“How I Met Your Mother” is a cultural phenomenon that has made quite a noise since 2005. A show as popular as “Friends” at one point, there are plenty of pop culture references from this show that is spoken about with great laughter even today. The story of five friends navigating their lives in New York City, who go through love, friendship, breakup, and heartbreaks all as a team, the show had an insane popularity that refuses to die down. Based on its popularity, Hulu Original “How I Met Your Father,” revolves around seven friends, two of them now living in Marshall and Ted’s old apartment and are navigating their lives in NYC while welcoming changes as each day goes by.
Spoilers Ahead
The Tale Of Sophie And Her Friends In New York
An elderly Sophie decides to tell her son the story about how she met his father after all. Sophie intends to tell him an unabridged version of the whole story about how she got to meet the love of her life, her son’s father, as he is now adult enough to know the whole story. Sophie is an up-and-coming photographer in New York City looking forward to a date through Tinder. She meets Jesse, the driver of the Uber she booked. He is a part-time Uber driver and a musician who is joined by Sid, his best friend, who is about to propose marriage to his girlfriend. Jesse and Sid make friends with Sophie, who is excited to meet her date, for she believes he could the love of her life. Sophie is an eternal optimist who believes after every failed date that there is someone somewhere out there who she will eventually fall in love with. Jesse and Sid, on the other hand, are planning the big proposal for Hannah at Sid’s bar in the city itself. Sid and Hannah have been in a long-distance relationship for years and are still very much in love. Sid now knows she is the one for him and takes the leap of faith to propose. The first episode mirrors the pilot episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” where Marshall proposes to Lily, and she agrees to marry him. Sid is excited to be engaged, as he has been looking forward to sealing the deal with Hannah for months.
Sophie, on the other hand, meets Ian, a marine biologist, who is perfect on paper but unfortunately, he has to move to Australia to study the coral reefs of the continent. They both realize their relationship does not have any future. Even though it is clear the chemistry between them is palpable and they want to continue dating, they know a long-distance relationship is the worst kind of situation there is, and both decide not to pursue it. Hannah, on the other hand, accepts the proposal, and Sid is beyond elated. Jesse, though, is a sucker for true love just like Sophie but has been recently heartbroken over the fact that his video of his proposal to his girlfriend, which she rejected, became viral. Sophie’s friend Valentina, a fashion assistant with a designer in the city, is back from a fashion week in London. With her, she brings along an English aristocrat, Charlie, who is amazed to be in New York City. Sophie is confused about her feelings for Jesse and vice versa, and they can’t seem to communicate what exactly is going through their heads. They hang out, and along with that, they have the struggling artist tag, which makes them very similar. Still, there is some distance between them, an air of awkwardness when it comes to dealing with their actual feelings.
‘How I Met Your Father’ Season 1: Ending
Sophie ends up getting introduced to Jesse’s friend Drew, who is a school vice principal at a local school in New York. They both are attracted to each other, and Sophie especially takes the leap of faith by agreeing to go on a date with Drew, much to Jesse’s concern. Sophie takes the jump, but this time she realizes that if it is right in front of her, she might as well grab the opportunity of dating a guy who likes her, and she likes him back. Jesse, on the other hand, is struggling between his feelings for Sophie and his feelings for his ex-girlfriend, Meredith. Jesse is also struggling for the time in years to write a song because most of the songs had input from Meredith, and a lot of them were songs about his love for her. He now must try hard to come up with lyrics and compositions for his work. Jesse is sort of going through a mental block because he is unable to get over the fact that Meredith publicly refused to marry him. For Jesse, Meredith was the love of his life, and being rejected by her means his life has taken ten steps backward in the grand scheme of things.
Jesse had his life planned out just like Sid and Hannah did, but unlike them, Jesse ended up being heartbroken. Jesse also is struggling to maintain a relationship with his estranged sister Ellen, who is in town after her divorce. Ellen was adopted by Jesse’s parents from Vietnam, but the parents split eventually. Ellen left with her mother, and Jesse stayed back with his father. Years after they meet, there are plenty of things they don’t know about each other’s current lives. They start getting to know each other from scratch by talking about their lives once their parents split. Jesse is happy to help his sister, but unlike Jesse, Ellen is not an optimist, for she is struggling to get over her divorce as well. Ellen is a lesbian, and since she split with her partner, she is finding it difficult to go on dates with women for fear of rejection and heartbreak. She is also not finding a job, and that’s why she is dependent on a regular paycheck she receives from her ex because of a joint investment they made in an organic farm. Ellen knows she must put her life back out there to move on, and she will eventually have to find a steady paycheck that would help land her on her feet.
Sophie and Drew are having a good time while dating, but Drew’s sophisticated nature makes Sophie think she needs to be that way too. Both are in their 30s, but he seems a lot more sorted out than she is. As she finds it difficult to do that, she conveys that she is probably not as sophisticated as he is, and Drew has no issues with that. Sophie tries hard to impress the man she is with, but he eventually starts liking her for who she is. Valentina and Charlie fell in love, even though they had no plans for that to happen. Valentina has always been a woman who would stick to maintaining a casual relationship with her dates, and Charlie was used to being in a committed relationship. Valentina letting her guard down to bring Charlie into her space is a big step for her, and this time she does not hesitate to do that. Charlie and Valentina are the couple no one expected would end up falling in love, but this is one step forward, especially for Valentina.
Sophie realizes that Drew does not take her profession nor Jesse’s dream to be a musician seriously. Sophie and Drew get into a fight over this, and she wonders if Drew is the one for her. Sophie is also on the path to becoming a photographer, whose photos will be showcased at a prestigious museum. She initially struggles to get the right image but finally manages to crack the one she wants to submit, which has Jesse at the forefront of it. Sophie’s submission is selected for the exhibit, and she is sure she is not going to look back from now on. Her relationship with Drew very soon reaches a rut because Sophie now knows what Drew thinks of her profession and why he wants her to find a stable job. Sophie rethinks all the plans she has made with Drew, and they end up arguing over them. Sophie, in a vulnerable state, ends up kissing Jesse, whom she still finds attractive because they have a lot in common. Sophie kissing Jesse snowballs into several events that happen in their lives.
Jesse meets up with Meredith, who confesses that she regrets breaking up with him. Jesse realizes this is the closure he needs, and the song Meredith wrote is the validation he needs to move on. Sophie, on the other hand, struggles to break up with him after Drew apologizes for his behavior. But Sophie has no choice but to deal with her feelings for Jesse and break up with Drew. After meeting up with Jesse right after her break up to discuss their future together, Sophie backs away when Jesse reveals that Meredith had offered to travel with her band as a pianist on the tour of her concerts around the country and he rejected it. She believes it is too soon in a relationship for Jesse to be giving up on things that will enhance his career. Jesse is confused, and he wonders if Sophie is indeed interested in dating him after all. And both decide to take some time off. Hannah and Sid, on the other hand, are struggling to find time for each other, make plans for the wedding, and realize their idea of having two wedding ceremonies will be costing them a lot. This is taking a toll on their relationship, and both are trying to figure out how to trudge through such times to make sure they don’t break up. On the day of the exhibition, Sophie meets up with Robin at MacLaren’s bar, who convinces her of the fact that fear will make Sophie miss plenty of beautiful things about being in a relationship with the right person they love. Sophie comes to the conclusion that she needs to get over her fear of getting too close, too fast. Sophie goes back to Jesse’s apartment to see him kissing Meredith and agreeing to go on a tour with her. Sophie is heartbroken and heads to the exhibit, which is the biggest showcase of her life.
Hannah and Sid show up at the exhibit and announce that both have eloped and gotten married; meanwhile, Charlie and Valentina have a heart-to-heart about their future, and it seems Charlie does not want kids, but Valentina does. They realize they can’t be in a relationship when their end goals are very different. At the exhibit, Sophie runs into Ian, who is back from Australia. The reason he is back is because the famous Captain and Becky from “How I Met Your Mother” universe are on the verge of getting a divorce. As a divorce settlement, Becky demands all his boats. She wants to dismantle them because she hates all the boats he owns. One of his boats was in Australia, on which Ian was working to save the coral reefs, which have now been taken over by Becky. So now that the boat is now her property, the research has been stopped, which makes sure Ian is back in town, and he surprises Sophie. Sophie, in the last 48 hours, broke up with someone, kissed the guy she liked, called off that relationship before it even began, and is back to being attracted to Ian, whom she’d always wanted to date. Sophie is going through multitudes of emotions, and she is sure she will find a solution to all her confusion right now, which is who to choose from here on. Ian or Jesse?
What To Expect From Season 2 Of ‘How I Met Your Father’?
Season 2 will begin where season 1 left off, that is, with Sophie trying to figure out whether to choose Ian or Jesse. By the looks of it, Sophie might end up dating Ian, and Jesse might end up getting back together with Meredith. There is going to be a “who is more jealous?” match between Sophie and Jesse. But it will be interesting to watch how the story goes ahead from here and find out who is the father of Sophie’s kid. Season 2 will also divulge Valentina and Charlie’s life post-breakup and how Sid and Hannah manage long distances after their marriage.
Final Thoughts
“How I Met Your Father” is a bland version of “How I Met Your Mother,” where the character here doesn’t have any depth of arc that anyone can follow. The description of the main characters has not been explored well because there are conflicting traits shown throughout the show. Sophie, who starts wanting to look for love, backs away from being with Jesse just because she has a fear of committing or of moving too fast. These two traits are contradictory, and nowhere in the show do the writers or creators show that Sophie fears being in a committed relationship. The humor does not land, for one needs a character like Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney to take the show forward. “How I Met Your Father,” season 1, could have been far more engaging if the creators had spent more time creating characters who had layers instead of sticking to the tried-and-true formula of the original show. I hope to see some good subplots in the second season of this show.
