How I Met Your Mother: One long-awaited episode changed how I think the series should have ended

I adored How I Met Your Mother for years. I was captivated by the eccentric comedy and the storytelling at first, slowly building around the moment Ted finally met the "mother".

But somewhere along the way, things started to feel . . . different.

Everything snapped into place again when I watched the long-anticipated episode “The End of the Aisle.” That episode didn't just change how I viewed the characters; it also changed how I think the entire series should have wrapped up.

The climax of the story also became its strongest pillar. Everything was supposed to culminate here, in this moment. The beauty of those payoff moments was all the meaning behind them, and now I see why the focal point lacked its value.

In retrospect, the series strangled itself until nothing but drama was left to tell. The essence that the earlier seasons had and the core, Ted’s saga of finding love, was masked by multiple relationships, endless cycles of love, and one overextended wedding weekend.

The wedding episode that broke the illusion

I was already excited when the show dropped hints about a big wedding in season 6. I tried to piece together the puzzle of who is getting married, the location, and how in the world Ted fits in. The show had built up a lot of anticipation towards this event where Ted “meets the one.”

And by the time I was at “The End of the Aisle,” I genuinely thought it would be rewarding. Only to be disappointed when Barney and Robin's chaotic, last-minute ceremony left me with endless questions.

From Robin’s cold feet to Barney's attempts at humor to hide his real issues, the combination of it all made me think: in what world is this a believable couple? They had a bumpy love story, for sure. However, this came across as the writers trying to force the couple together, solely to satisfy a plot twist.

The worst is that shortly after they get married, the show decides to have them break up, just like that. Years of tension, investment, and emotional buildup completely vanished in an instant.

How I Met Your Mother should’ve ended sooner

After viewing that episode, I began contemplating the entire arc of the series. What if Ted met Tracy ahead of schedule? What if the show's focus was on helping us appreciate their relationship rather than keeping her a mystery until the finale? It would have been so much better if they had wrapped it up around season 7 when we found out Barnie is the groom and Robin is the bride. It would have been tighter, more focused, and much more satisfying.

Instead of this absolute satisfaction, the show stretched out a wedding weekend into an entire season only to treat it like an obstacle. Having Tracy die and Ted ending up with Robin was not a fully romantic scenario in the finale—it felt more like a betrayal. And to add to the pain, it was made worse after discovering how little Barney and Robin's marriage truly meant.

Final thoughts

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It was “The End of the Aisle” that made me give up defending the ending of How I Met Your Mother. It made me realize how much better the show could have been if it had not clung to the drama of that love triangle so much and given us more time with 'The Mother.' I’ll forever adore those first couple of seasons, but I can’t unsee what went wrong when the story lost its track.

Had How I Met Your Mother ended sooner, and done so by really zeroing in on the relationship it teased from the start, it could have been one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, not just one with the most debatable finale.

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