Everything Wrong With How I Met Your Mother's Series Finale

The finale, according to a large sum of fans, was less than legendary. Here are all the reasons why.

1. The Regression of Barney Stinson

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Barney fans have seen a progression of character in Barney from the end of season three/beginning of season four. He's overcome so much: his fear of commitment, being open about his feelings, even confronting and coming to terms with his father and even reconnecting after all those years. All of these stepping stones in place to make him ready for a serious relationship. Amazing plot after amazing plot, for years, has brought Barney from the "daddy's home" character to a lovable man for Robin. All of that was unraveled in the series' final two episodes. Not to mention it was a recycled plot. Don't forget we've already seen him break up with Robin once. Did we need to see it happen again?

2. The Regression of Robin

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Robin's character, from the pilot onward, was a character transfixed on her career and making a name for herself in NYC as a famous reporter. It was so high on her priority list to see the world and focus on work that her plans for marriage, and just love in general, resided on the back burner. However, from the moment she rejected Chicago for Don, she started progressing toward finally accepting her personal life as being a key factor along with her professional one. She'd worked through the issues of independence and being career driven. (it's not always a bad thing, but it was going to leave Robin a lonely lady in this case). This also unraveled within the hour long finale. Although we didn't see much of the Barney/Robin marriage (because it only lasted an episode) but the only problem the audience was given was Robin's intense work schedule that had her flying all over the country (and the world for that matter) for WWN. Barney missed her, yet Robin didn't seem eager to put her husband before her selfish needs to "make it big."

3. The Six Year Build Up

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Ted and Robin, while adorable (don't get me wrong, I rooted for them for a long time) only had a season build up before they dated. Yes, Ted loved her then entire nine seasons, but we saw him more or less move on (then we saw him physically let her go, but more on that later). Barney and Robin on the other hand, had a build up of six years. Six...years. And even if you call the twist at the end clever writing by making us think Robin would end up with Barney, it doesn't change the fact that for the majority of the show Robin was in love with someone who wasn't Ted.

4. Season 9

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Again, you might consider it clever writing that the creators decided to twist up the relationship statuses in the last two episodes but if that's the case--why waste our time with an entire season dedicated to their wedding weekend? Granted you can argue that the season's intention was not to focus on the wedding itself but the lead up to the mother, but it still beats us into submission of pulling for Barney and Robin to say their vows and live happily ever after.

5. Ted's Motives

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From the beginning of the show, Ted Mosby has romanced his kids and fans with the story of this mysterious, beautiful, perfect woman who he fell in love with and had children with. Every time a relationship ended or his advances on Robin failed, we took solace in the fact that there was someone more perfect out there waiting for him, who he was taking his time to get to because he wanted the build up of her entrance to be as grand to his children (and us) as it was to him. But that's not his attentions at all for telling the story to his kids. It wasn't a romantic story about how the mother came into his life. It was him sheepishly asking permission to ask out their "Aunt Robin" on a date.

6. The Kids

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And the kids were fine with that? I guess after six years you'd want your father/mother to be happy with moving on. But under the guise of talking about their mother? THIER MOTHER? How about: "Kids, this is the story about how I met a woman you call Aunt but I love and your mother's dead so can I please ask her out because I want to be happy and honestly it was always Robin that I loved."

7. Lily's Career

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Forget the painful fact that Lily had almost nothing to do with the finale at all. But what happened to her career? What happened after Rome? Is she still an art consultant? Is she an artist now? Is she a teacher? Or is she just popping out an insane amount of babies?

8. Marshal's Career

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Maybe Big Fudge's career is enough for both of them. Just as we started getting use to the idea of him finally obtaining his judgeship, he turns around and becomes senator? Is that realistic? I mean it's cool. But it happened so fast. Couldn't he just be a judge?

9. Too Many Kids

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I'm okay with the Ericson clan having three kids. But they spent so much time building up to the first one and in the second half of the last season we see Daisy introduced, which I was okay with...but a third baby by the finale? Wasn't enough going on? Did we need to know they had a third?

10. Legendaddy?

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The regression of Barney happened in one 1 hour period to us. After years of progression. Are we suppose to believe that he progressed fully, and then some, after becoming a father? I know childbirth is amazing but why spend so many seasons building him up one way just to tear him down and build him up again at the last second?

11. Too Much Happened

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They took their sweet time with season 9 and honestly a few of those episodes didn't even need to happen. Yet they crammed way too much into the finale. I didn't know what was happening half the time. I wanted a nice wrap up with Ted and the mother, but it was barely that at all.

12. Robin's an Idiot

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So let me get this straight....Ted steals a blue french horn for her. He tries to make it rain for her. He tries to please her for a year of their relationship. He lets her move into his apartment. He makes a Christmas light show for her. He breaks up with Victoria TWICE for her. His engagement to Stella fell through because he invited Robin to his wedding. He tells her time and time again he loves her. He finds her locket for her. I could go on and on. Yet it's not until just before her wedding, which we can all assume could be pre wedding fears, that Ted is a good man for her? And it's not until after her three year marriage with Barney that she realizes she loves Ted? I mean how much time does someone need to know they love someone?

13. Robin Doesn't Want Kids

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Sure, she may like being an aunt to Marshal and Lily's litter, and she might even like being an aunt to Ted's kids (I loved their names by the way). But she's stated more than once over the nine season sitcom that she does not want kids. It's an issue she's never wavered from. So what happens now? She gets back with Ted and she's suddenly okay with being a step mom to two teenagers? And the kids KNOW this about her. Are they okay with a step mom that doesn't like kids?

14. The Build Up of The Mother

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We've spent 9 seasons trying to inch our way, episode by episode, to find out who the mother is, what's she's like, how they meet, and how wonderful their lives are after he meets her. Ted's romantic view of the past makes us all eager to tell our future children magical stories of how we met their mother/father. In the end though, the mother was almost a throw away character that didn't matter much to Ted's outcome. Like I stated before, I was always a Ted and Robin fan. But they did such a great job of making me, and probably everyone else, fall in love with Tracy, that I was completely content with her being the one for Ted.

15. The Regression of Ted Mosby

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Ted not only spent nine years building up to the mother, he spent nine years coming to terms that Robin would not be the mother of his children. Didn't we see him let her go in the last season? She physically flew away in season 9. Come on!

16. Unrealistic

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Yes, it's a sitcom. Yes, people die and that is real. Yes, weirder love stories have happened. But so much about the finale didn't feel like it fit. Basically points 1-15 sum up this last point. It didn't feel real. And that would've been okay if the rest of the show didn't feel so possible. For once I thought we had a sitcom talking about a very real occurrence. You don't always end up with the girl you think you do. They spent nine seasons teaching us that. Just to un-teach it in about five minutes.

17. The Pineapple

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We still don't know how Ted got the mysterious pineapple.