How I Met Your Mother

You know what life isn’t?

Television.

Perhaps I should have planned for this article somewhat later, after I had time to digest the passing of a wonderful nine-year series. But in my first reflections, both nostalgic and happy and melancholic and puzzled, I can argue to the best of my ability one thing for certain: season nine, implicitly, prepared us for the series finale.

Because season nine prepared us for the moment. And to live in the moment. And not to follow Ted and his tragic-hero mantra of what-if’s.
Because if Ted had spent the season asking, what-if? If the wedding hadn’t happened, and if we as an audience hadn’t been forced to sit and examine the nitty-gritty details of one moment, one weekend, in time, we too would have constantly thought about the future. If How I Met Your Mother tried to show its viewers anything, it was to live in the present, and not to spend it thinking about the future.

In doing so, you can better tackle the future objectively and unabashedly when it comes. When it is time.

Barney showed us successes can still be finite and successful.

Robin taught us not to budge from the truth.

Lily told us to be here—here—for the big moments.

Marshall demonstrated the power of patience.

And Ted, the power of the present.

Really, all those lessons combined into the LAST moment, the last ten minutes for anyone who counted, when Ted finished his story, said goodbye, and picked up the phone. All those lessons culminated into the story’s finale. Ted’s success happened to be finite, but he went for it anyway. He stayed for the big moments, and kept creating bigger ones. He was patient, he was now, and, in the end, he got what he wanted next.

Yes, I could critique parts of the episode, its ending, or the series’ ending.
But how poignant is the message of our disquiet? Shouldn’t the unsettling teach us something as well?

Because life isn’t television; life isn’t perfect. How I Met Your Mother knew this from the start and gave us a finale to reflect only the real.

Don't You Forget About Me

80’s montages kill me.

After the drunken night following the last episode, Barney finds his way down the highway, accosts two losers—I mean, young men—and finds a strip club sooner than it takes Ted and Robin to find him again. He takes them on one last go-round the night before his wedding, ensuring protégé might exist in his place.

But I wanted to be that bro in training.

Also, it says so much when you realize he passed on the Playbook in sticky-note form. He had it memorized—although, perhaps, that in and of itself isn’t such a surprise. The most important takeaway? "It's not legendary unless your friends are there to see it."

While Ted and Robin trail the beach to find him (far, far off their mark), we finally witness Ted’s failed journey to find Robin’s locket. In essence, he must relive his three most influential girlfriends on the locket’s trail, only to watch it chucked off a bridge by the crazy Jeanette in the same manner he lost his childhood balloon.

I’m still not clear on WHEN he had the time to fly to Los Angeles and back from the east coast. Perhaps I’m missing something. All the same, he learns to let go of Robin, finally, on the morning of the big day. And in grand John Hughes style, no less.

We never learn who was in the car with Lily. But, we see Lily and Marshall break up, though not before choice warnings on Ghost Lily’s part: marriage isn’t a competition. And if you make it one, the only one that will lose, is you. Don’t make your spouse the opposite team; make them a team player.

Analogies aside, even Marshall and Lily bury their seven-year hatchet on the ceremony’s dawn. Now it’s a countdown to see just how long they can stave off the season—and series—finale.

My Psycho

Ted had to re-confront his feelings for Robin to prove his Best Man-ability—which proved more difficult than housing pigeons—and Robin had to try and make a “girl” friend to comfort Lily. Also more difficult than housing pigeons.
To say nothing of Aunt Ina.

The show fooled me with last week’s cliffhanger: “I saw you and Robin at the carousel.” I definitely thought it was going to be that easy.

I…am gullible.

Barney and Ted dissect their conflicts in the face of Judge Marshall and the Bro Code, when Barney reveals he saw Ted comfort Robin by the carousel. Do you deem it “weird?” Weird between not-friends, perhaps, but I found the gesture quite caring between best bro’s. Robin included.

Still, Ted impressed me. He struck a human chord: you can’t turn affection on and off like a light switch. And, sometimes, affection never really leaves at all. But emotions don’t completely govern people—their brains and common sense do. Ted proved it to the audience today in a (what I hope to be somewhat) final say about his stance with Robin.

Robin hit just as human a chord. Or just hit a human.

Does anyone else sympathize with her plight against women? And I don’t mean her plight of perfection. She might drive women to jealousy with her perfect metabolism and her perfect figure and her perfect puns, but she lacks an ability most women also find difficult: the ability to talk to one.

She proved birds of a feather flock together; be they to Rangers fans or redheaded psychos.

(Who else found the psycho line endearing? Aw Lil.)

Lastly, did anyone else remember the man coming for Ted Mosby? Is he new? And who else got as excited as I did by a little Weekend at Barney’s nostalgia?

This episodes quote:
No quote, just Tim Gunn. All of Tim Gunn.

The Apartment Above MacLeran's

Quick, name the significance of MacLeran’s Irish pub.

No, I’m not thinking about the 50-reasons-to-have-sex napkin.

One How I Met Your Mother newbie realized the entire five-part main cast lived in “The Apartment” Lily and Marshall now share, the one previously espoused by Ted, then Robin. Let’s break down the cast and what they spent their hours (seasons) achieving in the two-bedroom-two-bathroom suite.

Ted Mosby: The Apartment’s front-runner and renter for the first seven seasons. His original roommates, if you care to think back, were Lily and Marshall pre-engagement, back when Lily taught kindergarten and Marshall still studied law. The Intervention came to show how The Apartment earned its marks of toil and triumph over the years, arguably making the place as fitting into the main plotline as Rachel and Monica’s in F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
Ted moved out of The Apartment, leaving it to Lilly and Marshall, in season seven, episode eighteen.

Lily and Marshall Eriksen: Ted, Lily and Marshall met during their college years, regrouping and sharing the space when they left school to pursue their life’s passions. Once Lily and Marshall married, however, they went back and forth on a new Apartment for them and their budding brood, only to find their kitschy home was here to stay. Ted afforded them the home in Karma, after he’d made peace with all his sentiments of girlfriends past, and they still live there to this episode.

Robin Scherbatsky: Robin took the spot of renter from Lily and Marshall once they moved during season 4, staying through to season 7. While her tastes in dates changed—Ted had quite the time trying to figure out what to do with Robin’s room when she moved on to date Barney—we’ll never forget the Blue French Horn, the dozen yellow umbrella’s, nor the forty-deal. Keep in mind Ted is 52 at the series’ start.

Barney’s slept in The Apartment a grand total of three times: twice in the bathroom and once during Blitzgiving. Way to be the bro, Stinson.

Smurf Turf

As you’ve already noticed from my posting-spree, my eyes are glued on the blue French Horn for this coming February…but not the one hanging in the jazz-restaurant around the corner.

I’d never ask my Valentine to steal establishment décor for my heart, but hey. Everyone has their own idea of romance. One person’s theft is another person’s treasure. For Ted Mosby, the French Horn remained in his and Robins’ possession for quite some time.

And you? You can get a blue French Horn of your very own, for your friend or partner, come February—with no fear of criminal allegation.

I’ve written about the azure instrument before: in the pilot episode of How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby presents Robin with the blue French Horn she so admired, having wished for one for her apartment. Ted’s endearing leap at the chance to impress his fair lady this far into the series, however, seemed to me a little forward. In Robin’s shoes, I would have sat little shell-shocked, to say the least.

Though, as I said before, I would never put pressure on you or your Valentine’s Day date to commit a felony. Which is why I bring you, once more, the blue French Horn keychain and ornament! These exact brass replicas of the tried and true instrument come either as a keychain or ornament for your convenience, free for your recipient to keep in their apartment, or on their mantle, without raising too many eyebrows. The perfect gesture to “steal” their heart!

Now, I won’t harp on about Valentine’s Day constantly. I know many of you aren’t fans of the Hallmark, and that’s okay. I only try to ward the holiday’s procrastinators; in no one’s best interest, I’m sure.
Happy gifting!