We should not deny the obvious: the finale season of How I Met Your Mother that we are all enduring has been, well, uneven. To put it mildly. HIMYM is now running thin on almost every plot and character, and as such it’s no surprise that the only real life the season has found has been a result of Cristin Millioti, the eponymous mother of our long (long) story. (Turns out I love Cristin Millioti).

But nine years is a long time. So while it may be whimpering over the finish line, we should also not deny that HIMYM has had more than a few charms over the course of its life, enough so that I’ve remained a faithful viewer. In fact, for a few years, HIMYM was very good. And I’d be lying if I said there was not a hint of melancholy attached to the show’s end.

So, as the finale approaches (it airs March 31), I’ve taken up the spirit of HIMYM, and constructed a nostalgic look back at the nine-year run. One day, maybe*, I’ll tell my kids that a show was once on TV and that it was pretty good for a while, and I’ll share what I miss (and what I don’t) about How I Met Your Mother.

What I’ll Miss:

The unreliable narrator. The writers had more fun with this in the show’s early seasons-redirecting stories, shifting the timeline, editing out inappropriate content for the kids-but it remains an important part of the show even to the end. It’s what makes Ted’s search for love bearable: he’s talking about himself. He makes himself look good or bad, as needed, because he’s telling his own story. The unreliable narrator didn’t get invented on HIMYM of course, but I appreciate the way the show’s writers embraced it as a core element of what could have been a cop-out tool.

What I’ll Miss:

Neil Patrick Harris. The resurgence of Neil Patrick Harris has been the single greatest achievement of How I Met Your Mother. NPH has become the absolute model of likability in Hollywood. His charm and lightness exude qualities that seem rare on television in the era when television needs a little goodness. What he’s done with Barney, turning him from a psychopathic monster into a sympathetic lost-soul has been a lot of fun, too.

What I Won’t Miss:

Barney. All the good feelings about NPH aside, enough already.

He built a bed/garbage chute in his apartment to dispose of women after he slept with them. That happened. On How I Met Your Mother.

What I’ll Miss:

Lily and Marshall’s marriage. The relationship of Lily and Marshall is responsible for me getting into this show in the first place. And as my wife and I watched, we started to connect a great deal to these two kids. Needless to say, I can relate to a Minnesota boy who married a girl from the big city, and all the resulting challenges that ensue (getting pregnant, buying a house, friends vs. family). That feeling we had watching Lily and Marshall, of identifying closely to their young marriage, is not because ours is particularly like theirs. It’s rather because the writers at How I Met Your Mother painted a touching picture of a young couple. The scene when Lily tell’s Marshall his dad died is locked in my brain. I was caught off guard by how emotional it left me. That’s the first moment I remember thinking, this show’s actually quite special.

At the end of the day, Lily and Marshall truly enjoy each other’s company, and that, too, is something I’ll miss watching. The high-fives they share actually seem sincere. TV marriages in which the couple has fun in each others company are actually pretty rare.That might have as much to do with Jason Segal and Alyson Hannigan as the writing, but either way, it’s much appreciated.

What I Won’t Miss:

The disappearing baby act. Lily and Marshall fretted all that time over having a baby. Then, finally Marvin Wait-for-It Eriksen finally arrives. Lily struggles for an episode or two and then, POOF!, child-free parents for the rest of the show.

This is not a HIMYM problem. Writing babies into TV shows is obviously so difficult that it’s easiest to forget about the baby entirely (Friday Night Lights?). But I have a baby and he is actually alive, somewhere, all the time. Since he’s been here, I’ve had a lot less patience for writers dropping the baby-story. If you don’t wanna write a baby into show, don’t write a baby into the show.

What I’ll Miss:

Robin Sparkles. As far as the HIMYM cast goes, Robin Sherbatsky is hit or miss. Her function in the show starts out more as mechanism (Ted’s love interest to propel the story) more than as a full-fledged character. That she ends up with Barney is pretty much absurd. Robin would never have ended up with Barney.

Still, Robin sets up many of the shows best gags, and her life as a teenage pop star in Canada is certainly among the show’s best. “Let’s Go To The Mall” is one of the funniest things HIMYM ever conceived. And the episode in which her old boyfriend (played by James Van der Beek) returns to get his demo “Murder Train” on her morning show is epic. Sometimes, at random, I think of “Murder Train” playing over the adopt a puppy segment, and crack up.

What I Won’t Miss:

Stale running gags. The show started as a boisterous affair of gags and jokes and good-times. But as the show progressed, and Ted’s kids’ Mother seemed ever more distant, what was once good times became the same-old times. This is a threat that every sitcom faces. And unfortunately, HIMYM succumbed.

Most of these centered on Barney. He became the center of the show as Ted’s search became stale. Unfortunately, Barney’s character is almost entirely built around running gags, and so most of those jokes became stale, too. Legend…wait-for-it…shoot me in the face if I ever hear this again.

What I’ll Miss:

Ted Mosby’s unabashed romanticism. Ted seems to be the most divisive character in his own story. But I have to say, after all this time, I’ve always like Ted’s directness. The man wants to be married and have kids and be a dad. And he wants it so badly that he sees every potential date as a potential mother to his kids. There’s something about that kind of hopeful, optimistic outlook that should be cherished. He’s the anti-Barney, and some of HIMYM’s best stretches resulted from the interplay between Ted’s desire for love and Barney’s desire for sexual conquest.

He can be annoying and desperate. He’d be the worst college professor ever (he never teaches anything). And his unending sad-sackery would drive his mates to the asylum. But dammit. This is his story, and he’s a romantic.

What I Won’t Miss:

Ted Mosby, the person. I really appreciate How I Met Your Mother‘s commitment to Ted’s romantic pursuit. It’s a worthy subject for a sitcom, and for the most part, HIMYM got it right. But whoa, Ted Mosby? That guy. Come on. Insufferable. Always correcting you. Always quoting something or someone. The detectiving? How Lily and Marshall and Robin managed to spend so much time with that guy is a mystery (not Barney. I get that).

Serious props to Josh Radnor for what he’s done with Ted. It’s no easy task to combine the sympathetic and loyal friend who just wants to be loved Ted Mosby with the saccharine, sincere, liberal arts know-it-all Architect and meddler. That I like Ted Mosby at all is credit to Josh Radnor.

The running gag I’ll miss the most:

Slapsgiving. The slap bet set the bar high for a show that prized itself on running gags. The unending debt Barney’s face owes Marshall’s slapping hand is one of the few gags that never got old. Because if you knew Barney, you’d want to slap him right in his face too. Probably.

The running gag I’ll miss the least:

The Bro Code. Snooze.

My favorite joke on How I Met Your Mother:

Barney’s version of The Karate Kid. So funny. So random. A transcript:

Barney: The story of a hopeful young karate enthusiast, whose dreams and moxie take him all the way to the All-Valley Karate Championship. Of course, he loses in the final round to that nerd kid. But he learns an important lesson about gracefully accepting defeat.
Lily: Wait. When you watch the Karate Kid, you actually root for that mean blonde kid?
Barney: No. I root for the scrawny loser from New Jersey who barely even knows karate. When I watch the Karate Kid I root for THE karate kid: Johnny Lawrence from the Cobra Kai Dojo. Get your head out of your ass Lily.

The only thing I don’t like about this joke is that it led to the aimless presence Billy Zabka wandering this aimless, miserable final season. It’s a constant reminder that HIMYM used to be so funny. And now, it’s just hanging on to those days with Billy Zabka jokes.

The worst joke on How I Met Your Mother:

I said that Slapsgiving was the best running gag on the show, and I think it is. So it’s extra-terrible that it is also the gag that is responsible for the single worst joke in the show’s single worst episode. In the beginning was “Slap Bet”, and here, in the final season, was “Slappy Seconds.”

Apparently it was meant as a “silly and unabashedly immature homage to kung-fu movies,” according to the show’s official apology. Yeah. There’s an official apology, because the episode was that offensive. Turns out Asian viewers don’t appreciate white actors in yellow-face playing Asian stereotypes.

The potential Mother I’ll miss the most:

Victoria. Of all Ted’s future-kids’ potential mothers, Victoria was the best. She was equally capable of dismantling Ted’s romantic nonsense, or meeting it with her own. When Victoria left for Germany, I was convinced no matter who the mother is, it SHOULD BE VICTORIA.

I really liked Victoria. She’s an amazing baker. She’s sweet, and funny. She lived in Germany. She owns up to her mistakes. She’s a real, substantive woman. That Ted ends up cheating on her is a hard hand to be dealt for one of the show’s most likable women. That he gets another shot and doesn’t take it is a shame. (Also: Victoria’s request that Ted no longer spend every day of his life with his ex-girlfriend was not unreasonable). As far as I am concerned, HIMYM should have ended in season 8, when the writers had the good sense to bring Victoria back and the two were all set to tie the knot.

The potential Mother I’ll miss the least:

Zoey. Ugh. By the time that Zoey came around, HIMYM had already lost most of its charm. Zoey and the Captain just reinforced it. Their fight over the Arcadian became a weak arc drawing out so many overwrought metaphorical messages for character growth that at times I thought I was watching Full House. And it’s a shame because Jennifer Morrison is great.

*probably not, though.

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