Josh Radnor Reveals Deleted 'HIMYM' Finale Scene Featuring Ted and Robin

OK, HIMYM fans, it's been over 24 hours now — how's everyone doing when it comes to sorting out the show's series finale and attempting to move on? For me, I've been going back and forth a lot since we watched Ted hold up that blue french horn outside Robin's apartment in 2030. Sometimes I'm OK with how things ended. Sometimes I'm angry that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas choose to wrap up HIMYM the way they did. As you try to figure out your feelings, I have something that should make it even harder to come to find closure.

Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders shot a scene featuring the older versions of Ted and Robin. The scene would've fleshed out Robin's feelings for Ted. It would have explained how Robin became a bullfighter. And it got cut from the "Last Forever." Radnor talked Vulture about the scene. Here's what he had to say:

They cut a scene that Cobie [Smulders] and I shot between Ted and Robin. I thought it was a really important scene and I talked to Carter and Craig [Bays and Thomas, HIMYM's co-creators and co-showrunners] about it. I understand why they cut it, but I thought it laid in that Robin had been thinking about Ted all these years more than Ted had been thinking about Robin. But who knows? It’s weird to speculate on something that isn’t actually real. [Laughs.] It’s an imagined story, but you also have to wonder what happened in the six years after she died and what was that like for Ted. Obviously, he’s been mulling over his past and sifting through things. And there was that comment about Robin always coming over for dinner, so they’ve clearly reestablished a contact and a deep friendship. ... 

... It was a scene after they ran into each other on the street. They had lunch the next day. I don’t want to go too much into it because they obviously cut it for a reason, but I thought it was a really sweet and sad and funny scene. It also talked about Robin having a run-in with a bull in Spain. They’re so densely packed, these episodes, and they’re always long. We shot more than could be in the episode, which we always do, so some stuff has to go.

This is why I really think the stories told in the finale could have used another episode or two. One of the things that bothered me about the ending of "Last Forever" was how HIMYM just skipped over the six years between the death of The Mother and Ted going after Robin. Radnor is a smart guy and he knows the character of Ted Mosby better than anyone in the world besides Bays and Thomas. If he thought the episode needed this scene, I would've listened to him.

You'll also notice that the photo leading this article is from that scene. When that shot didn't make "Last Forever," I was wondering what happened to it.

It sounds like this wasn't the only scene to get cut from the finale. According to Alyson Hannigan, a scene featuring Lily having to return the money she thought she won from Marshall thanks to their bet over Ted and Robin winding up together didn't make the episode. Hannigan thinks the scene will make the DVD release.