How I Met Your Mother "The Final Page, Part One And Two" Review

How I Met Your Mother two-part episodes aren't cohesive. I wanted to approach "The Final Page" the way I approach hour-long drama episodes, but HIMYM makes it impossible. The only tie between the two episodes is the title. Marshall and Lily's arc in part two is completely different from their arc in part one; Barney disappears in part two; Ted needs validation from a professor who thought he wouldn't become an architect in part one in preparation of his building's grand opening and entrance into the New York skyline, but he's all about Robin in part two. Robin's slightly connected to Barney in part one through her desire to fire Patrice for dating him, but Barney's jinxed into silence for part one and can only speak when he needs to divulge a wildly unnecessary plan to finally win back Robin's heart. So, where to begin?

Barney proposed to Robin on top of the Worldwide News building, bringing to conclusion the nonsense weeks of set-up to their inevitable re-coupling. Patrice-Barney was a waste of a time, but it wasn't a waste of time in regards to how I, and others, thought it'd be a waste of time. HIMYM's as comfortable wasting time as a living being is drinking water, but they had a plan for wasting time with Barney and Patrice. I'm frustrated by watching network television for many reasons, but chief among them is the sense of time-wasting by the writers, like a soccer team in the lead in stoppage time. HIMYM, though, can't tell a story without needlessly stringing along the audience, wasting time, and leaving one with feeling that the preceding storytelling wasn't worth it. Future Ted's arduous tale of meeting his wife won't be worth the eight or nine seasons it took to tell the story. I guarantee that. Barney's journey to the rooftop with Robin was a microcosm of the show.

The last act of the two-part episode is a multi-minute montage of The Robin, the final page and play in the playbook. Barney traces the play's beginning to its end, sixteen steps in all, from the display in the yogurt shop to their meeting on the rooftop in the moment. The play has elements of HIMYM-specific humor like the jarring revelation that Barney's installed secret cameras in the apartments of his friends, and the confident smirk that crosses his face whenever another step in the play works. The play itself stretches credulity, but HIMYM exists in the bizarre sitcom universe where a college friend of Lily and Marshall's spent sixteen years waiting to reunite with them to hand them a check for $100,000, so the nonsensical incredulity of the play isn't worth picking nits with. Through one lens, Barney's play is incredibly romantic. Anyone who swears by the late 90s rom-com Drive Me Crazy probably thought Barney was the most romantic fictional character ever created as he gazed meaningfully at the woman, as she absorbed the significance of the final play.

Barney's plan touched on Ted's feelings for the woman. The A story of part two focused on Ted's feelings for the woman. The time for the two characters passed. Ted's longing for Robin should've passed. Ted and Marshall talk about Ted's role in Barney's impending engagement. Marshall, like he did last season, insists he go for Robin. Barney swore Ted to secrecy about the proposal of marriage to Patrice because he needed to know that Ted let go of her. Ted tells Robin everything and sends her up to stop the engagement and win the love of her life back from her nemesis Patrice. The gesture connotes Ted's lasting love for the girl, which means that he loves her enough to give her away, grant his blessing to a friend who loves her more than he. Ted looks like Ben Affleck after Alyssa flips out at him for declaring his love to her in the rain knowing she's a lesbian (all that Radnor lacked was the goatee). Their story finished last season. Victoria left Ted for the reasons she wouldn't get back with him early in season seven: Robin. Last season, Victoria's reservations felt genuine; it was a genuinely intriguing story for the show to tell because Robin was The Girl for Ted in the early seasons. Now, the wedding/Farhampton/the girl seems a reward for Ted's selflessness rather than a cosmic fated event. Ted and his wife will always be connected to Ted's ever-lasting feelings for Aunt Robin.

The other stories weren't anything special. Marshall and Lily, in part one, try to avoid Seth Green's Daryl, an old college friend, who loved the one time he played hacky sack with them. (Hacky sack was a popular thing in the mid-to-late 90s and early 00s.) They fear he'll murder them because they're judgmental so-and-so's and lose out on $100,000 for fearing him. Daryl learns he never needed the validation of two people who never cared for him. Seth Green and Alyson Hanigan were reunited on-screen. Unfortunately, they worked with much worse writing. Alexis Denisof also returned as Sandy, and I felt joy seeing three Whedon alums on screen. In the second part, Marshall and Lily try to enjoy an evening alone but separation anxiety ruins their night out.

Ted, meanwhile, enjoys the opening of his New York skyscraper. He sought validation from an old professor who didn't believe in him, which is a common theme for any creator where he or she is a writer, painter, architect, musician, etc. Kevin Williamson's first script was about a teacher who thought he'd never write; of course, Williamson's first produced credit was the genre-busting Scream that ushered in a new era for horror film in the mid-90s and on.

HIMYM two-part episodes indirectly reveals its hollowness. There aren't carry-overs from the previous episode into "The Final Page, Part Two." Things happen in HIMYM. Specific emotions come back when it's convenient, but Bays and Thomas and the other writers would rather throw characterization out to make a stupid gimmick work. Basically, stuff happens in these two episodes. Some of it matters, and some of it doesn't. I don't care about any of it.

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