As the first episode of How I Met Your Father begins, it is 2050 and Sophie (Kim Cattrall) uses her smart home system to call her son using her voice. She wants to tell him the story of how she met his father. Although he thinks he already knows, Sophie believes it is time he hears the unabridged version. Sophie begins by saying their love story started with a Tinder date like many love stories from 2022 did. As we jump back in time, young Sophie (Hilary Duff) rushes across the street because she is late for her Tinder date. She gets into a car with Jesse (Christopher Lowell) and his friend Sid (Suraj Sharma) who is just hitching a ride.

Sid won’t stop until Sophie asks why he is hitching a ride. When she does, he says he is going to propose to his girlfriend who will be his fiancée. Jesse pleads with Sophie to choke him out using his charging cord because Sid is so annoying. Instead, Sophie asks to use it while joking her phone’s belly is hungry. Sid goes on to say his girlfriend’s name is Hannah (Ashley Reyes) and she is a surgical resident in LA so they’ve been doing the long-distance dating thing. As for Sid, he has been running his bar called the Pemberton’s. He is going to pretend to take his girlfriend to Beyonce only to bring her to the bar to propose to her.

Sophie and Jesse are worried Hannah is going to be bummed she doesn’t get to see Beyonce. Sophie says she thinks she has found the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with, but there is a catch. He is from Tinder and they haven’t met each other yet. Jesse thinks she might have unrealistic expectations although Sophie denies it. She tells them about her last Tinder date with a guy who was 20 minutes late because he had another date that went well and had sex. He believed she’d want to hear that. He was wrong. Sophie screamed what is wrong with everyone before going outside to quit Tinder. When she went to deactivate her account, she matched with Ian (Daniel Augustin). Sophie walks them through the relationship and says it started with friendly banter.

Ian learned that Sophie is a photographer who mainly shoots stuff like birthday parties and engagement photos to pay the rent. Her heart is in street photography though. He jokes about that before saying he is a marine biologist. They began texting more frequently until they are doing it all day. She eventually questions when he is going to invite her out for a date. He’d love to do that, but he is in Australia for two weeks for work. They made plans to meet up when he got back and that is where Sophie is going. She calls it her last first date ever. Sid says it is romantic although Jesse believes there is a slim chance it is going to work out. Once Sophie gets out, Jesse and Sid argue about Jesse liking Sophie. He denies it while Sid says otherwise.

Sophie goes inside and meets Ian. In the present, older Sophie says that begins the best first date she had ever been on. During the date, Sophie tries to score another date by offering to go to the movie where Joaquin Phoenix plays Amelia Earhart. However, Ian breaks the news that he is moving to Australia. It was supposed to be temporary until they offered him a full-time position on a team that’s helping endangered coral reefs procreate. Ian goes on to say he is leaving tonight and only came back to pack and sublet his place. He didn’t tell her because he was afraid she wouldn’t come. They agreed a long-distance relationship would be a bad idea. Although they want to kiss at the end of the date, Sophie says it is best if they don’t. She suggests it might happen someday though.

She was devastated. However, returning home to Aunt Valentina (Francia Raisa) made it a bit easier. Valentina jumps, claps, and screams when she learns Ian was everything they thought he’d be. She stops and learns he is moving to Australia without Sophie. When Sophie suggests being two single women doing it for themselves and starting a podcast about not needing men, Charlie (Tom Ainsley) walks in naked. She thinks it is a pervert so she quickly grabs a bottle of mace. Valentina calms her, says they met at fashion week, and they’re all going to live together. When Charlie told his family he was moving in with a Mexican assistant stylist, they made some outdated Ugly Betty jabs.

They also cut off his trust fund. Charlie thinks he can get by using his wits. Val says she wasn’t going to let rational thought get in her way causing Sophie to consider being irrational with Ian too. She wants to call him but finds out she took the wrong phone when she got out of the Uber. She has to rush to Pemberton’s to find Sid. Charlie is excited to get to go and see what the subway is like until he gets to ride on one. When they walk into the bar, Jesse and the others jump out and try to surprise Sid. Jesse learns that she has Sid’s phone so they weren’t tracking Sid after all. Once they all hide again, Ellen (Tien Tran) surprises and says hello to Val and Charlie.

She reveals she just moved here from Iowa and she happens to be Jesse’s adopted sister. After Charlie asks her about the subway, Ellen says she is getting divorced from her lesbian lover. She has moved to New York to start over. Jesse makes sure Sophie stays hidden while saying he is never getting married because the one girl he loved broke his heart. Sophie recognizes Jesse as the guy from the viral video who got rejected by his bandmate. As he tells her about that girl, Sid and Hannah walk in together and get surprised. Sid talks to her about their time in med school and believing they can make it through anything together. He proposes and she says yes, but she still believes they’re going to see Beyonce. He breaks the news to her.

Sophie gets her phone back seconds later although it is dead. Charlie complains about the bathroom stalls and everyone urinating at once. Val gets mad when he says he can’t live in this hellscape. Helen learns her patient found a lung so she has to get back to LA. Jesse says his sister is hitting it off with Sophie’s friends although it doesn’t look like it. Sophie says she is going to get out of here as soon as her phone charges, but she doesn’t want Jesse to give up on love. She says his Brooklyn Bridge girl is out there somewhere before explaining she has never walked across and intends to do so with her soulmate. Once Sophie’s phone is charged, she says she is going to rush to JFK to tell Ian they’re meant to be. When Sid wants to borrow Jesse’s car to drive Hannah to the airport, Sophie decides to go too.

Charlie decides to tag along with Val since he’d had to sell his body to survive otherwise. Before Jesse leaves, he makes sure Ellen comes too. Sophie manages to make it to the airport in time to meet with Ian. She rambles before saying their relationship felt easy and that rarely happens. Although Sophie would like to try, Ian says it is going to be a 14-hour time difference and he’ll be living for weeks without cellular service. He says it might happen someday. Since Sophie doesn’t want to wait for someday to come around, she decides to walk the Brooklyn Bridge without her love. Charlie says the bridge is flowing with life and personality like Val. She says she fell for him so hard because she thought he was brave for giving up his pampered life to try it with them.

He agrees to be a part of their magic. Ellen uses that as inspiration to get over her divorce and ask a woman out to dinner. Jesse believes Sophie will be okay since she has her parents’ stupid love story to keep her optimistic. Val tells him that her mother was a party girl jumping from guy to guy and her dad wasn’t in the picture. The only thing magical about her life is the fact she still believes she can fall in love. They go back to Sid and Jesse’s place for drinks as older Sophie says that is the night she met his father. She admits the part about them getting together is a much longer story.

 

How I Met Your Father Review

At this point, it is too soon for the son to claim he was adopted just to skip his mom’s story and move on with his life. It has only been one episode so there is always a chance that things will calm down and pan out in the long run. Still, I sincerely doubt this is something I’ll ever enjoy or willingly watch. It just isn’t for me, but I am not a fan of these types of in-your-face comedies anyway.

Some may stick with it. However, I’d bet a lot of people have already found countless reasons to hate on this show from the annoying laugh track to the shallow characters and unrealistic setting. For me, the only interesting character was the Prince Harry replica Charlie who at least was spilling some hard truths here and there.

The biggest issue might be the show’s believability factor since it doesn’t have any. It feels like a fantasy land full of someone’s wishes with bits and pieces of the real world sprinkled in. The opening episode scores a 5.5 out of 10 and that might be too generous. Recaps of How I Met Your Father will be available here if I manage to stick with it. Learn how to support the Reel Mockery project by following this link.