The final episode of How I Met Your Mother quickly cut a corpse- and divorce-ridden path through the ranks of controversial series finales, winding up somewhere north of the Seinfeld gang’s jail cell, and just outside the borders of Tommy Westphall’s snow globe. But it could’ve been sadder, if star Alyson Hannigan had her druthers. “[The full script] was also much more heart-wrenching,” Hannigan told TV Line this weekend, “which maybe people wouldn’t have liked.” Accounting for the fact that people already didn’t like the way the episode reconfigured the entire series to be about narrator Ted asking his kids if they’re cool with him shtupping their Aunt Robin, Hannigan dropped word of a scene deleted from the finale, one that depicted the funeral of The Mother viewers spent nine years alternately hearing and not hearing about. The scene was ultimately discarded for being “too gut-wrenching,” to the actress’ chagrin, because Alyson Hannigan just wants to watch you squirm. Or something like that: “I was like, ‘That’s what I want. I want my heart ripped out and slammed on the floor and, like, stomped on!’”
But even noted masochist Alyson Hannigan has her limits, and she’s looked deep into the root cause of fan disappointment with the series—couching it, as all How I Met Your Mother explanations must be couched, in a dating metaphor.
“You know how if you’re in a relationship and you get dumped, you’d rather be mad at the person? I feel like maybe they’re just like, ‘Well, that’s all right. You sucked anyway!’ That they just want to be mad at us for leaving them. They want to go out, like, angry, because it’s easier for them.”
An ongoing series about processing these feelings of rejection in expected to begin later this year. Also, CBS will probably pick up How I Met Your Dad.