FLUFF: The missing scene from the How I Met Your Mother finale.

Most How I Met Your Mother fans were not emotionally prepared for the devastating final episode. When it aired, many of us were sad, angry and confused by the way things ended.

Turns out nobody was sadder or madder than Alyson Hannigan, who played Lily on the show. She says she actually filmed a “heart-wrenching” scene that could have changed everything… but it was deleted from the final cut.

SPOILER ALERT AHEAD.

WE’RE ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THE FINAL EPISODE OF HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET STOP RIGHT HERE TURN AROUND AND LEAVE.

STILL HERE?

OK GREAT LET’S TALK. 

So the deleted footage includes a montage of Ted mourning the death of his wife (the “mother” of the series). Apparently it showed her funeral, his grief and the kids processing the news. Alyson thinks it would have helped viewers understand Ted’s decision to move on with Robin after the death of his wife. She said it would have been even more emotionally powerful: “Honestly, if you saw [that] cut, it would be even more heart-wrenching than what the finale was.”

Explaining why the show’s creators decided to cut the pivotal scene, she said: “They were like, ‘No. It’s just too gut-wrenching.’ And I was like, ‘That’s what I want. I want my heart ripped out and slammed on the floor and, like, stomped on!’”

Angry fans around the world who were unimpressed by the speed with which Ted romanced Robin after becoming a widower already feel like their delicate hearts were stomped on, so it’s hard to say if a little evidence of his grief would have helped.

Alyson continues: “I think it would have been better for the audience, so that then they can process, ‘Oh, Ted mourned. He got closure’ – and then they’d be happy that [he and Robin] got together.

Rather than be like, ‘Oh, wait. She died? What? They’re together, huh?’ And credits. That’s what I think was too fast.”

The DVD of the final season of How I Met Your Mother does promise to include an alternative ending. We don’t know if it includes Alyson’s favourite heartbreak footage.

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