Pick of the week
How I Met Your Mother Monday, 7.30pm Four
There’s a season two episode of How I Met Your Mother in which the characters – Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin and Barney – are guilt-tripped into attending a funeral on Super Bowl Sunday. They record the game and try to get through Monday with the result unspoiled so they can all watch together that night; naturally, the plan goes awry as they all find out what happened in an appropriately wacky way.
Ultimately? It didn’t really matter. ‘‘I don’t remember who won. Hell, I don’t even remember who played. What I do remember is that we drank beer, we ate wings and we watched the Super Bowl together,’’ says Ted, the narrator, in a voiceover at the end of the episode. ‘‘Because sometimes, even if you know how something’s gonna end, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ride.’’
At the time, the line seemed like a sly nod to fans obsessed with figuring out the identity of the titular ‘‘Mother’’, rather than enjoying the show. But really, Ted’s words summed up the crux of the show’s emotional core, a life lesson that deeply connected with viewers: Even if things don’t go as planned, it’s crucial to remember the smaller moments that make up the bigger stories in life – those will always be the sweetest memories.
For nine seasons (an unusually long TV life span these days) that theme drove the expertly woven storylines of the delightful How I Met Your Mother, which ends for good on Monday.
It’s time, and probably overdue; the quality of the show has noticeably slipped. Still, there’s no question that, regardless of how it ends, the comedy is a fixture beloved by the millennial generation.
In addition to capturing nostalgia, there are many reasons the show caught on with the younger crowd: It launched a thousand catchphrases (‘‘Legend – wait for it – dary’’), pick-up lines (‘‘Haaave you met Ted?’’) and teachings for 20-something life (‘‘Nothing good ever happens after 2am’’). Overall though, HIMYM offered a much more valuable lesson about the importance of adult friendship, as the intense bonding in post-college years means that those friends essentially become your family.
Over nine seasons, the series followed Ted (Josh Radnor) and his best friends on their assorted adventures, with every plotline anchored in Ted’s search for his future wife. That was really just the spinning-off point, as we all got to know the characters through their own quests for happiness. There was Marshall (Jason Segel), Ted’s best friend who met his soulmate, Lily (Alyson Hannigan), on the first day of college; Robin (Cobie Smulders), Ted’s longtime love interest, even though it was established in the pilot that she would wind up just being ‘‘Aunt Robin’’; and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), the Bro Code-inventing ladies man.
Radnor frequently sees lists floating around the internet with titles like 20 Things I Learned from HIMYM. He believes that the series struck a chord because it ‘‘had a different perspective’’, looking at life in a deeper way through memory and nostalgia with a dad telling stories to his kids. That technique subconsciously urges viewers to appreciate the moments they might otherwise miss in their own lives.
HIMYM has already left a strong imprint, no matter how it concludes. And that’s sort of been the lesson all along. As Radnor says, despite the fact that people have developed ‘‘ Lost- style conspiracy theories’’ about the Mother over time, that was never really the point. Ted meeting the Mother may have been what tied everything together, but as with all long journeys, the most compelling part is what it took to get there.