10 TV Show Finales That Totally Divided Fanbases
3. How I Met Your Mother
Indisputably the platinum standard for abysmal farewells in the sitcom department, HIMYM's self-destructive, insipid finale is still widely despised, with few able to find any consolidation in its arbitrary storyline.
The premise of HIMYM, essentially, is that the main protagonist - Ted - has an infatuation with almost any female that walks into his line of sight and could be a potential suiter. Strangely though, he finds solace in a girl (Robyn), only to become friends with her shortly after realising they don't work as a couple.
In a classic "will they, won't they" scenario that spans seasons upon seasons, it actually doesn't come to fruition and she instead married his friend (Barney).
Soon after, Ted meets the titular eponymous mother and we get the equivalent of a relationship existing in a vacuum, seeing nothing of almost any of it outside of the children they spawned and their fated meeting. Suddenly, we're in the last episode and she's just died. Robyn and Barney are divorced and Ted just forgets about his dead wife and jumps into bed with "aunt" Robyn.
In what has to be one of the most egregiously thoughtless, tasteless and debatably heartless misfires in all of television history. Metaphorically slapping the audience in the face, with a lot still reeling from the stinging sensation even now.