How I Met Your Mother: 10 Ways The Finale Totally Lived Up To Expectations

8. The Show's Situation Ends

The two things you really need for a sitcom are just that - a situation and some comedy. And at the end of the show, the situation has to end. With Cheers it was Rebecca leaving, Woody getting elected and Cliff and Norm getting new, better jobs. With Friends it was Chandler and Monica moving out of their apartment with their new kids, with Phoebe already married off and Rachel possibly moving (maybe with Ross) to France. And with How I Met Your Mother, it was pretty much everything. Obviously the final series filled us in on most of the characters' lives up to 2030, but the finale filled in the gaps. We saw Lily and Marshall leave their apartment, Robin and Barney divorce (causing Robin to barely see anyone in the group again as she jets across the world), Ted marrying Tracy and moving out to his house in Westchester and Barney finally giving up on his womanising. But more on that one later. It would be a terrible end if the final episode just left the gang sitting in their booth at MacLaren's ready for another legen - wait for it - dary night, the same as most of the series before, so things had to be shaken up. And this was always built into the story - Ted would finally meet Tracy and we'd speed forward to 2030, the time when he's been telling his kids this story all along. The situation had to end.