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How I Met Your Mother Season 9


RandomAct

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Yeah, grumpy people. I think we're watching a different show or something. The entire tone of How I Met Your Mother is occasionally bittersweet, sure, but it's also a fairy tale. The whole damn show is. It's a show where true love exists and people can get a happy ending. It might not be a perfect one (see Robin: kids), but it's still a happy ending. 

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I thought we had another good episode this week.  As is often the case, it hit way too close to home for me, but I loved that they seemingly FINALLY tied up the Ted/Robin story in a satisfactory way.  Also liked the story of Barney passing the torch.

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I thought it was a good episode, but I wasn't really satisfied with the resolution.  As said above, the resolution seems to be Ted finally realizing he has to let go and move on, but.....  I still don't really buy Barney/Robin as a lasting couple, or Ted/Robin as a couple that couldn't make it work.  Barney/Robin seem like one of those pairings that only works in TV when the writers realize they need to swerve the audience.

 

There seemed to be a point where everyone kinda expected Ted/Robin to stay a couple, even though that made no sense since Robin had been established to not be the mother. 

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There are little flourishes where you can see Barney and Robin working but for all of the emotional growth Barney's had over the show (which really shows up in the showwriter episodes and disappears elsewhen), Robin is still pretty messed up, I think. I'm hoping she gets a bit more resolution moving forward of her own issues.

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Part of me wonders why they kept the "Ted will never get over Robin" plotline, when we know she's not "the one", but I think it works in some ways.  I mean, we've all had that one girl we never got over, no matter where either of you end up in life.  She's always the one that got away.  So in that regard, it's realistic.  Also, I think they are doing it to give Ted that big moment of triumph at the end.  Make him feel like he'll never find anyone, then there she is.  I do still think there will be a little twist to the details at the end.

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I kinda think they got trapped by the Robin/Ted relationship.  They obviously didn't intend Robin to be the one, and probably never envisioned the pairing working as well as it did when they created the show.  I think the series would end with Ted and Robin together except.... well, that firebombs the whole premise and buildup of the show.  Barney and Robin strike me as a couple of the "messed-up-people-who-make-shitty-relationship-choices-but-need-somebody" variety.

 

I like the show as is (though it probably should have ended a year ago.  Most of this season up until a few weeks ago has been dire), but I kinda wish they had introduced the mother sooner and integrated her into the cast.  They've spent eight years building up a Robin/Ted relationship that seems like it should have worked, but didn't.  At most, they're going to spend a couple episodes on Ted/Mother.

 

In general, I hate the character progression where said character gets to be happy at series' end,  I.E., after years of being poor/alone/screwed up, the characters suddenly get what they want and ride off happily into the sunset.  Too many shows have started doing that in recent years, because audiences have started feeling like they deserve some sort of big resolution of every show and a happy ending for most charactets, instead of just letting the series end with a normal ep.  That's not really the case here, as they've had a lot of this planned out for years.  But.... if HIMYM were being renewed for years 10, 11, and 12, Ted's would start a relationship with Cristin Milioti's character, it would bomb hard - probably over Robin - and in three years, they would do this season redux with a different actress/character in the role of the mother. 

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I think the reason they stuck with Robin, is because they didn't want Ted to come off as a man whore like Barney.  I mean, Ted slept with A LOT of women as it is, but I think they were trying to avoid the old Seinfeld "girlfriend of the week" deal with him.  I agree they trapped themselves with it, because they didn't give us a really good reason why it couldn't work, and it's obvious that Robin still thinks very highly of Ted.  Maybe she's one of those chicks that thinks he's too good for her?  I don't know, but if you read my posts from last season, I was already fantasy booking scenarios where they end up together, because you're right, that is the relationship that has been built up.

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Man what an infuriatingly paced show.

 

If ever anyone needed more proof that doing like 13 episodes season is for the best just needs to look at this season.

 

10 episodes of filler and then HOLY SHIT!!! CRAM EVERYTHING INTO THREE EPISODES!!!

 

That being said - I liked the last 3 episodes, especially the 200th.

 

Of course - the timeline they suddenly laid out is hurting my head a little since it seems like Ted is on his 2nd kid less than a year into marriage.

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Man what an infuriatingly paced show.

 

If ever anyone needed more proof that doing like 13 episodes season is for the best just needs to look at this season.

 

10 episodes of filler and then HOLY SHIT!!! CRAM EVERYTHING INTO THREE EPISODES!!!

 

That being said - I liked the last 3 episodes, especially the 200th.

 

Of course - the timeline they suddenly laid out is hurting my head a little since it seems like Ted is on his 2nd kid less than a year into marriage.

It also proves that most shows really only need 5-6 seasons, tops.  The first 3 seasons of the show dealt with some heavy shit, in retrospect.  Did a great job of balancing the funny with the emotional in every episode.  Now it seems like every episode will be one or the other, with "funny" being relative this season.  There was almost no filler early on.

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Yeah, grumpy people. I think we're watching a different show or something. The entire tone of How I Met Your Mother is occasionally bittersweet, sure, but it's also a fairy tale. The whole damn show is. It's a show where true love exists and people can get a happy ending. It might not be a perfect one (see Robin: kids), but it's still a happy ending. 

 

This.  I'll be pretty damn disappointed if they go for darkness at the end and reveal Ted or the mother to be dead.  All in all, the show's theme is very upbeat: love exists, friends mean something, you can find that "one" for you if you keep looking long enough, marriage works, etc.  I don't know that this show is the sort of thing that should end on a down note. 

 

Along those lines, I kinda hate that "San Francisco" has become a thing this season.  I kinda like that they resisted breaking Lily and Marshall up during the run of the show (San Francisco aside, which was done off camera over the summer hiatus between seasons so as to avoid the breakup cliche scenarios).  I think Lily and Marshall have been one of the better tv couples precisely because they avoided so many of the tropes that every other tv couple goes through simply to put some drama in the relationship (it's hard to imagine Lily and Marshall having a "we were on a break" moment).

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Details on the HIMYM spinoff, How I Met Your Dad are emerging.  Greta Gerwig will star and this is the synopsis:

 

Gerwig will play Sally, a female Peter Pan who has never grown up and has no idea of where she's going in life. She has just figured out that she has nothing in common with her husband of less than a year. A break-up is inevitable, but Sally will find a solid circle of support in her friends and family, who are often too willing to give "good" advice that can backfire badly. Meanwhile, Sally must filter out the input and decide what's best for her.

 

Yeah, that sounds like it'll be good.  NOT.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm fairly convinced after this episode that

 

the mother dies at some point before the storytelling starts. They hinted at it in an earlier episode with Ted saying he'd do anything to get to spend one more day with her. And then this episode being narrated by Ted and not the mother sealed it for me.

 

So Mike Cyclone may be right here and I wrong. Though the show is pretty good at hinting at downers and then twisting it.

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Now I can't tell if they're intentionally misdirecting or not, but the 2024 scenes certainly SEEM to be hinting that

 

the mother is dying, and that its an illness not a sudden thing, and they know its coming. They returned to the place they met, they're celebrating having made it far enough to know all each other's stories, and the implication seemed to be that she wouldn't make it to their daughter's wedding.

 

That said, you're right that they're good at twisting it at the last moment, so I'm certainly prepared for that.

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Sorry, haven't figured out to put in spoilers (although this is just speculation at this point, so I don't know if spoilers are really needed). I thought it was pretty clear from this episode that ....

 

.... yes, the mother does die. TED's mother. I got that he was upset because his mother wasn't at his wedding, possibly because she had passed away. I could be wrong, but I still don't buy that all this means that The Mother is dead.

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