*Warning: Spoilers for How I Met Your Mother*
As any fan of the show would point out, How I Met Your Mother had one of the worst series finales ever. Not just because of the horrible twist that the titular mother had been dead for years but because the show ends with Ted Mosby and Robin Scherbatsky getting back together.
Anyone who's watched the entire show knows it's pretty easy to explain why this was a poor choice. The show's last three seasons emphasized that Ted has one-sided feelings for Robin, that Ted and Robin are undoubtedly not right for each other, and that Ted's journey to meeting the mother is also about letting Robin go.
They never hinted that they would go back on this until the finale aired, and when they did, it felt like a big slap in the face, considering the show made it very clear how incompatible they were by the end. Worse, since Season 9 centered Ted's arc around him getting over her once and for all, finding out he actually never did all along was an extremely poor decision.
Of course, every fan knows this, which is why it's hard to find even one fan who defends the choices they made. Even worse, the show aired an episode in Season 5 titled " Hooked" that makes the decision look even worse.
How "Hooked" makes How I Met Your Mother's Finale even worse
For context, the episode is about how Ted is trying to date a girl named Tiffany, who continuously gives him mixed signals when they hang out. Though Tiffany won't outright reject Ted, it's clear that she's stringing him along. In the episode, the term they use for this is "on the hook." The show then elaborates on what that means exactly.
They emphasize that in situations like these, the people who are on the hook are the ones who have to get themselves off because the people who have hooked them are typically either too nice, too egotistical, and/or too inconsiderate to let them off themselves.
By the episode's end, Ted realizes that his friends are right about Tiffany, so he cuts off all contact with her. Good for him for exercising some self-respect, but it's a shame he never made this same realization with Robin. That's right; Ted was on Robin's hook.
Now, for the record, it's not Robin's fault for this—at least, not entirely. She told Ted that she didn't want to be with him when he told her he loved her. It's abundantly clear Ted stayed on her hook willingly after she told him no and made it clear that she wanted to be with Barney. At the same time, she didn't cut off all contact with him when that was the best way for him to get over her.
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Ted does exactly with Robin what he did with Tiffany, only for much longer. The message from "Hooked" is pretty poignant: It's not worth investing so much time in trying to date someone who will never feel the same way but will continuously give out some modicum of hope that they might.
So, to see Ted continue this same behavior (only worse) with Robin when the episode made it clear how unhealthy that is, and to then see that he gets Robin in the end when that episode that things don't typically work like that only makes one of the most infamous finales ever aired look even worse.
The fans consensusly agree that the How I Met Your Mother finale was bad, but it's impressive that the very show called out exactly what the finale did wrong four seasons prior.
"Hooked" can be watched on Hulu.
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