10 Most Bizarre TV Series Finales In History
1. How I Met Your Mother Kills the Mother
How I Met Your Mother's finale is notoriously controversial and regularly features in lists of the very worst series finales. After spending nine seasons and nearly a decade building up to Ted Mosby meeting his future wife Tracy, the season finale gives viewers exactly what they want. And then it does something crazy. It kills her.
The show's final episode jumps through ten years of the characters' lives to reveal that Tracy died of an undisclosed illness after four years. To make matters worse, it is also revealed that the series' framing device, Ted's story to his teenage kids, hasn't been about their mother at all. It was a means to seek their permission for him to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Robin. The kids give their blessing and he runs off to be reunited with her.
Creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas had conceived this finale during production on the second series. Eight years of speculation and emotional investment later, it just feels gross. As we're told, rather than shown, Ted has grieved Tracy's abrupt death for six years, the closing scene of him arriving at the doorstep of "the one who got away" isn't the big romantic ending the show thinks it is.