It was so blatantly cruel and undid every positive that the show ever had going for it. There are actually a fair number of parallels with GOT in some ways, one of the biggest being that they filmed Ted’s kids back in like season two so they could have their reaction before growing up, and instead of realizing that the show would be utterly trashed by sticking to that, they stayed writing themselves into a corner just to use that specific ending. I can see D&D feeling similarly knowing that they have to get to a set list of points without it happening naturally.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Everyone had looooong gotten tired of the “will they/won’t they” with Ted and Robin, and as much as Barney was terrible (he is one of the main aspects that aged the worst), they helped each other to grow into better people in about as believable and meaningful a way that a sitcom can pull off. They also had the Mother be a complete mystery and non-entity for most of the run, so the fact that they CHOSE to flesh her out in great detail only to say, “Just kidding, she died and it was super painful and also I really want to get back with my toxic ex because she’s the real love of my life,” was the wooooorssssstttt.
Fuckin HIMYM. Went from a favorite show (yes I know it had its flaws) to one of my most hated pretty much over night haha
I feel like Dexter is maybe the very worst finale I've ever seen. Maybe I just loved HIMYM too much or I give it more of a pass because it's a sitcom, but it didn't bother me near as much as most people I guess. To me it still hit all the beats, didn't skip on anything and Ted and Robin made sense.
She was by far the best part of every episode she was in. She deserved so much better than what they wrote for her. Honestly, if they had just had her wise up and realize Ted was trash and went on to live a fabulous life somewhere else and THEN Ted went back to Robin, that would have been a million percent better. But what they did was so unbelievably dismissive to her as a person. Also Dexter was the king of all trash endings, but that one is much easier to ignore if you just pretend S4 is the true ending. It didn’t end with like some twist that undid everything before it, it was just awful on its own.
Short answer. Yes. A finale can ruin a show. Just like having a loving happy marriage that ends in messy abuse and cheating and ruin a relationship because they really were that monster all along. As humans, recency bias definitely plays an effect but it also attached things to our memories. Atlanta Falcons fans don't fondly look on that super bowl a couple years ago as a good one. They think it was absolutely horrible because of the 4th quarter collapse. meant nothing.
They were both utter, utter failures. Dexter’s is at least easier to laugh about because of how bananas it was and how far it had already fallen. S4 is probably the only one I would go back to on its own at this point. I showed someone the series up to that point maybe a year ago and I had forgotten just how much better it was than two or three.
He looks like every dude who moves to LA from the midwest and wears shorts just to flex about how it's not "really" cold here with his parka