"How I Met Your Mother" season 9 closed off with Ted (Josh Radnor) running after his dream girl Robin (Cobie Smulders) once again after his wife and the mother of his kids passed away.
The general perception was that fans were disappointed with the ending, since they assumed that the hopeless romantic Ted would simply be contented to see his best friend Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) happily married with Robin, and live to a ripe old age with his own wife Tracy McConnell (Cristin Milioti).
During a recent interview with HuffPost Live, Radnor said that he does not understand why a lot of people seem to think that the overall finale reaction was negative.
"A lot of (the reaction) was great," Radnor said. "I think the narrative the media got ahold of was that everyone was outraged. I don't think that was true."
Whenever he talks to people who loyally watched the show, their opinions are always different. "Sometimes it's 50/50," he said. "It seems to be about 60/40 - 60 (percent) disappointed, 40 (percent who liked it). So I think it's been overstated, people's disappointment with it."
As for himself, Radnor believes that the ending is very true to the show's core narrative. "It always upended your expectations, it always made you cry, it always was not what you thought it was. So I think it was in keeping with the DNA for the show. And my suspicion is that it will age pretty well, so let's talk in 10 years and see what people think," he said.
In fact, Radnor believes that people would have been even more disappointed if the show let Ted settle into his happy ending with Tracy and let Barney and Robin fight for their crumbling marriage despite their differences.
"If Ted and Tracy walked off into the sunset together, I think people would have called it a soft or sentimental ending, or that it was a fairy tale," he explained.
A lot of netizens didn't agree with what Radnor said, however, since they claim that majority of fans still haven't accepted the ending.
"I'm glad Josh Radnor has found people who enjoy it, but I haven't," someone wrote. "The negative opinion has so far been unanimous with everyone I've talked to who has seen it."
Another commented, "I loved the show for nine seasons, but then that finale happened and I haven't watched it since, save for the much better alternate ending. The finale basically says that no matter how much you grow, how much you change, how much you work, how much of a better person you become, how different you are, that it's all crap and you should just settle for what's comfortable."
