Ron Jaffe/Fox
Spoilers for last night’s How I Met Your Mother season finale coming up after the jump:
I didn’t get the feeling that the season of How I Met Your Mother ended last night, so much as it just continued. As opposed to some of the more stunning conclusions of previous seasons, there were no dramatic breakups. There was a dramatic get-together, but it was of Barney and Robin, whom we’d already seen get together, and it’s not really clear what their relationship extends beyond a hook-up right now. Ted’s teaching a class that has The Mother in it—so he could end up together with her within a matter of years. Oh, and Ted’s no longer an architect, but did anyone care whether Ted’s an architect?
For all that, I liked “The Leap,” even if I’m not convined any real leaping was going on. As I’ve said before, in a show called How I Met Your Mother it’s easy to fixate on the ultimate goal, but frankly I like the show’s groove and its stasis, and I’m not that concerned when it gets where it’s going, as long as it doesn’t keep calling attention to that fact.
Instead, “The Leap” (which seems to have been retitled from the Mao-ish “The Great Leap”) mainly gave us the chance, after a mixed season, to see the characters as we know them best. It was especially good to see Lily back: “For the last time, I am not Linda Kneivel. I will never be Linda Kneivel!” (The goat? Eh. Bit of a scenery-chewer.) As the fivesome took that leap to the next building’s roof deck (scored to A.C. Newman’s “Prophets” from the Get Guilty album), it was a reminder that the pleasure of this show is not in see where it lands but how it gets there.