[SPOILERS AHEAD] It’s no secret that a good series finale can be hard to pull off. Just look at the backlash popular shows such as LOST and Dexter received for their series finales, after all. Series co-creator and executive producer Carter Bays of the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) learned this the hard way, as people have been complaining nonstop about the series finale that aired nearly a week ago. While Bays doesn’t seem too bothered about the criticism he and the HIMYM folks are receiving, he has revealed that an alternate ending was shot that will be included when the season nine DVD set is released.

For nine long seasons, How I Met Your Mother fans waited to find out how the conversation ends that Ted started with his teenage kids in the first episode of the show. Throughout the series, there was much speculation that the Mother was dead all along, which Cristin Milioti (Tracy McConnell, the mom) shot down recently.

Nope.

As it turned out, Milioti wasn’t being truthful, as Ted revealed in the final moments of the show that the kids’ mom had died. Apparently she had been dead for a few years, and the kids urged their dad to move on and pursue their Aunt Robin. And pursue her he did–the closing of the series shows Ted outside Robin’s apartment with a blue French horn. This ending left many viewers feeling outraged and betrayed, and naturally, a bunch of them logged onto their Twitter and Facebook accounts to complain.

With so many people unhappy, Bays took to Twitter to address the complaints and also revealed that an alternate ending to the show was shot.

First of all I want to say thank you for the lovely messages from everybody who loved the #HIMYMFinale.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 4, 2014

If you didn't like the finale, I guess that happens. We tried something and it didn't connect with you. I hope we're still friends.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 4, 2014

We only shot one script, but through edit room magic we had two possible outcomes for the series.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 4, 2014

There is absolutely no indicator as to what the HIMYM alternate ending will contain (and it’s hard to imagine that much of anything would satisfy most of the disgruntled fans), but regardless of how it goes, Bays makes it clear that he stands by the original ending.

We chose the ending we chose and we stand by it. But we loved the other version too.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 4, 2014

We're going to include that version on the Complete Series DVD as an alternate finale to How I Met Your Mother.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 4, 2014

Unfortunately for Bays, the wording of his last tweet had even more people complaining, since his post indicates that fans will have to buy the entire nine-season DVD set to watch the alternate ending. These complaints prompted a followup tweet:

Update for those who've been asking: Alt #himym ending will be on s9 DVD and also in the series box set.

— Carter Bays (@CarterBays) April 5, 2014

Crisis averted. Now everyone can go back to complaining about the HIMYM finale or start complaining about how the alternate ending is going to suck.

Now that Bays knows how to succeed at infuriating the masses with a series finale, maybe he will go in a different direction when it’s time to film the closing of the upcoming spin-off How I Met Your Dad.

Image via Twitter