How I Met Your Father review: Hilary Duff’s Hulu show gives me what I want

As many other people, I too was shocked by this. How I Met Your Mother finale. Why?Spend nine seasons developing a character, only for her to be killed off unceremoniously. I don’t understand why Ted Mosby, the insufferable Ted Mosby, would break up my favourite couple. He could still shoot their shot many decades later. The sitcom was captivating, with its close-knit friendship group dynamics and full of inside jokes shared by the characters, but the final 10 minutes completely destroyed everything that I loved about it.

Also, where is the best place to go? How I Met Your Father — not to be confused with the shelved How I Met Your Dad — was announced, I rejected it on principle. They won’t get me this timeThat was what I believed. I’m stronger. I’ve learned. I’ve grown past the need for sitcoms about friend groups in New York City in impossibly cool apartments.

’Twas with a steeled heart that I watched the How I Met Your FatherPremiere, though I squinted my eyes as I mentally prepared for disappointment. But, the more that I watched the movie, the more my heart began to melt. I realized, perhaps, for the first and only time, that maybe I was actually enjoying it. ParticularlyThe target audience for something. With whom I grew up Lizzie McGuire“I watched it.” How I Met Your MotherFinale in my college dorm commune area. I’m a late-20-something living and working in New York City. I feel like the pandemic is limiting my ability to have spontaneous, funny adventures with a bunch of people who seem to have a very clear schedule (as though I had ever been out much). AndThe Brooklyn Bridge was in the background of my engagement photos (more details later).

If I can’t race across the city with a group of beautiful people, at least I can watch Hilary Duff do so! I’ve shed my cynicism and reluctantly embraced How I Met Your Father — which may yet disappoint me, but I am clinging to the way this first episode made me feel.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first episode of How I Met Your Father]

Image: Hulu

It is the premise of How I Met Your Father It is almost the exact same as How I Met Your Mother. Kim Cattrall plays Sophie, a middle-aged woman who calls her son 2050 to share the story about how she met her father. Flashback to 2022, where she’s played by Hilary Duff, and Sophie is about to go on the most important Tinder date of her life, with charming marine biologist Ian (Daniel Augustin). Jesse (Chris Lowell) is taking Sophie to Uber to drive Sid (Suraj Swaram), his friend and best friend. Sophie’s date gets cut short, however, when she learns that Ian has taken a job in Australia — despite all their chemistry, both agree that a long distance relationship based on a lot of texting and one IRL meeting is probably a bad idea.

Thanks to some sitcom mishaps and magic, by the end of the episode, Sophie walks across the Brooklyn Bridge with not just Sid and Jesse, but Jesse’s adopted sister Ellen (Tien Tran), who freshly moved to NYC after a divorce; and Sophie’s impulsive roommate Valentine (Francia Raisa) and Charlie (Tom Ainsley), her posh British boyfriend who she spontaneously invited to live with her after he got disowned. Although they are all destined to end up walking the same fateful walk, it is a result of some contrived television events. However, that is what makes sitcoms so great: Even though many things go horribly wrong, one thing is always wonderful. How I Met Your MotherThat was the only way I could do it (at least until that final episode). It’s amazing to see that happen again. How I Met Your Father The promise of the same satisfying sitcom serendipity. Sophie informs her son at the end that the show is over. Did indeed meet his father that night — and the show flashes on every single man of note, including both Sid and Charlie — but that the story of how they got together is much longer.

It’s a notable twist on the original, where we didn’t meet the Mother till the very last episode of the last season. It’s exactly the same as how it was in the original. How I Met Your Mother It was all about the core group of friends. How I Met Your Father This seems to be more about friendship and less about romance. But unlike How I Met Your MotherThe viewer was invited to join a group of friends that had already been established. How I Met Your Father It seems like it is building with two different friend groups joining together. It’s not the same immediate chemistry of How I Met Your Mother, but the different dynamic makes the show particularly compelling — how DoesYou can meet people in New York City during your 20s, even if you don’t have to take them with you from college.

While Sid and his fianceé do resemble Marshall and Lily on a surface level, the characters aren’t VeryOne-to-one matches HIMYM cast (and probably for the better — let’s be real, Barney’s whole schtick did not age well). Certain sitcom tropes do thread them together — Sophie as the lead romantic is obviously gonna be similar to Ted, while cynical Jesse shares some traits with Robin. The familiarities, however, are not direct homages but are more like stock characters from sitcoms. Charlie is the best addition. His irksome, posh New York roots provide a humorous contrast to everyday life. However, the other characters are all capable of developing beyond their short impressions. The similarities between the original cast are there if you want to look for them, but it’s not required.

Image: Hulu

Unfortunately, there is a similarity. IsThe comedic delivery is very 2000s-esque and glaring. Perhaps that stilted and contrived delivery felt charming in 2005, but in 2022 it’s just awkward. It’s almost identical to the original timing, which is equal parts confusing and nostalgic. One question is: Would it be possible? How I Met Your Mother sequel if it didn’t spark the same sort of energy? On the other hand, certain today-isms are just as sound StrangeSitcom language of the early 2000s. Sophie claims her phone is hungry at one point and then makes cutesy gobbling sounds as she plugs the charger into the car. I visibly cringed (as if I had not made that same exact noise when charging my phone before); it’s just a version of today that doesn’t quite exist in the real world. Sometimes it’s awkward and weird. It can also transcend the cringe.

This is 2022, and no one rides in Ubers wearing masks. Going to a bar packed on Saturday nights seems fun, but it was something I had to experience. I want to see an actress I grew up with getting to do the things I thought I would do at this age, with a group of strangers slowly becoming friends since they all magically live within easy commute of each other and have schedules that line up (I cannot stress enough — the most unrealistic part of sitcoms about friend groups is how they all regularly have the same free time). Hilary Duff charging her phone with strangers in Uber was the thing I needed to watch. This is something I wouldn’t do in my private home.

The reason Sophie walks across the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of this episode is because she promised herself that she would do it for the first time with her soulmate — but she decides that she doesn’t want to wait around for a guy. She’s going to take control of her own life, make some new friends and lasting memories. That was my first big New York memory before the pandemic. I remember taking engagement pictures in front the Brooklyn Bridge. It hit me even harder. Perhaps How I Met Your Father will only ever be a pale shadow of the original, but for me, it’s evoked a specific feeling of nostalgia for old and wistfulness for what could be — yeah, there’s a good likelihood I’ll be burned again as the show goes on, but maybe, as the entire How I Met Your saga reiterates, it’s worth it to be burned in the pursuit of love.

These are the first two episodes How I Met Your Father They are now available on Hulu