My Game Boy and Me: A Trip Down 90s Gaming Memory Lane

So the original classic Nintendo Game Boy turns 25, so I guess I should dedicate an article to the machine and its arsenal of games, am I right? After all, this system did start my love for Nintendo (even if it’s debatable that it also took me to a very rocky relationship with a frustrating Japanese company) and jump-started my interest in video games. Along with Nickelodeon, Kids WB, The Sosa/McGuire Home Run Chase, Michael Jordan, Disney Renaissance, and the Britney Spears Saga, the Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Color remains one of my fondest memories about my childhood and the 90s in general.

I was 5 when I got my first Game Boy. It was given to me by my uncle, and I couldn’t tell you what the reason was. Maybe he had no time for it. Maybe my cousins lost interest in it. Whatever the reason, he handed me the clunky device. There was a nice appeal to it however; there was something about the toy that was easy to grip, easy to handle, easy to play.


That being said, the first game was Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.



Home Alone 2 sucked. Royally. I mean, it was terrible. I couldn’t get out of the first level. I didn’t even understand what was going on, what I had to do, why I had to do it. Why were there evil vacuum cleaners? Why were there old women trying to hit me? What? Why? Whyyyyy? As a 5-year-old, I learned what a sucky game was, immediately.



I nearly quit on the system, honestly I did.

Then came Super Mario Land. And then I got Tetris.




The rest was history.


Super Mario Land is one of the oddest Mario games ever made because it was made by a totally different cast, excluding Miyamoto (who was working on the eventual masterpiece Super Mario World) and even Koji Kondo (Who is the John Williams of the gaming industry). Nonetheless, it was still very entertaining, quite tough, and kept you on your toes. It was a simple platformer, nothing more, nothing less. 12 levels full of the usual Mario gameplay mixed in with levels in which you could navigate a submarine and an airplane.

God, remember the good ol’ days when there was lots of emphasis on the cover box art in the Game Boy days? Just the image alone makes you excited to play.

Tetris however was a different beast. A beautiful beast. It remains one of the 20 greatest games you’ll ever play, and the absolutely perfect complement to everything the Game Boy represents: simple pick-up-and-play gaming. It was easy to learn, and yet remains interesting, exciting, and engaging every second you play. Tetris is currently in the 3DS, and it’s a shame that its legacy has waned a bit over the years (although the Tetris Company is partly to blame for failing to keep the momentum flowing). But if there is a game that saved me from potentially giving up on gaming early, it would be Tetris.



Home Alone 2, Super Mario Land, and Tetris were given to me by my uncle. The first video game I remember begging my mom to purchase was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. The game looked like a legit Mario game, the box art looked awesome, and I remember being excited after going to Toys R Us (My has this place fallen hard in recent years after its peak in the 90s) and seeing the short trailer for it. I remember going to the store, and seeing a massive Nintendo-run touchscreen attached to a television. You pressed the button for what game you wanted to see a few moments of, and there it was. Nintendo used to market games, believe it or not.

Super Mario Land 2 was a phenomenal game by the way, remains one of the best handheld games ever made. It was a lengthy adventure with plenty of challenge, plenty of variety, and was just so much fun. My love for Mario Land 2 led to my eventual purchase for Mario Land 3---which turned out to be the original (and still awesome) Wario Land. As a 7-year-old however, it took me forever to understand why it was called Mario Land 3---even though Mario was nowhere to be found.

In the midst of the Nintendo Game Boy life, the Sega Game Gear had arrived attempting to nab some of the popularity. During the epic Sega/Nintendo war in the 90s, the Game Gear had become the latest chapter in the playground battles for gaming supremacy. But the Game Gear never ever took off with anyone in school because the battery life was absolute crap, the prices of the games were heavier, and the games just weren’t as entertaining. There was Sonic and then….and then……um……Sonic. So even with the Game Gear looking better thanks to the colors, that’s all it had. The playground battles between the Nintendo fans and the Sega fans were epic, but both sides did agree to the superiority of the Game Boy in the handheld field. It was too obvious.

History would repeat itself when the severely underpowered Nintendo Wii took out the far-better-looking competitors in the mid-2000s. Back to topic.


The next major event in my Game Boy life was the great Christmas of 1995, when Donkey Kong Land was arriving at stores and was getting the attention of all the kids because of the yellow cartridge and we were still absolutely stunned at how good Donkey Kong Country looked compared to any game out there. It was on my Christmas list, and my parents knew that this was it—this was the big game to get. When Christmas morning arrived I knew that the smaller box had my game. I knew it was a Game Boy game.




But it wasn’t Donkey Kong Land.



It was Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong was basically the original arcade game on pure steroids. You get the original 4 levels, and then they added 90 more, making this one of the lengthiest handheld games ever made. It was fun, it was good, but it wasn’t the game I had wanted. So after a little scrambling, my loving parents got me Donkey Kong Land. The entire thing became a blessing in disguise as I wound up getting multiple games in the same Christmas season. That was also the year I got my Super Nintendo. This definitely made up for my lack of friends.


1995 was a good Christmas.

But the Super Nintendo was the most beautiful toy in the history of my childhood. So many great games, so many instant classics, it consumed all our time. With the help of Blockbuster, within the first year we had Donkey Kong Country, Country 2, NBA Jam, Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest, Super Mario Kart, Link to the Past, Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, among many others. The Game Boy was a wonderful device but was definitely losing steam. We had the Game Boy Pocket to allow my brothers a chance to play when I wasn’t hogging the original Boy.



1998 changed everything.

Wario Land II came out in March of 1998 and I got it the first day. But I remember not being able to play it until that evening because my family and I were attending some sort of Dominican music festival. It did not matter in the least bit what was going on, all I wanted to do was go home and play that game, the sequel to one of my favorite games. Wario Land II was a gem. A very tough gem. It didn’t really have the popularity of the N64/PSX games that were dominating the charts at the time, but it was still a great game that consumed my entire summer.

Then came the Pokemon.


Pokemon Red/Blue conquered, dominated, and eradicated every other video game from any system in the Fall of 1998 in Hunter’s Creek Middle School. It was the one and only conversation in playgrounds, in classrooms, in cafeterias, and in every hangout spot within the vicinity of the school. Pokemon struck like a tidal wave and swept up all the children and teenagers along the way to financial heights that no video game franchise had seen since 1989 Super Mario.


The biggest difference between phenomenons and permanent staples to the culture is the way the first blockade of success if handled. The IPod was handled well because Apple continued finding ways to evolve the product and make it far more than just a music player. It easily could have been something like AOL---a device stuck in the past, and totally devoid of improvement. The Wii became a fad because it alienated its audience and didn’t attempt to enhance what made it a hit in the first place. Pokemon’s phenomenon was taken advantage of to the full extent of economic law without much glimpsing into the future. I am almost positive that if it had been handled correctly, Pokemon would be the biggest moneymaker in any form of entertainment year in and year out. Darn it, I am off-topic again…..

There was Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Trading Card Game, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Diamond within the next 4 years. We were being delivered an extreme arsenal of Pokemon goodness and although it was very much appreciated it was also met with a backlash. During 1998/1999 the Game Boy was catapulted back into the market, back into gaming conversations, and became a staple to my middle school and high school years. And not only were these games part of a big fad that eventually condensed to a consistent success for Nintendo, they were all very good games.



The cards were also fun; the television show was extremely repetitive but still enjoyable. The movies were….well, they happened. This was all part of the Game Boy’s re-emergence and transition from former hit into newfound glory. By around this time, the Game Boy Color was also finding its way into stores along with remakes of the original-original Super Mario Bros. (The DX version has one of the greatest hidden secrets in gaming history, with the entire Super Mario Bros. 2 JP game packed in) and Link’s Awakening—one of the great Zelda games during the epic, epic 10-year run of Zelda from 1991-2001 (Link to the Past, Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages).

Guess what I got that Christmas…..

1998 gave us Ocarina of Time, Game Boy Color, Pokemon Red/Blue, Link’s Awakening DX, and the severely underrated Wario Land II. Arguably one of the greatest years of Nintendo history if you ask me, as they got everything right. But the beginning of the end was occurring.

The Game Boy Color wasn’t as powerful or as progressive a device as we anticipated. We were expecting the upgrade to be more…well….in terms of memory as opposed to just giving the games a color upgrade. Between 1999 and 2001 it seemed like Nintendo was focusing more on the move from the I-totally-lost-to-Sony N64 to the This-Better-Be-Good Gamecube. The amount of games released for the handhelds decreased dramatically.

We had the arguably-the-best-Nintendo-RPG-ever Pokemon Silver, Wario Land III, the Metal Gear Solid nobody bought, and lastly the Oracle of Ages/Seasons in 2001. All the other Game Boy Color games were pretty much filler or third-party garbage. Video games were starting to become a bit more expensive to Wario and Pokemon were the only two I was able to get in those entire three years. By the time the Sega Dreamcast (R.I.P. Sega/Nintendo Wars) and the Playstation 2 arrived, we really noticed the drastically dated look of the Game Boy games. The separation was far too big to not notice. As a teenager and seeing the upcoming Smash Brothers Melee, can you really go back to the Game Boy if not for nostalgia or some more Pokemon action?

2001: The End.



I didn’t know at the time, but Nintendo was also preparing for a new generation of handheld greatness. As great as the Game Boy had treated the company, it was time to change the image, change the cartridges, upgrade the visuals, and get some good-looking portable games. Right after my 14th birthday, my childhood was beginning the next stage of gaming---with the Game Boy Advance arriving on stores that summer. It was a fitting transition because at age 14 I was ready to enter high school, a brand new world. It was time to leave that other life behind, as I had International Baccalaureate programmed to go that fall (I never stood a chance, but I was too stubborn to notice it).

The instant the Game Boy Advance hit, my Game Boy era of the Clinton 90s had reached an end. All those car rides, all the doctor visits, all the elongated trips to Whole Foods in Downtown to get the potato bread for my Autistic brother (In the 90s, we firmly believe everything was causing this disability, and fought to the teeth for alternative diets and ways of life for him), and every lazy Saturday moment in between, I had the Game Boy to thank for being there with me. It put up with a lot of gameplay hours, a lot of abuse, a lot of gaming altogether.

I did get the Game Boy Advance, and it was a spectacular system, but I didn’t give it half the attention I gave the original Game Boy. School, the eventual job, the transitioning from one high school to the other, my increasing skills with computers, and the takeover of the Gamecube (short-lived takeover, by the way) all paraded ahead of my time with the Advance. Even when the new Pokemon games were hitting, it just didn’t feel the same. Life was transitioning into something bigger, something very different. My amount of free time was diminishing, my interests were widening elsewhere, and the carefree economically sturdy times were drawing to a close. Things were getting complicated.

From a poetic standpoint, the Nintendo Game Boy came at the right time, and got replaced at the adequate time. The original Game Boy represented the 90s quite well: not too extravagant, successful, simple, reliable, full of fun and enjoyment, and Pokemon. It was four buttons (three to be honest, as the select button was almost never used), a control pad, nothing more. Yet somehow, dozens of wonderful games came from this simple little device. Unlike your typical toy that loses appeal after a few weeks, the Game Boy was there to stay, there to consume your life, your down time, your sad time, your happy time.

The Game Boy was part of my 90s childhood, and it was such a beautiful time. From Super Mario Land’s infamous submarine level all the way up to Pokemon Silver’s shocking trip to Kanto.

Happy 25th Game Boy. Thanks for the memories buddy.

The Frustratingly Slow Legacy of The Boondocks

The Boondocks is back.



It hasn’t changed or skipped a beat.



And while on one hand this is phenomenal news as it is a very entertaining show that takes consistent bites on African-American culture, it also takes forever to delivers its new episodes. Aaron McGruder and company took their sweet time developing the episodes for Cartoon Network and the end result was a fanbase that was consistently yearning for new episodes while at the same time become absolutely livid at the snail pace of new content. It almost seemed done on purpose.


The Boondocks: 8 years, 43 episodes. By the end of its run it would have had only 4 seasons.


That means it was around 2 years in between seasons, and even then the average hides the fact that Season 3 had occurred in 2010. Can you honestly name an acclaimed and well-liked show that had such an awkward run? Futurama would be the only other show in mind, which faced a ceasing of production twice before having a third run on a third different network in Comedy Central.

You can’t rush art; this is most certainly the truth. Nintendo is a notorious company that couldn’t care less how long it takes to release a game as long as the final product is quality. That I understand. But The Boondocks will never ever go down in history as one of the greats, no matter how good the episodes might be. The momentum was never built, the momentum was never sustained, and it just couldn’t maintain its audience because of its inability to consistently deliver new content.

Furthermore, the episodes that do lampoon the culture and do attack certain people taste a bit dated since they lampoon a subject that had already crossed the mainstream and airwaves and had already disappeared before The Boondocks can chime in their two cents. For example the first episode of the fourth season featured a Chris Brown-like character being exposed as someone that is causing trouble only to maintain on the spotlight and be able to sell his image and music through the controversy. And then they double-down on the criticism by taking on the stupid fanbases of the woman-beating-trouble-causing-wannabe gangsters that will forever look the other way whenever the criminals make their audacious mistakes.

Did this episode click? Of course it did, it nailed all the right points. But the Chris Brown dilemma happened way back in 2009, and the aftermath when he created a ruckus on Good Morning America occurred in 2011. We had forgotten all about it. We stopped caring that he took off his shirt when he walked off the building to a screaming crowd. We stopped caring about Rihanna and her messed up face. It was good criticism, but delayed criticism. It would be similar to you disapproving of your daughter’s relationship with a drug addict two years after they already got married. Too little too late, even if your heart is in the right place.

The Boondocks had its share of South Park-like humor as it tackled important subjects in humorous scenarios. But it doesn’t work if the culture and the subjects are contemporary or little blips in the news. The infamous Martin Luther King Jr. episode from Season 1 has its spot in television history because it took on a much, much bigger problem that was rampant in black culture. But the battles against Tyler Perry and Oprah? Leave it to television shows that can produce segments at a far, far, far quicker pace (See: South Park’s low-budget ways and The Simpsons’ massive production crew nowadays). I am fine with biting criticism, but it has to be fresh, or it won’t taste as good when aged.

As a big fan of The Boondocks (When its actually on television), it hurts to see the show ending soon, it hurts to see it end without its original creator Aaron McGruder, and it hurts to never be able to cement it in animation and television history with other animated greats like The Simpsons (The best of all-time), South Park (Arguably the most consistently funny cartoon ever), The Flintstones (The benchmark), and Animaniacs (Still the best children’s animated show in history bar none). It could have been one of the greatest out there if they simply had increased the budget and increase the staff, and not be perfectly fine with running on CPT.

The Boondocks will be known as one of the great coulda, woulda, shouldas in entertainment history---pure amusement when it aired on Cartoon Network, and pure frustration as we waited years between seasons without glimpses of something coming up.



Good run, probably great run-----but it coulda been epic.

Plot vs. Story: The Quest For Cinematic Action Perfection

Can a great action movie have both a good story and lots of action?




Because if you have a great story, it requires more focus and sacrifices action.



But if you have lots of action, it sacrifices story.





The Raid 2 has gotten an arsenal of excellent reviews (Well-deserved by the way), but at the same time got its criticisms for the story bloating the running time. Now I can respect other people’s opinions, but then there were the negative reviews against the original for not having enough of a story. So what do we want, really? The Raid 2 has a lower rating in Rotten Tomatoes than the original, even though it supposedly fixed what was lacking in the original installment!

So is there any way for the true perfect action film to have an excellent story as well? Can a movie that spends half the time displaying carnage craft a good story? Can a middle ground even exist in crafting the perfect action film? After all, if a movie is 50/50 with action/story, then it leaves no chance for the action to potentially occupy 75% maybe 80% of the film---much like what happened in The Raid.

The Raid 2 realized that in order to achieve the decent story and still provide the same amount of mayhem the movie needs to be much longer. So surely enough, The Raid 2 was 150 minutes, with the action being scattered around between scenes that move the plot. Of course, the final half an hour was pure adrenaline but leading up to it we had an actual script, with actual dialogue, and actual conversations…and believe it or not, character development! However, it still got some slack for being too long. Huh?

Let’s compare The Raid 2 to what is the greatest action movie of all-time: Die Hard. What makes Die Hard the ultimate action film? Well, it has incredible odds, excellent characters, an engaging story, a great hero, plenty of tension, plenty of the essential action, and of course a delightful villain that is just as entertaining to watch. But here’s the thing: it is 131 minutes and has about a quarter of the action of The Raid 2. As a matter of fact none of the violence happens until about 20-30 minutes in. Nonetheless, I’d be a fool to say The Raid 2 is better than Die Hard even though the latter film has more action and does a better job with it.


So what is it?


Well, after observing through what I consider to be the best action films around (Die Hard, Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix), the best way to create the perfect action movie is to make the story much more prevalent and more dominant, but make the action heavy and make it count at the same time. No weak scenes whatsoever, since you have less time to work with. It is much harder for a movie with a weak story and heavy action to make an impact than a movie with a great story and less action.

The Raid 2 and Legend of Drunken Master are arguably now the two greatest action movies in history that contains a story that isn’t as memorable. Honestly, what is the name of the main character in Drunken Master? Anyone remember? And when the action is the strongest quality, film pundits and critics won’t be as receptive, no matter how incredibly awesome it might be. It is indeed unfair, but that’s the cinema life. Just one of those things---like a science fiction movie never, ever, ever going to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

A good story enhances the action of the product like a good pizza topping. The Matrix had its very complex steampunk-inspired universe of the world not being real. Saving Private Ryan is the ultimate against-all-odds war movie whose intense action is supplemented by the ragtag group of soldiers risking their life for someone they don’t even know. Raiders of the Lost Ark can be considered an adventure movie, but nonetheless has a classic hero fighting a classic movie villain known as Nazis. All three have their classic action moments, but with a great tale and great stakes plastered up against it they become legendary. Odds are The Raid 2’s final 30 minutes despite being an overwhelming amount of adrenaline, will not have the same impact as the infamous opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan. It just won’t.

The Raid 2 is probably the most complete action movie of all-time in terms of quality and content. It has the storyline. It has the character to root for. And most importantly, it has the plethora of action that will convince you to revisit over and over again. Can I please remind you all how the final 30 minutes MUST be watched by everyone? But it’s just inches away from being perfect because the story doesn’t have the same impact as your greatest works of action. It attempted perfection by going through the tougher route---through the quality of the fights, chases, and shootouts. There’s no such thing as a perfect mindless action movie, simply because the mindless part will prevent it from being something more, prevents it from going to the next level. And critics, no matter how blown away they are by the action, won't admit any of it if the script isn't to their liking. Its just one of those things.

But if the story matched the mayhem in terms of quality, then we would be having a very different conversation today.




Someone give a Tarantino script to Gareth Evans.

The Raid 2: 9/10

Check your heartrate at the door before entering the theater.

Because you are going to need every pulse.

The Raid 2 is a vicious, meticulous, and mercilessly tense action extravaganza that visually and aesthetically tears through the 150 minutes without missing a single beat. What just might be the most complete action film of any kind since Legend of Drunken Master back in 1994, this movie contains so much action, so much mayhem, so much brutal violence that it will make Sylvester Stallone shutter. And it's not just the quantity, it's also the quality. No CGI overkill here, you will feel every hit, punch, kick, stab, crash, burn, and baseball (trust me) thrown at all the characters involved. You have been warned----none of this is pretty in the least bit. Not for the faint of heart. Even the closing credits use red.

For fans of The Raid, the sequel might take some time to get used to. After all, the original was a fast-paced claustrophobic trip that was essentially fight first, plot later. Felt like a cinematic video game, progressing in difficulty before reaching the jaw-dropping climax. In the sequel, we have a heavier story with more characters, and far more open space. So the big question is are you willing to sacrifice a few action bits just to condense the story that involves an arsenal of gang members and crooked men double-crossing each other left and right in a city overrun by corruption and crime lords? No you're not.

Yes, the story has far more dialogue, and moves as a slower pace than the predecessor. But it still gives us an intriguing story that lacks predictability, and gives more personality to most of the characters, including our lead character Rama. But let's be truthful, you aren't here because of story. You aren't here for the themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and family. You aren't here for Oscar-like material. You are here to see as much carnage as legally possible within a certain timeframe.

And boy, does it deliver.

Containing just as much action as in the original (although it was spaced out far more because of time length and storytelling elements in between), The Raid 2 is flawlessly directed and edited by Gareth Evans (easily rising as among the top directors in the world) as every single gunfight, fistfight, and chase sequence is delivered with just enough creativity, bloodshed, and content to satisfy any action fan. And the action does indeed escalate in intensity and gleeful pandemonium as we progress towards the climax---which delivers two of among the best fights this entire century. Hammer Girl, Baseball Boy, and The Assassin will make an impression on you.

The Raid 2 arrives at hungry action moviegoers like a rare steak---bloody, chewy, raw, and not made to satisfy everyone's tastes. It doesn't have the pure mindlessness of the predecessor, but the meaty plot intertwined with the no-holds-barred-in-your-face-visually-stimulating viciousness from Iko Uwais and friends more than makes up for the moments you might just be spending merely anticipating the next major action sequence. Like a series of city-shattering grenades with lengthy timers, The Raid 2 has you patiently waiting for each explosion. And you will never be disappointed by any of the outbursts.

Just remember to breathe.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: 8/10

How can any Marvel movie match up to The Avengers? Similar to what happened to the quality value of The Expendables franchise after the Indonesian bloodbath funfest The Raid totally rewrote the rules on how to film and execute an action movie, The Avengers became the pinnacle of Marvel films simply because of all the superheroes involved and the sheer scope of the comic book mayhem. Overall it knocked down the standalone Marvel movies and even the Batman movies a few notches. Let's be honest, the Nolan Batman trilogy would have overall ranked to just above Spider-Man level if it had not been for The Dark Knight's Joker.

How can Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2 possibly live up to The Avengers when it features each of these heroes AND more? Well, Captain America: The Winter Soldier succeeds by providing a deep plot, plenty of action, and an ability to take some gambles that will have ramifications within the cinematic Marvel universe. Lastly, menacing villains that doesn't involve ripping the hearts of comic book fans (a.k.a. The Mandarin in Iron Man 3) is always an added bonus.

In the mix of heroes, Captain America is the most likable and also the most relatable because of his sheer commitment to keeping the American public safe while also being wary of the 21st century techniques of keeping the nation out of harm's way. But adding to the mix are The Falcon and Black Widow, two also very supportable characters (Helps to have Scarlett Johansson and Anthony Mackie) with similar goals, even though Black Widow's intentions can become muddy. All three are wrapped in a story that involves decades of betrayal, dark secrets, and politics behind staying one step ahead of domestic, foreign, and intergalactic terrorism. With a script that hits close to home, this is easily the best-written of the Marvel films thanks to Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Tying in all the plot twists and surprises are well-executed action sequences that rely very little on CGI (well, up until the big climax) and depend more on excellent stunts, clever editing, and great direction (Special props to the Russo Brothers). The chases are fun, the shootouts are intense, and the hand-to-hand combat is leagues above the normal comic book movie. Instead of one overarching villain, we have multiple enemies fighting in the front lines and behind the scenes, increasing the tension throughout the movie---especially in the breathtaking final act.

Bottom Line: Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the best of the standalone Marvel movies since the original Iron Man because its plot and themes hit close to the heart, the action is relentless, it never becomes too predictable, the acting is great, and the blend of political thriller gives it a special taint you usually don't find in comic book films. It is entertaining, thought-provoking, and intriguing from start to finish. Like your best Marvel comic books, it has plenty of heroes, plenty of enemies, and never wears out its welcome. Bring on Avengers 2, because the Disney/Marvel brand is definitely going in the right direction.

How I Met The Disappointing Ending

Pre-Article Warning: Spoilers Ahead



How I Met Your Mother was on its way to becoming one of the best complete sitcoms in the past 30 years. Honestly. In the 2000s, the only sitcoms to top it have been 30 Rock, Modern Family, and Scrubs (Neglecting that final season).





And then the final season happened.





Falling into the now-cliché of running its sitcom life far too long and damaging its legacy with its final episodes (See: Roseanne, Scrubs, Family Matters, That 70s Show, Will and Grace, The Office) How I Met Your Mother’s quality took a severe hit with the final season and then severely hurt itself with the final episode which pretty much demolished any hopes of redemption. And this is not an insult to any of the actors (which did a fine job with the material presented) but the writing staff had forgotten about the magic, love, and care of the previous seasons and threw us a curveball that harmed the consistency and the continuity of the entire comedy.

The final season was a mess because they stretched out a wedding weekend into an entire grouping of episodes, which really harmed the usual quick speed of the show. The unnecessary drama was racked up to the ultimate level, there were tons of pointless secondary characters that appeared and disappeared, and the gang wasn’t even fully together for most of the season. Marshall was in a different state, and he had to be paired up with an absolutely worthless and unfunny Daphne. The gang was rarely together and they finally had their calm peaceful moment as the wedding mercifully takes off---Ted decides to run off. The gang chemistry that ran the sitcom through its worst moments was sorely lacking, simply because you never really saw them together in the final episodes.



And The Mother. That poor gal. The show is about meeting the mother, and she got less screen time than most of Ted’s ex-girlfriends throughout the series run. She is the Holy Grail, the gold mine Ted has been searching for, and she doesn’t get to fully meet and talk to Ted until the very last episode? And then kill her off shortly after? And then treat the death as a footnote? No funeral scene? No final goodbye scene? It’s not only an insult to all the viewers who went along for the overlong ride, but its rather insulting to Cristin Milioti, who carved out a lovable character with the extremely minimal screentime given. Her chemistry with Josh Radnor was electric, and made us yearn for more time between the two.



………….and that final episode……………it was good, but it could have been legend---wait for it…


That final episode should have been Season 9, because there was so much packed into that final hour. The wedding should have been a mere one/two-episode arc, and could have perhaps even fit in Season 7 with enough effort. The final scene of Season 8 should have been Ted finally meeting The Mother on that rainy day at the train station. And then Season 9 could have been all that flashforwarding through the years as we see Marshall’s rise to success, Lily’s third child, the divorce between Robin and Barney, Barney’s transition from Clooney to Father, and the beautiful marriage between Tracy and Ted leading up to the tragedy of her being sick. It was bizarre that despite the acknowledgement of five children on that final episode, we only see the actual delivery of one---Barney’s child.

The final scene with the kids should have been destroyed, because we spent three years unlearning that Robin and Ted would have worked out, we spent three years having the Robin/Barney duo become a believable couple. The ultimate ending would have worked if a) they didn’t just kill off the Mother and pretty much writer her off in a span of 40 minutes and/or b) Ended in Season 6-7 as opposed to 9, making the quest a bit tiring. The sad divorce should have had even more focus than the wedding, because so much was invested in making Robin/Barney happen, and Barney was clearly suffering from the ramifications of the failed marriage years after it had happened. But all these major events became mere footnotes; the promotions, big moves, deaths, births, pretty much everything.

The emotion of the final episode was indeed there, and it was a joy to watch these characters interact one final time. But it felt forced, it felt mildly cheap. Imagine spending your entire life with some really good friends, and instead of continuing the growing experience with them you read up about their next six years in a Facebook post and never see them again. That is how it felt with How I Met Your Mother; it was a well-written, beautifully-acted show that had a nice pace----that was quickly debunked in the final season, and that final episode.

The content of the final moments of How I Met Your Mother in context made sense, but the delivery was absolutely abysmal. We had fallen in love with The Mother only for her to disappear without a proper send-off. We were treated to the evolving love triangle between Ted, Barney, and Robin that eventually became a nice marriage—only for that ship to sail pretty quickly. We saw Marshall put up with years of labor torture to finally reach his dreams---only for us to see not see him actually, you know, judge. And finally, we finally got that ending we had been seeking for years—only for it to be a copout and an excuse to throw a fast one on us and reveal that Robin is the actual love of Ted’s life, even if she couldn’t be the mother.

How I Met Your Mother will stand as one of the cleverest sitcoms out there that ran out of steam in the final season. Instead of reaching all-time status with the likes of Seinfeld, All in the Family, Cosby Show, and 30 Rock, it will settle for being a great sitcom that waned in the final moments like Will and Grace, Frasier, Scrubs, and Everybody Loves Raymond.



That being said, it was still a great run while it lasted.


Goodbye How I Met Your Mother.






P.S. …dary.