If you have read my previous review of How I Met Your Mother, you should know that I have not been a true fan of the show in the last two to three years. There’s a handful of episodes over that time that I’ve liked and/or laughed at, but for the most part, I’m watching out of obligation for the first few brilliant seasons, and a hope, that my dedication will pay off in some of the long-standing storylines.
So going into Monday’s finale, which may be the last season finale before next year’s presumed series finale, I’m watching with trepidation. And hope. Here are the five things I’m hoping for.
1. That I’m happy with who Barney marries. It’d be pretty shocking if it wasn’t Robin or Quinn, and for the longest time, I’ve wanted it to be Robin. (And I still want that.) But I’d be happy with Quinn if it makes sense—either Barney gets over his unhappiness with her stripping or she quits. I don’t want a Friends-like situation where Barney actually goes through with marrying Quinn mere moments after telling Robin he loves her (or something equally lame.) I want the Barnacle just to be happy with whomever he chooses—and that will make me happy.
2. That there’s a mention or even an appearance by Marshall or Barney’s father. One of the few bright spots – if you could truly call it that – of last season was how it dealt with Marshall’s father’s death and Barney reconnecting with his Dad. The fact that Marshall is the first of the group to become dad is a big deal, and I feel like we’d be missing a moment if Barney didn’t at least think of his Dad (no appearance necessary) or Marshall didn’t fantasize his father was watching over him, proudly, as he held his child for the first time. They’ve used Marshall’s dad in fantasy sequences before and I wouldn’t want them to overuse that, but it would just feel right here.
3. That there’s no birthing scene. These scenes are almost universally the same on sitcoms—wife in a lot of pain, screaming lame one-liners at the dad. I could do without this.
4. That the writers don’t plant more red herrings. “I’ll get to that later…” is a quote the Bob Saget-version of Ted tells his future kids a lot. For a long time, it was pretty funny and even amazing how the writers could successfully string all these different story strands along. But this year, it often seemed like the writers were planting red herrings solely to see how they could get out of it later. (I think I’ve read in interviews that they even admit to doing that.) But in the last episode, where we finally saw how Marshall and Barney wound up in Atlantic City with Barney wearing the ducky tie showed the writers are having trouble juggling all these balls. Barney had previously gotten rid of the ducky tie and brought it to Atlantic City to… what was the reason? Oh… to make Marshall happy. The ducky tie seemed to have once seemed like a great idea in the writer’s room and then they decided it was lame and got rid of it, but they were stuck with it in that flash forward and had to make it happen, even if it was completely random that Barney brought it with him. No more red herrings—let’s just stick with what we’ve already got on the table. Bringing us to…
5. That we meet the mother. I know I’m in the minority, but I think the show CAN continue with us meeting the mother. And I want to meet her at Barney’s wedding this season. Seeing her leg, the back of her head, etc. will not suffice. Let’s just meet her and make next season about how her and Ted fall in love. It’s time to push the momentum of the story forward and this season finale would be a perfect chance to do so.
So that’s what I’m hoping for come tomorrow night. What are you hoping for in the season finale of How I Met Your Mother?
*Photos courtesy of CBS
Alan Danzis is a lifelong TV watcher, especially of serialized dramas. In his top five list of all time, you’ll find The Shield, The Wire, Deadwood, Lost and Friday Night Lights. (He’s not sure where Mad Men and Breaking Bad go yet since they haven’t finished airing.) But his favorite thing to watch are the sci-fi shows, like Battlestar Galactica, anything British and sci-fi, and shows with vampires. He even put up with Terra Nova, because, well, it had dinosaurs and time travel–you had him at just one of those things. If you can stand his nerdy interests, you can follow him on Twitter at @adanzis.
Full Disclosure: Alan Danzis works at Ketchum Public Relations, which is his day job. His opinions here are his own and do not reflect the opinions of Ketchum, nor the clients Ketchum works with. His BuzzFocus.com writing is wholly unrelated.
