‘How I Met Your Mother’ – Why Do I Hate the Season Finale?

I have been a fan of How I Met Your Mother since its inception. It had a great premise, and was original from most of the sitcoms of the current day TV.  Saying that the shows quality has slowly deteriorated as most shows do when they span more than 5 seasons. It has become something of a struggle to get through the episodes, and I am only watching it still to find out who the mother of Ted’s kids is.

For that sole reason I have been a bit slow on catching up with the show, but the other night I sat down with my laptop and hammered through the season 7 finale, much to my disappointment. Here are the reasons why. This article contains copious amounts of spoilers.

The Wedding.

I could see this coming from a mile away, Barney and Robin have finally admitted their love for each other and are getting married, and it’s a nice but obvious scenario. However the way in which they go about this marriage is the thing that annoyed me most.

In the finale we are the opening scenes we are presented with the wedding. Ted and Barney are adjusting their suits as Lily asks Ted to see the bride. This is the big twist of the season, who is getting married to Barney? It cuts away to several months earlier just before the birth of Marshall and Lily’s son. During this time, Barney the Groom-to-be is happily in love with his stripper girlfriend Quinn, and plans to propose to her on a romantic getaway. This would have been an appropriate way to set up his marriage with Robin, IF they didn’t fast forward time to the point where he is marrying Robin. What the hell happened to Quinn? What took place that made Barney choose Robin over Quinn? All these vital details were left out. There are so many things the writers failed to address and it just felt rushed and frankly made up on the spot.

Ted and Victoria.

I had forgotten about Victoria, she was just another girl Ted had a small relationship with throughout his quest to find “the one”. But magically she re-appeared in season 7, and Ted the hopeless romantic started to dwell on their relationship and how it was cut short by her accepting her culinary scholarship in Germany.  She features in the finale, it is the day of her wedding and Ted unknowingly asked her to meet him for a drink. She arrives in her wedding gown and asks Ted to be with her; they could drive away to some exotic location and leave her husband to be at the altar, just like Stella did to Ted in season 3. Obviously being some mental freak out of a bride on her wedding day, Ted opts out of the plan insisting he take her back to the chapel where she could go through with her wedding….. Or does he? Of course he makes an on the spot decision to drive straight past the chapel, and to be with Victoria for the rest of his life.

This is extremely frustrating as a long time viewer of the show. They have already revealed in earlier episodes that Ted meets his future wife at Barney’s wedding, why must they make Ted go through the same relationship time and time again. It happened with Robin, and now Victoria. It is obvious that they are just trying to fill time as they have been renewed for another two seasons (sigh). I just want Ted to meet his goddamn wife already.

So with another two seasons of How I Met Your Mother on the way I’m praying that the writers are a little more creative, and that they finally reveal the big secret well within the closing of the show. Nothing would piss me off more than finding out the mother in the finale and nothing ever resulting from it.  It would just suck to see another of my favourite shows get ruined with the intent to sap every last dollar from the series.