The scars left by the How I Met Your Mother finale are fading, but still visible. No matter how hard Neil Patrick Harris tries to sell that he’s a “big proponent” of Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’ end-game vision, it still doesn’t make up for Ted Mosby pulling a total Schmosby. NPH’s co-star Alyson Hannigan also supports the finale, though she admits it could have been better, or at least not so “well, the Mother’s dead, it’s time for me to go bang Aunt Robin.” Here she is, speaking to TVLine.
Among the deleted scenes was what Hannigan described as a “one-second” montage of title character Tracy’s funeral. Instead, viewers only learned from Narrator Ted that the kids’ mother had become ill, then passed away — some time before he decided to rekindle things with their “Aunt” Robin.
“Honestly, if you saw [that] cut, it would be even more heart-wrenching than what the finale was,” Hannigan noted. “They were like, ‘No. It’s just too gut-wrenching.’ And I was like, ‘That’s what I want. I want my heart ripped out and slammed on the floor and, like, stomped on!’”
Hannigan also believes that missing moment “would have been better for the audience, so that then they can process, ‘Oh, [Ted] mourned. He got closure’ — and then they’d be happy that [he and Robin] got together. Rather than be like, ‘Oh, wait. She died? What? They’re together, huh?’ And credits. That’s what I think was too fast.” (Via)
It’s been years since I’ve agreed with Lily Aldrin on anything, but this snaps my “vomit free since ’93”-esque streak. Even a few seconds of Ted grieving would have made the whiplash final few minutes go down easier. Though this all could’ve been prevented if Bays and Thomas went with the fan edit.
