The How I Met Your Mother ending you never got to see might've fixed everything

After much suspense over nine seasons, the How I Met Your Mother finale saw Ted Mosby approach a stranger with the infamous yellow umbrella, and we learn that Tracy McConnell was the titular mother all along. The couple finally lock eyes and realise that they have unknowingly crossed paths many times.

This beautiful moment was the perfect ending for all HIMYM fans, which was suddenly marred by the gut-punch reveal that Tracy/the 'Mother' was dead all along. The shoddy ending was a betrayal of the 'Mother' promised in the title itself, and the fans surely did not receive it positively.

While the How I Met Your Mother finale has received mixed reactions over the years, nobody can deny that it was rushed, and fans were not given more time to sit with the big revelation about the 'Mother'.

However, all this would have been changed if the creators had not cut some major sequences from the finale (that were initially written), as actress Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin) revealed in an interview with news.au:

''It was too fast ... like ‘OK, now we’re going to find out the mum’s dead, then suddenly, OK — he’s with Robin now’, and you’re just like, ‘wait, what happened?!’ There was a funeral scene [that got cut], and all this stuff that I think the audience needed. They needed that time to process that information, instead of having it slap them in the face.''

More on the How I Met Your Mother ending in our story.

*Disclaimer- This article is based on the author's opinion. Reader discretion is advised.*

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The How I Met Your Mother ending was initially a Two-Hour Finale

Even years after its conclusion, How I Met Your Mother fans cannot stop debating over the finale, which changed everything we knew about the sitcom. From Tracy's hushed reveal as the 'Mother' to Ted instantly igniting his romance with Robin, the sitcom surely delivered a chaotic finale, which in no way justified the past nine seasons.

However, all this could have been avoided if the show had spent a little more time with its characters and let their fans bid a proper goodbye to them. In fact, in a 2017 interview with News.au, Hannigan even revealed an alternate and longer finale envisioned for the sitcom:

''I was bummed they didn’t just make it a two-hour season-ender, so they would get to show certain parts [that were cut].''

She added:

''The table read for the finale was so good, so right, but it was also like 14 hours long. So when I actually saw the final version of the show, I was like ‘they cut out everything!’''

Hannigan's statement suggests that the How I Met Your Mother creators initially planned a longer finale, but it was hastily cut down to a 44-minute version we saw in the end.

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How I Met Your Mother would have benefited from a longer finale

While the How I Met Your Mother finale was surely controversial and surprising, it was always meant to be that way. Fans of the sitcom complained that they felt betrayed after it was revealed that Tracy had died six years before, and there was no 'Mother' to meet as the title had promised.

The finale, albeit controversial, also had many fans, who appreciated the show for showing the harsh realities of life and that stories don't always have a happy ending. The How I Met Your Mother ending was disappointing for fans because it reminded them of the bleak reality of life and that love doesn't always last.

While the show crushed fans' expectations, it did it with the worst possible execution. The finale had many unanswered questions and too many plotlines to wrap neatly, but it had so little time. The weight of Tracy's death could have been minimized if the sitcom had spent more time with its remaining characters in the finale.

From Ted's first meeting with Tracy at the train station and Lily's emotional goodbye to Ted's final action to re-ignite his romance with Robin, the problem with the HIMYM finale was not so much the plot, but the pacing.

These are the characters fans had spent nine seasons with, and they expected an emotional goodbye filled with gravitas. Instead, the sitcom crammed everything in a 44-minute finale, robbing us all of the perfect conclusion to a beautiful tale.

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