How I Met Your Father has finally premiered and here is a recap of the new Hulu comedy series set in the How I Met Your Mother universe.
Pilot
It’s 2050 and Sophie (Kim Cattrall) is telling her son how she met his father. Assuring his mom that he knows the story, Sophie insists on telling the longer and more complicated story that led to their meeting.
Zooming back to 2022, we meet a younger Sophie (Hilary Duff) who is on her way for a date with Ian (Daniel Augustin). They met on Tinder and despite the negative connotations of meeting people through the social media app, Sophie believes this experience is going to be different.
Catching an Uber from Jesse (Christopher Lowell) who is also driving his best friend Sid (Suraj Sharma) Sophie learns that Sid is about to propose to his longtime girlfriend Hannah (Ashley Reyes). Leaving her ride behind, Sophie has the best date of her life with Ian, only to learn he is moving to Australia for work.
Coming home, Sophie tells her woes to her best friend and roommate Valentina (Francia Raisa). While describing her heartbreak, Sophie meets Valentina’s new boyfriend Charlie (Tom Ainsley). They got together at London Fashion Week, and he moved to New York City with Valentina.
After briefly considering how difficult a long-distance relationship would be with Ian, Sophie tries to call Ian to convince him to try, only to learn that she accidently switched phones with Jesse in the Uber. Remembering Sid’s plan to propose to Hannah at Pemberton’s Bar, Sophie dashes off to get her phone back.
At the bar, Sophie is forced to wait until Sid and Hannah show up. She meets Jesse’s sister Ellen (Tien Tran) who has just moved to the city after her divorce and looks to find love again and start a new life. When Sid and Hannah arrive, the proposal is a success, and Sophie is finally able to get her phone back. Telling her new friends what she plans to do, they all pile into Jesse’s car to drive Sophie to the airport and drop Hannah off for her flight home to Los Angeles.
Sophie’s optimism about a long-distance relationship with Ian is shot down right away. For Ian it would be too hard to maintain as he would be on a boat for many months at a time. The guy who Sophie thought she would finally walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (this is what she would do with the love of her life) gets on a plane and leaves.
While Jesse wonders why she holds out hope for true love, he learns from Valentina that Sophie is the product of a broken home, where she was more of a parent than her mom. Instead of waiting for her one true love to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, Sophie invites her new friends to join her on her evening stroll.
Episode 2: FOMO
Sophie is picking up the pieces of her shattered romance with Ian. Rather than letting her friend stay in bed all day listening to her comfort song “Drops of Jupiter” Valentina gets her friend up and they do their daily Jane Fonda workout.
An evening at the hottest new club FOMO is planned. While Sophie is mourning what could have been with Ian, Valentina is having second thoughts about her relationship with Charlie. The exiled Charlie has no friends, and Sophie texts Jesse to see if they all want to meet up at FOMO so Charlie can make some new friends which would give Valentina some space.
Jesse, who is no stranger to heartache, mistakenly believes that Sophie is interested in him, so he, Ellen, and Sid meet up with them at the club. Sophie knows she must let go of Ian, but a recent text from the far-off former flame has caused her some angst, which leads Sophie to being kicked out of the club.
Stuck outside on the street, Sophie has left Jesse sitting in the club waiting for her. The group reunites and heads back to Pemberton’s, Sid’s bar, where Valentina and Charlie agree to take a step back from their relationship but stay together. Jesse and Sophie talk and agree to be friends. Interestingly, Sophie learns that Jesse’s comfort song is “Drops of Jupiter” too.
Bill’s Perspective
I had a lot of questions going into my first viewing of How I Met Your Father. Would this show live up to the legacy of its predecessor? Can lightning in a bottle be captured twice? (I am huge fan of the original series and you can check out my article explaining my feelings here It’s Legen — wait for it — dary: Top 5 Reasons Why I Think "How I Met Your Mother" is Perfect)
To me, How I Met Your Father was a delightful surprise. The tone of the show was perfect, the humor made me laugh, and Hilary Duff has her best role as Sophie. She’s charming and engaging and balances out the role with grace and humor well. Duff has a difficult job leading this ensemble and she navigates that duty well, being funny and sentimental, while showing off her appeal as the hopeful romantic at heart.
The pilot is all about establishing Sophie and getting the audience to like her. Mission accomplished. Episode two quickly throws all the actors together to establish the needed group bond. The speed of their sudden friendship is a little quick, perhaps they should have been friends before or at least known each other, but that’s forgivable.
While the brother-sister dynamic of Ellen and Jesse is touched on, and Sid’s struggle to make the long-distance relationship with Hannah work is mentioned, we get a sense that How I Met Your Father is not just trying to duplicate the success of the previous show. With an expanded cast and multiple storylines taking place at the same time, How I Met Your Father is showing a snapshot of life in 2022 (without the reminder of the misery of COVID-19) and allowing viewers the chance to hope for the best for everyone while rooting for Sophie.
It’s nice to watch a show that stays positive even when difficult moments arise. What a refreshing change of pace from the real world and from many intense dramatic shows of late.