original ending throws away nine years of character development but the alternate ending leaves plot chasms. If they redid the entire show, they should have left Tracy alive, but given that was not an option, they should have left Barney and Robin together. Barney and Robin both developed so much and truly deserved to be happy together. Not to mention, watching an entire, and painfully slow, season centered around their wedding only to have them divorce in the last episode feels like a slap in the face for viewers.

Truthfully, there is no easy or solid fix for the ending. “How I Met Your Mother” will always be remembered, to most, as a show you need to stop watching before the final season if you still want to like it.