PaperLuigi44My amazement is at maximum capacity.Registered Userregular
I stopped watching during Season 5 but this quote from Sepinwall's article nails my feelings
They had plenty of opportunity over the years to course correct. They could have at some point accepted that the Robin/Barney coupling made Future Ted/Future Robin not only moot, but annoying. They could have introduced the Mother sooner and just made her a part of the gang — and every single moment this season in which Milioti was allowed to interact with the regulars (either in Farhampton or in the flashforwards) suggested that they could have pulled it off, easily. Hell, even at this late hour, they could have recognized what they had in Milioti and accepted that that old bit of footage with Lyndsy Fonseca and David Henrie would remain unseen forever (or, at worst, be a special feature to lure people into buying the complete series box set), and that the fans would get over not seeing the kids react to the end of this endless story.
Especially introducing the mother sooner. The notion that the show had to end when they met was bullshit.
how hard would it have been to keep barney and robin together and use that as a springboard for developing his character
it seems like the whole show was poisoned by the reluctance to let anybody have character development, which is a pity because it was very much a character comedy
*Not only was this entire season building up to Barney and Robin's wedding, but the last couple finales have all involved that wedding. It finally happens at the penultimate episode of this season...and they undo it ten minutes into this episode.
*Based on what they showed us, Robin was apparently miserable and alone for 14 years (2016-2030). Also her marriage to Barney falls apart because suddenly her job has her moving all over the world and barely having contact with the gang...but then apparently it doesn't anymore after The Mother is dead since the kids mention Aunt Robin having dinner with them often and she has a ton of dogs in her apartment and everything.
*Marshall & Lilly didn't really get an ending scene.
*The mother of Barney's child is never identified beyond being called "Number 31" because he tried to go for the "perfect month" and get laid with a different girl every night for a month and the 31st one got pregnant.
*The Mother's first husband died offscreen of something unspecified, and then her new boyfriend proposes to her and she leaves him because she's not ready for that yet...then the very next day she meets Ted for the first time and none of this is ever brought up. Then she dies off-camera of an unspecified sickness and there are no grieving scenes whatsoever.
*Why the fuck was the scene of Ted finally meeting the Mother at the train station shown after the scene where they reveal that she's dead?
*It was said that bad stuff happens at Barney & Robin's wedding and that Lilly would have to tackle someone else. I don't think this ever happened.
*I'm a little disappointed they never tried to work Bob Sagat anywhere in there. Unless they gave him a background cameo somewhere that I missed.
*Also, I choose to believe that they filmed multiple possible endings with the kids way back when. Because the idea that they only filmed this one, and have been intentionally working towards this outcome is stupid beyond belief.
The weakest parts of even a brilliant show like Breaking Bad were the bear in the pool or the gun in the trunk
The stuff they knew exactly where it was going
And then you have something like season 3, where they had no goddamned idea what was going to happen and it just kept escalating brilliantly
The Dexter finale was planned for at least a year, so yeah I pretty much agree with this
Say what you want about BSG, but as stupid as that ending was, the fact that they never really had an ultimate plan for an ending made it a little better. Give me accidental shit any day over planned shit.
Well without being a total scumbag why use Eric at all? His whole thing is that he is an asshole who stole the Ant-Man, while Scott Lang is a good guy who stole the Ant-Man.
There's a reason Eric was killed and replaced with an adaptoid around Lang's return, he's a shitty version of Scott.
Well without being a total scumbag why use Eric at all? His whole thing is that he is an asshole who stole the Ant-Man, while Scott Lang is a good guy who stole the Ant-Man.
There's a reason Eric was killed and replaced with an adaptoid around Lang's return, he's a shitty version of Scott.
I just want NPH to be a slightly slimier version of Tony Stark in an MCU movie
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Well without being a total scumbag why use Eric at all? His whole thing is that he is an asshole who stole the Ant-Man, while Scott Lang is a good guy who stole the Ant-Man.
There's a reason Eric was killed and replaced with an adaptoid around Lang's return, he's a shitty version of Scott.
I just want NPH to be a slightly slimier version of Tony Stark in an MCU movie
Well without being a total scumbag why use Eric at all? His whole thing is that he is an asshole who stole the Ant-Man, while Scott Lang is a good guy who stole the Ant-Man.
There's a reason Eric was killed and replaced with an adaptoid around Lang's return, he's a shitty version of Scott.
I just want NPH to be a slightly slimier version of Tony Stark in an MCU movie
So Justin Hammer?
I said slimy not incompetent manchild
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Thoughts on what happens in the How I Met Your Mother finale:
I think it's really stupid. And I think it reframes the rest of the series in this really shitty light. Like, this story about their dead mom is mostly about this other lady that they know and mostly kind of paints their mom as a substitute for who he really wants (and can actually give him children!) and the second it's over they're like "go get this lady you've been talking about for nine years or whatever" and I guess it's good that they gave this show an extra season so they could at least show that she's an actual person instead of the nameless lady that gave birth to the teenagers that encourage Ted to go get Robin again
Thoughts on what happens in the How I Met Your Mother finale:
I think it's really stupid. And I think it reframes the rest of the series in this really shitty light. Like, this story about their dead mom is mostly about this other lady that they know and mostly kind of paints their mom as a substitute for who he really wants (and can actually give him children!) and the second it's over they're like "go get this lady you've been talking about for nine years or whatever" and I guess it's good that they gave this show an extra season so they could at least show that she's an actual person instead of the nameless lady that gave birth to the teenagers that encourage Ted to go get Robin again
How I Met Your Mother as a whole has a pretty creepy core to it. Barney Stinson is basically a sexual predator and the entire cast of the show just kind of...brushes it off like it's nothing. It was pretty hard for me to buy any of the Robin/Barney stuff because he never really stopped being terrible. Like, he was still manipulative and basically a compulsive liar, right up until the wedding, but since he was manipulating Robin and ignoring everything she had to say about what she wanted in order to give her a present, it was SUPER ROMANTIC instead
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
You know what's funny about the HIMYM ending to me (someone who has never watched the show but is fascinated when these things go badly)
It sounds to me like if the final bit of footage really was filmed like eight years ago and they were building to this forever
It probably would have worked totally fine as a finale for a second or third season
But instead they kept getting renewed, kept having to push it back, kept having to have characters grow closer or apart or change or develop, and so at the very end, after nine seasons, the ending they shot way back when no longer fit at all
But they looked at it and said, "well... we already shot this so"
And changed nothing about it
It seems like the opposite of "oh shit we need an ending UHHHHH" and more like "oh shit we already have this ending UHHHHH"
You know what's funny about the HIMYM ending to me (someone who has never watched the show but is fascinated when these things go badly)
It sounds to me like if the final bit of footage really was filmed like eight years ago and they were building to this forever
It probably would have worked totally fine as a finale for a second or third season
But instead they kept getting renewed, kept having to push it back, kept having to have characters grow closer or apart or change or develop, and so at the very end, after nine seasons, the ending they shot way back when no longer fit at all
But they looked at it and said, "well... we already shot this so"
And changed nothing about it
It seems like the opposite of "oh shit we need an ending UHHHHH" and more like "oh shit we already have this ending UHHHHH"
That's pretty much what the Sepinwall article points out - it was a victim of its own success in that regard.
I tried to think of a joke about how poorly CBS could end Two & a Half Men, but couldn't think of anything that would be comparably as bad.
Especially since I imagine most people don't expect anything more than a wet fart from Two & a Half Men's finale (whenever it may be) anyways.
On another note, I've been having trouble with the defenses I've seen for the HIMYM finale.
Most seem to focus around it being a "realistic portrayal of love and the hardships of life" or whatever. I guess they're just selectively ignoring that a realistic universe would have Ted slapped with restraining orders for being creepy and obsessive about women and Barney just could not exist (or that this random group of New Yorkers just happen to end up being a world-famous newscaster, a world-traveling art dealer, the designer of a NYC Skyscraper, a Supreme Court Judge, and...Barney, all of whom hung out with multiple celebrities repeatedly). Also there's no way the reaction of the kids at the end is realistic.
Not to mention that it's still a big shift from the last nine years of set up, is sloppily put together, and regresses characters hard. Almost to the extent that one would think the episode was written for people that hadn't watched since the first season or two (and hey, depending on how much stuff was planned out back then, maybe it was).
Just an episode or two ago, Ted was telling Robin that he was completely over her and he wasn't the person he was back then when he got her the blue french horn. Then it ends with "No, that's exactly who Ted still is."
Barney regressed into a more pathetic form of his Season 1 self so that they could mature him in a different way instead. Even bringing back the Playbook again after giving it a sendoff like three different times in the last two seasons.
Marshall & Lilly were largely just there, and mostly just acted out the bridging scenes between their previous flashforwards that we already knew about. Though oddly there was zero mention about Lilly's job or why Marshall had to spend years working a job he despised (other than hey, it was the job he had earlier in the show!) when Lilly was supposed to be making so much money.
Plus the outcome that the entire series was just Ted's long-winded passive-aggressive way of asking his kids if he could date their Aunt Robin since she was so much more important to him than their dead mother (and them happily accepting that notion) was just off-putting.
(Especially since when it comes to old girlfriends, Victoria was way better than Robin anyways.)
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Especially introducing the mother sooner. The notion that the show had to end when they met was bullshit.
I can go from a review where Sepinwall is absolutely furious and hated it so much and she gave it an A minus
Steam
it seems like the whole show was poisoned by the reluctance to let anybody have character development, which is a pity because it was very much a character comedy
Paul Rudd is Hank Pym.
MPH is Eric O'Grady
*Based on what they showed us, Robin was apparently miserable and alone for 14 years (2016-2030). Also her marriage to Barney falls apart because suddenly her job has her moving all over the world and barely having contact with the gang...but then apparently it doesn't anymore after The Mother is dead since the kids mention Aunt Robin having dinner with them often and she has a ton of dogs in her apartment and everything.
*Marshall & Lilly didn't really get an ending scene.
*The mother of Barney's child is never identified beyond being called "Number 31" because he tried to go for the "perfect month" and get laid with a different girl every night for a month and the 31st one got pregnant.
*The Mother's first husband died offscreen of something unspecified, and then her new boyfriend proposes to her and she leaves him because she's not ready for that yet...then the very next day she meets Ted for the first time and none of this is ever brought up. Then she dies off-camera of an unspecified sickness and there are no grieving scenes whatsoever.
*Why the fuck was the scene of Ted finally meeting the Mother at the train station shown after the scene where they reveal that she's dead?
*It was said that bad stuff happens at Barney & Robin's wedding and that Lilly would have to tackle someone else. I don't think this ever happened.
*I'm a little disappointed they never tried to work Bob Sagat anywhere in there. Unless they gave him a background cameo somewhere that I missed.
*Also, I choose to believe that they filmed multiple possible endings with the kids way back when. Because the idea that they only filmed this one, and have been intentionally working towards this outcome is stupid beyond belief.
Like he spied on superheroines in the shower.
This seems exactly right
The weakest parts of even a brilliant show like Breaking Bad were the bear in the pool or the gun in the trunk
The stuff they knew exactly where it was going
And then you have something like season 3, where they had no goddamned idea what was going to happen and it just kept escalating brilliantly
On the flipside, writers having no plan whatsoever leads to the Battlestar Galactica ending.
Obviously both ways can have things that work and things that go horribly wrong.
The Dexter finale was planned for at least a year, so yeah I pretty much agree with this
Say what you want about BSG, but as stupid as that ending was, the fact that they never really had an ultimate plan for an ending made it a little better. Give me accidental shit any day over planned shit.
Steam
I mean I doubt theyd have him shower peeeping in the MCU
And I liked that series finale a bunch!
He fucked his dead best friend's(whose death he accidentally caused) girlfriend on his grave.
But they also let stuff evolve, like how Sokka wound up being very different than originally envisioned.
I think the end of Lost's only super planned part was the very final shot, because duh
I don't think they actually started figuring it out until they really dug into the Man in Black
I get all this but it would have like zero effect on the movie character at all.
There's a reason Eric was killed and replaced with an adaptoid around Lang's return, he's a shitty version of Scott.
Jason Segel's free now, guys
He's finally free
I love this song
Goddamnit
Don't be mad at the Walkmen, guys
They didn't do anything wrong
I just want NPH to be a slightly slimier version of Tony Stark in an MCU movie
So Justin Hammer?
So duuuumb
Man Ciaran Hinds is good.
Also I forgot how absurdly hardcore the Unsullied are.
The CBAA episode of South Park is fucking genius.
Titus Pullo is probably my favorite though
Yeah it's super terrible and pretty creepy.
It probably would have worked totally fine as a finale for a second or third season
But instead they kept getting renewed, kept having to push it back, kept having to have characters grow closer or apart or change or develop, and so at the very end, after nine seasons, the ending they shot way back when no longer fit at all
But they looked at it and said, "well... we already shot this so"
And changed nothing about it
It seems like the opposite of "oh shit we need an ending UHHHHH" and more like "oh shit we already have this ending UHHHHH"
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Oh yeah
Serious Mass Effect flashbacks
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Especially since I imagine most people don't expect anything more than a wet fart from Two & a Half Men's finale (whenever it may be) anyways.
On another note, I've been having trouble with the defenses I've seen for the HIMYM finale.
Not to mention that it's still a big shift from the last nine years of set up, is sloppily put together, and regresses characters hard. Almost to the extent that one would think the episode was written for people that hadn't watched since the first season or two (and hey, depending on how much stuff was planned out back then, maybe it was).
Just an episode or two ago, Ted was telling Robin that he was completely over her and he wasn't the person he was back then when he got her the blue french horn. Then it ends with "No, that's exactly who Ted still is."
Barney regressed into a more pathetic form of his Season 1 self so that they could mature him in a different way instead. Even bringing back the Playbook again after giving it a sendoff like three different times in the last two seasons.
Marshall & Lilly were largely just there, and mostly just acted out the bridging scenes between their previous flashforwards that we already knew about. Though oddly there was zero mention about Lilly's job or why Marshall had to spend years working a job he despised (other than hey, it was the job he had earlier in the show!) when Lilly was supposed to be making so much money.
Plus the outcome that the entire series was just Ted's long-winded passive-aggressive way of asking his kids if he could date their Aunt Robin since she was so much more important to him than their dead mother (and them happily accepting that notion) was just off-putting.
(Especially since when it comes to old girlfriends, Victoria was way better than Robin anyways.)