Warning: Contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father episode 1.
With the arrival of How I Met Your Father, the long-awaited How I Met Your Mother spin-off, one obvious question stands out: who is the father in How I Met Your Father? In How I Met Your Mother, the mother, Tracy McConnell (Cristin Milioti) was not seen on screen until the season 8 finale and precipitated the controversial How I Met Your Mother series finale. How I Met Your Father, however, is taking a different approach to the mysterious titular identity.
In How I Met Your Father episode 1, the show introduces a large cast of characters centering around Sophie (Hilary Duff) across one evening. In the final moments of the episode, the version of Sophie in 2050 (Kim Cattrall) explains that she met the father that night. While How I Met Your Father does not clarify who the father is in that opening episode, flashes of four specific men she met that night appear on screen as she speaks. The four are Sid (Suraj Sharma), Jesse (Christopher Lowell), Ian (Daniel Augustin), and Charlie (Tom Ainsley).
It seems safe to assume that one of the four will be the eventual father as for it to be someone else would be unfair to the viewer. While any of them could eventually come to be How I Met Your Father’s father, Christopher Lowell’s Jesse is the most likely choice. Within the first episode, he is the most clearly defined character, has a deeper connection with Sophie, and is shown to be working through his own cynicism about love after a previous breakup that will leave room for interesting storytelling. The other three possibilities all have properties that make them seem unlikely as the father’s identity in How I Met Your Father.
Sid is offered as a possibility in the closing scenes which seems strange given that How I Met Your Father episode 1 includes his successful proposal to Hannah (Ashley Reyes). While that relationship might be strained by distance, both the relationship and the individuals involved seem to be set up as a parallel to Marshall and Lily from How I Met Your Mother, down to even owning the same apartment. It seems unlikely that the writers of How I Met Your Father would break the couple up as the Marshall and Lily relationship was such a reliable center to the original show. Additionally, Sid and Sophie have relatively little interaction in the first episode with the jaded Jesse holding most of her attention.
While Sophie’s How I Met Your Father Tinder date, Ian, is suggested as a promising option, there are still reasons why he seems like an unlikely final father. From the outset, Ian is set up as being entirely perfect for Sophie, so much so that he would be a difficult character to present an interesting narrative around. His only How I Met Your Father flaw for Sophie is that he is moving to Australia, and this also makes him a difficult character for the series to use: if he is consistently absent then viewers are more likely to be in favor of a relationship with someone that more onscreen chemistry has been developed with. Although Charlie is also included in How I Met Your Father’s episode 1 tease, he seems extremely unlikely to be the father as he is currently dating Sophie’s best friend and his characterization is almost entirely summed up as comic relief. Overall, it remains most probable that in How I Met Your Father Jesse is the father.
How I Met Your Father releases new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu.