But What About the Pineapple? : Psych vs How I Met Your Mother for Series Finale Supremacy

Recently, two beloved series with cult followings signed off for good.  One of the finales came to be praised as one of the best conclusions of all time – and the other reviled as one of the worst.  So let’s stack them up for comparison’s sake; put them in a fight to the death, using five questions to determine how memorable and satisfying the show’s ending is, and whether it adds to or detracts from the series as a whole.  Is the How I Met Your Mother Finale so awful?  Did Psych bobble a bit during its victory lap?  Let’s find out!

1: Wrapping Up Series-Wide Plot Arcs:  

• ·         Psych resolved the show’s long-term conflict between Head Detective Carlton Lassiter and Shawn Spencer.  Shawn finally directly admitted to Carlton that - just as Lassie had suspected for years – Shawn wasn’t psychic.  But in gratitude for Shawn’s friendship and support, Lassiter chose to ignore the evidence – thus signifying that the emotional hole in his life which had once been plugged by his thirst for destroying Shawn had been filled by a happy marriage to Marlowe and fatherhood to his daughter Lily.  Elsewhere, Gus chose between a “straight”, workaday job and consulting full-time with Shawn in San Francisco and Juliet, Karen, Henry and Buzz all advanced their careers, with Henry meeting a particularly satisfying end as a teacher.   As for Shawn, he finally and firmly mended his relationship with his dad and made an adult decision – choosing to move to Frisco and propose to Juliet.   The show generally satisfactorily wrapped up its long-term plots and arcs and left us with only three questions  - does Karen know Shawn’s psychic,  does Gus ever find romance and what happens to Woody? (4/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother did indeed introduce us to the mother and tell us why Ted was telling such a protracted story to his children.  We’ve already learned about what happens to Marshall, Ted, Robin and Barney in the future; have had plenty of flashforwards throughout the show’s various seasons to understand how Ted climbs from minor professor to major architectural influence, and how Marshall moves from unemployed lawyer to state supreme court justice.  Of the main characters, only Lily’s life is left up in the air.  The most dissatisfying part about the revelation of Ted and Tracy’s meeting isn’t that she ultimately died – it’s that her death is shunted aside in favor of the “realism”….of Ted behaving just as he did in his twenties, approaching Robin with the same romantic heedlessness, having learned nothing at all.
• ·         ADVANTAGE: PSYCH

2: Crafting Satisfying Conclusions to Long-Term Character Arcs:

• ·         Psych managed to bring its characters’ lives to a satisfying conclusion. When the series began, rookie Juliet was determined to prove herself but inexperienced in the ways of the world.  Over time, she developed into a tough leader of the SBPD’s homicide division, and was rewarded with a position in the San Francisco Police Department.  Chief Vick, the SBPD’s mother hen, also ended up with a position in San Fran, this time as Juliet’s direct supervisor – taking her mothering nature to a more influential arena.  Gus, after years as a corporate cog, quit his job to follow Shawn to San Francisco.  And Shawn, as detailed above, followed his heart, grows up, and embraces maturity to a degree, jettisoning his childish behavior and mending his oft-tattered relationships with Henry and Lassiter.  Carlton – a once-bitter divorcee who refused to believe in love and lived for his job – had become a devoted father and husband.   Henry, who had yearned for years for somebody to pass his knowledge along to, finally became a respected teacher.  Buzz, who often struggled with financial insolvency that left him moonlighting as a stripper to support his family, finally grabbed the brass ring and applied to become a junior detective.  The show was also wise enough not to give much attention to latecoming character and obvious fill-in for Juliet, Betsy Braddock.   In the end, only Gus ends up with something of an unsatisfying conclusion to his arc – he should have achieved some sort of independence from Shawn and their smothering friendship. (4/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother: Well…ever heard of character discontinuity?  Marshall and Lily, the world’s happiest couple, are last seen existing in bitter recrimination, Lily having been given her ‘turn’ to do what they want in Rome and Marshall unhappy about having to return to corporate law to pay the bills.   In the end HE gets his dream and Lily…raises three happy/semi-successful kids?   What about HER needs?  Meanwhile, career-driven Robin gets exactly what she wants and becomes a high-profile reporter…and ends up miserable, isolated from her friends, divorced from Barney and pining pathetically after Ted, who doesn’t notice what’s happening because he’s wrapped up in Tracy.  She abandons her friends when they need her the most, to boot.  Tracy dies of Movie Cancer after having had a pretty happy life with Ted, one supposes.  Barney becomes bitter over his divorce, tries to score a “perfect month”, ends up a father. Reforms the second he sees her and turns into an uptight slutshaming prude, placing the crushing weight of his reformation on the shoulders of a child.  Ted becomes a successful architect, mourns his wife for years, and…proves he hasn’t learned a damn thing and is still a romantic, reckless egotist.   The problem isn’t that Ted and Robin are trying again – the problem’s that we’ve been informed throroughly of how bad they are for one another.  Robin was beaten down until she was humble enough to accept Ted’s white horse with humility, and that is disgusting.  What this show did to its characters isn’t realistic – it’s terrible.  (1/5)
• ·         ADVANTAGE: PSYCH

3: Rewatchability:

• ·         Psych: Is best viewed after having enjoyed the rest of the series as a whole; it pays off handsomely the investment of its audience with a lot of emotional closure.  It caps off the experience of watching the show perfectly. (5/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother: And HIMYM provided a rare example of a show for which you can watch the pilot, watch one more episode of the show (Either “The Leap” or “The Final Page”) then skip directly to the series finale without missing any nuances.  This is what happens when you cling to outmoded ideas.
• ·         Advantage: Psych

4: Quotably Factor:

• ·         Psych: gave us “I Will Marry The Crap Out of You”. (3/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother: gave us “Love Is The Best Thing We Do.” (5/5)
• ·         Advantage: How I Met Your Mother

5: Influence on the rest of the series

• ·         Psych: Makes you want to rewatch the entire show from the beginning, just to watch the build-up happen all over again. (5/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother: Actually resulted in people trying to sell off their DVD collections (1/5)
• ·         Advantage: Psych

6: The Fallout

·        

•       Psych: Ended with an hourlong call-in party special with the cast filled with pranks, music, interviews and good vibes (5/5)
• ·         How I Met Your Mother: Ended with multiple explanations from its showrunners and cast and the promise of a recut ending...which will be distributed on the complete series dvd boxed set. (1/5)
• ·         Advantage: Psych

And the winner is: Psych, with a decisive 5 out of six categories won!  We’ll just have to wait and see if HIMYM's recut ending is worth its weight in gold.