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Depending on where you look on Twitter, Facebook, and other corners of the internet today, people either thought the long-awaited “How I Met Your Mother” finale was either a perfect ending to a beloved series, or an epic cop-out.
But before we get to the debate, one thing that is certain about the finale: it was a ratings bonanza.
After nine seasons on the air, HIMYM took its final bow in front of it’s largest-ever overall audience, and delivered a series-high number of young adult viewers.
12.9 million people tuned in for the finale, and averaged a 5.3 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. That demo number by itself represented a 50 percent spike over last week’s 3.5 rating in the same category.
HIMYM wasn’t the most-watched show of the night—that title went to ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars"—but the reality competition’s 2.2 rating in adults 18-49 demographic was both a season low, and far below HIMYM’s 5.3. All the young adults, it seems, were over at CBS.
But were they happy there? Well… that’s complicated. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD]
For anyone with even a casual familiarity with the show, here’s the finale in a nutshell: After spending an entire season focusing on Barney and Robin’s wedding, we find out the couple barely makes it three years before getting a divorce. Ted finally ends up marrying the mother—who does die in the end—before his kids call B.S. on the entire “this is how I met your mother” plot device and tell him that really he’s been retelling the story of how he fell in love with “Aunt Robin.” We get one final shot of Ted outside Robin’s window holding the famous blue French Horn from the pilot before the title card appears.
Clearly there’s a lot left out there—head over to any one of numerous recaps for more details—but suffice it to say, the internet was, er, torn.
“This is complete bullshit.” declared Vulture’s Margaret Lyons under the headline “The How I Met Your Mother Finale Bailed on the Entire Show.”
“Recent seasons of How I Met Your Mother have disappointed me. But it’s one thing when a show makes character choices or pacing decisions I don’t care for — and boy, HIMYM has made a lot of those,” Lyons wrote. “It’s another thing, though, when a show makes a choice I don’t respect. Killing the mom is bad enough, but making this a Ted-and-Robin love story is bailing on the central conceit of the show. You might even call it a slap in the face.”
A hearty segment of Twitter seemed to agree:
Leave it to the folks at Entertainment Weekly to find some sort of silver lining.
“This isn’t a perfect ending; the ground covered in the finale could have filled an entire season instead of being crammed into a single hour,” writes EW’s Katie Atkinson. “But a straightforward, fairytale ending for Ted and Tracy wouldn’t have served viewers, and it would have been beyond boring. The story Ted tells the kids, and the series itself, is about the gang — Robin included. I would gladly sit down and watch a full spin-off about just Ted and Tracy. But in this series? In the deviously titled ‘How I Met Your Mother?’ It has always been Robin.”
In the end, it’s pretty hard for any show with such a devoted fan following to please everyone with an ending (Hello: “Seinfeld,” “Lost,” and “Gossip Girl.”) But there’s got to be a little worry over at CBS this morning that the divisive nature of the HIMYM finale might poison the well for the forthcoming spinoff “How I Met Your Dad.”
Read More: Variety, Vulture, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times
Brief Take: You can’t win them all, but the overwhelming narrative this morning is that HIMYM didn’t deliver for it’s devoted fans in last night’s finale. If there’s any concern for legacy of the show—or the forthcoming spinoff—CBS might want to come up with some creative spin, pronto.
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