The Alternate Ending to HIMYM That Could Have Saved It

One of the most popular and successful sitcoms of the 2000s, “How I Met Your Mother” aired its final episode on March 31, 2014. However, many fans were unimpressed by how the creators chose to end it and it now has one of the most disappointing endings to a sitcom.

After running for nine seasons, the series finally addressed the question it had set up in its first episode: Who is the mother of Ted Mosby’s children?

The mother is revealed to be Tracy McConnell, who later becomes Tracy Mosby and unfortunately passes away. But what bothered fans the most was that the writers had Ted end up with Robin Scherbatsky, even after all the suffering they faced in their relationship.

After persistently demanding an alternate ending, the creators eventually released one. This one pleased viewers as it restated all their frustrations with the original finale. Most of us still hope that this could have been how the show actually ended.

1. How did HIMYM end?

What sets “How I Met Your Mother” apart from other sitcoms is that it had already provided us with the conclusion in the first episode. Ted Mosby narrates all episodes, and as the title suggests, it is the story he tells his kids detailing how he met their mother.

We find out who “The Mother” is in the eighth season. Her name is Tracy McConnell, and Cristin Milioti plays her. The entire ninth season follows Ted and Tracy’s relationship after meeting in the eighth season’s finale. 

By the end of the show, Ted and Tracy get married and have two children. They spend a few years as a happy family before Tracy tragically dies of an unknown illness. The story Ted started telling his children, and us, at the beginning of the series is finally over.

Now you would think it stopped there, but it doesn’t. Ted’s children are convinced that he is still in love with Robin and they tell him to go to her.  

In an attempt to win her back, Ted decides to steal the blue French horn (from the first episode), run to Robin’s apartment and call out to her from outside her window. The whole thing is a call-back to their confession scene in the first season, and the show concludes with an implication of these two reigniting their relationship. 

2. What was HIMYM’s alternate ending?

The cast revealed that they had initially shot multiple scenes for the final episode, but to avoid dragging out the run-time, they had to cut it down. Of the scenes that were deleted, there was a particular one that was released for audiences to see, and this is the scene that everyone agrees would have saved the show.

Like the original ending, all the friends have moved on with their lives and drifted apart over the years. 

In the deleted scene that was released, we see Ted and Robin running into each other when they’re both in their 40s. They decide to meet for lunch, where they begin reminiscing the days they spent at the pub. 

Robin and Barney are still divorced, and in hopes of following through with the agreement they made to marry each other if they were still single in their 40s, Robin blurts out that she still has feelings for Ted and that she always had.

This confession is precisely what Ted wanted Robin to say for all the years he knew her. But instead, he says that he is in a loving marriage with Tracy, with whom he has two children, and that he had no intention of changing that.

This scene ends the Ted-Robin love story and allows them to finally let go of each other. It creates a full-circle moment for both of them and helps them become the people they always wanted to be.

Had it been added to the series finale, all the characters, including Tracy, would have gotten an ending that suited them best, and the series’ conclusion would have been perfect. 

However, it wasn’t what we got, and we’ll just have to live with it.

3. Why didn’t this ending work?

The series spent all its nine seasons explaining to us why Robin and Ted wouldn’t work, how many ever times they tried. Ted wanted a fairy-tale romance and to settle down with kids one day while Robin wanted to travel the world as a reporter.

When the two ended up together in the finale, it was like throwing all their character development out the window just to have a stereotypical ending to a will they-won’t they situation. 

What’s even more frustrating is how they handled the mother and Ted’s story. The whole point of the show should have been to build up Ted and Tracy’s relationship and to allow them to live their “happily ever after”. Instead, the message conveyed came across as Ted settling for Tracy only because Robin wasn’t available. 

The problem was that the writers had already decided in the first season that Ted and Robin would end up together and that Tracy would die.

The creators also realised that it wouldn’t be fitting for Ted’s kids to be really old by the end of show and hence, all their scenes along with the ending were filmed within the first two seasons.

4. About How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays for CBS. The series ran from 2005 to 2014 and stars Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alysson Hannigan and Jason Segel in lead roles. 

It follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his group of friends in New York City’s Manhattan. As a framing device, Ted, in the year 2030, recounts to his son, Luke, and daughter, Penny, the events from 2005 to 2013 that led him to meet their mother.