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Often times deleted scenes are taken out for a reason. They often add unnecessary run time and don't support the overall story. But for How I Met Your Mother this deleted scene from the show's controversial finale could have saved the entire episode. How I Met Your Mother's ending falls pretty flat, but with some extra context it could have been seen in a different light. But why exactly did they cut this important scene from the finale of How I Met Your Mother?
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Yeah, is this going to take a while
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Yes. 25 years ago, before I was dad, I had this whole other life
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This is How I Met Your Mother, and it is one of the most successful sitcoms in television history
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It also has one of the most disappointing endings in television history
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The show is centered around a father explaining to his children how he was able to find his happily ever
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after, but it fails to deliver on this intended premise. There is no real happily ever after for the show's
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central protagonist. If you think about the way the show pans out, the ending actually seems pretty
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depressing. Mom's been gone for six years now. It's time. There was actually a scene that was
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deleted from the show's final episode that almost fixes the way this feels with some simple dialogue
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and character choices. Every year, dozens upon dozens of sitcoms get pitched to major networks
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with hopes of getting a green light to interproduction. Of the lucky few that actually
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make it to air on network television, only one or two sitcoms end up standing the test of time
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and end up having multi-season runs. When a show gets greenlit, it can almost feel like a surprise
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to everyone staffed on that particular show. The conversation shifts from
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how can we get this show on the air, to how can we make this show last? And many sitcoms have a
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difficult time figuring out the latter. Studios spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking content
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Sometimes great content gets lost in the relationship between the studio and the production
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but normally these cuts and edits make at least some form of sense. The exclusion of this deleted scene from How I Met Your Mother
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almost makes no sense whatsoever, once you see how it fits into the narrative
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A large part of How I Met Your Mother's success can be chalked up to the premise that is made
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at the beginning and end of nearly every episode. You were telling us how you met mom
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in excruciating detail. Constantly reminding us as an audience that we are listening to a story that is being told to children basically cements the idea that the show will have a cohesive beginning middle
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and end in our minds. The primary source of romantic tension in How I Met Your Mother is delivered
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through the relationship of Ted Mosby and Robin Scherbatsky. We spend a lot of time rooting for Ted and Robin
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to get together. During the course of the show, the audience is forced to bear witness to Ted and Robin screwing up
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any chance at a successful relationship. Every time it happens, we get more and more frustrated as viewers
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Relationship shake-ups are a big part of any sitcom's lasting development. If things become stale and predictable, audiences move on very quickly
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Sometimes these shake-ups can work to be a surprising benefit to a sitcom's overarching story
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and sometimes they can make absolutely zero sense whatsoever. How I Met Your Mother's Relationship Shake-Ups are unique
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because it's really hard to tell if some of the decisions that the writers make are good or bad
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The decision to have Robin date Barney wasn't necessarily a bad thing the first time
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However, going back to this relationship two more times wasn't great for anyone's character development
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Their relationship starts to seem hollow and forced. The central narrative to the relationship at times
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feels like two deeply flawed people building a relationship out of how deeply flawed they both are
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On the other side of that coin, Robin keeps a proverbial toe in Ted's waters at all times
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So when you're watching the show, it seems like Robin never fully commits to Barney
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and at the same time, Robin never fully lets go of Ted. Hey, we still have our 40 deal, right
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We're both still single at 40. I'm all yours. The way these characters start to interact with one another
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begins to feel less like they are progressing through natural relationships, and more like writers creating caveats to bail themselves out if something doesn't end up working
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I love you. Let's be friends. Okay, friends then. I love you. Let's get married
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No you smothering me Okay forget it This maybe isn the entirety of why How I Met Your Mother finale feels like a bit of a letdown but it is a major contributor This unhealthy attachment to one another
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makes the end of Ted's story feel less like a happily ever
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after and more like a questionably content ever after. The writers knew this needed to be addressed and resolved
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They filmed an entire scene that addresses this exact point in a very head-on kind of way
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The scene finds Ted running into Robin on the street while he is out with his daughter and the two agree to have lunch
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This is a moment that had been romanticized throughout the show's run. Ted and Robin always had an agreement that if they found themselves in their 40s
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and unhappy with their lives, they would end up being together. Robin Scherbatsky, will you be my backup wife
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A girl always dreams of hearing those words. As this scene plays out, we get some friendly and familiar banter between the two
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But then the conversation slowly starts to shift back into reminiscing about their youth
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and their time spent at McLaren's pub. All those nights at McLaren's
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I mean, how did we end up here? During this moment, Robin ends up misreading Ted's intent as a shared romantic interest
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This, by all means, makes sense. Robin is used to Ted yearning for her
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In a way, she has always kind of kept Ted in one of those, in case of emergencies, break
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glass boxes. This prompts Robin to basically blurt out her feelings toward Ted in the way he has always wanted to hear them
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I've been feeling crazy for thinking about it, but now that I know that you feel the same way too, I don't feel crazy anymore
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After this brief dialogue, there is an awkward pause. Ted clarifies his intent to Robin, and they actually have a discussion about how happy Ted has become in his marriage
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and how content he is with his family. He goes on even further to clarify the definition of his happiness by telling Robin that he doesn't
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think about the what-ifs anymore. Ted has to pick up his kids and we get this final heartfelt
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inside joke before he departs Major problems It feels a little somber but it also the perfect full circle moment for Ted Mosby Now this is the moment that How I Met Your Mother desperately needed but failed to include
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Not only did this scene create closure for Ted and Robin's relationship, but it also strengthens
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and solidifies the entire premise of How I Met Your Mother as a whole. Without this scene, How I
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Met Your Mother effectively leaves the audience thinking that for the entire time Ted has been
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telling his story to his children, he's secretly been harboring feelings for another person
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This makes Ted Mosby less of a compelling, neurotic, lovestruck protagonist, and more of
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well, a huge jerk. He's sitting his extremely young children down to explain that he basically
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settled for their mother? That's a little unsatisfying, and frankly, a little weird
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This lunch scene between Ted and Robin is so important that it actually changes the entire
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contextualization of the show's ending. And it's, quite frankly, a little insane
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that it wasn't included in the show's finale. Even Josh Radner, who played Ted on the show
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has his own confusion as to why the scene was ultimately disincluded from the final episode
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But he seems to insinuate that there was just too much content that they were trying
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to pack into the final three episodes. They're so densely packed, these episodes
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and they're always long. We shot more than could be in the episode, which we always do, so some stuff has to go
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Sitcoms are difficult to get made. They are even more difficult to sustain over long periods of time
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To keep things fresh, changes have to be made to the way the characters interact
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And for the most part, changes and development are really beneficial to a show
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but audiences still need closure to the primary goals of the protagonist
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and audiences certainly need showrunners to make good on the promises they make
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when a show's premise is presented. The deleted scene from How I Met Your Mother serves as a reminder
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that you don't need much to create closure. And with efficient writing and stellar performers involved in your television show
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you can give an audience all the closure they need in just a few fleeting minutes
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