‘How I Met Your Mother’ series finale: Josh Radnor, Alyson Hannigan on cuts, controversy
It’s safe to say that the “How I Met Your Mother” series finale may be the single most controversial finale in at least … well, at least six months. It’s about the same as the “Dexter” finale in terms of backlash, and it’s ironic in a way since they both did the same thing: Pulled a twist at the last second that really didn’t work with most of the story told before it.
The cast all still seems to be in recovery mode for a number of different reasons. There were those who enjoyed the finale, and they have the opportunity to thank some of them and also try and recover from what has been a very emotional past few months. In addition to that, though, there are also the naysayers, and those who felt like they were cheated to a Ted / Robin ending that they never thought they were going to have. The title ended up being a mislead, since it was almost more about “how I told a story to get my kids to be okay with dating Robin.”
Josh Radnor is one of the few actors to do a full-on interview since the final episode, but he told Vulture that he feels that it is far better that the show went for a big risk that deciding to just play it safe:
“[…Part] of the DNA of the show is they lead you one way and then they pull you back. You think you’re watching one thing in an episode and then it turns out you’re watching something completely different. I think that the twists in the finale were in keeping with that.
“There are so many opinions floating around. There have always been people that thought that Barney and Robin were perfect together, there have always been people that thought it didn’t make sense. There are people that wanted Ted and Robin to be together. There are people that thought they didn’t work together. So I just feel that part of the divisiveness and part of the anger and also part of the enthusiasm all speaks to something really great. I think if you’re going do something new and bold and daring, you’re going to upset some people and you’re gonna thrill others.”
In case you felt like there was a little bit lacking from the finale just from the standpoint of Marshall and Lily, that much is also true. Alyson Hannigan confirmed on Twitter that they had some scenes cut from the episode, including Lily paying Marshall as a resolution of a bet. The finale was ultimately 18 minutes longer than CBS allotted for, which is the reason for all the cuts. (Why not just make it a 90-minute finale? Maybe some of these scenes could have bridged the gap and made the episode less hated. Plus, the ratings were killer.)
We’ll have a little more reaction to the finale as it comes in, but now ultimately just seems to be the right time to take a few deep breaths and try to recover. We promise that everything is going to turn out okay in the end.
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Photo: CBS