While How I Met Your Father follows in the sitcom footsteps of its predecessor, the spinoff's season 2 must avoid one of How I Met Your Mother's biggest problems. How I Met Your Father borrows heavily from How I Met Your Mother, mirroring the basic premise and even borrowing a few original characters. The strong similarities between Sophie's story and Ted's long-winded tale in How I Met Your Mother mean the spinoff must be cautious to avoid recreating a major issue with the original show.
Starting a brand-new parental mystery instead of forging ahead with a How I Met Your Mother season 10 revival, How I Met Your Father ran the risk of setting up too many potential love interests for Hilary Duff's Sophie. This problem plagued How I Met Your Mother. While following Ted’s romantic misadventures and trying to work out which of his paramours would be the titular mother was fun initially, the appeal faded after eight seasons. By the time Ted was dating Victoria and Robin for the umpteenth time, it became a struggle to muster investment in whether Stella, Zoey, or another love-interest-of-the-week would turn out to be the long-teased heroine.
How I Met Your Father Limited Sophie’s Potential Love Interests
In contrast to its predecessor, the Sophie and Jesse romance means How I Met Your Father season 2 doesn’t necessarily need to overburden its heroine with red herring love interests. It is not yet confirmed whether Jesse or Ian will be the father of Sophie’s unseen child, but one of that pair is very likely the mysterious parent. Sophie also mentioned at the end of How I Met Your Father’s pilot episode that the father of her child was at Sid and Hannah’s engagement party - a comment that marks a departure from How I Met Your Mother’s more elusive modus operandi.
To keep viewers guessing about the mother's identity, How I Met Your Mother gave almost nothing away before her first appearance. On the other hand, How I Met Your Father already revealed a big Sophie breakup when she awkwardly mentioned short-lived love interest Drew was at Sid and Hannah’s party in the pilot, even though he was not seen onscreen during the episode. This line was intended to establish the outside possibility that Drew might be the eponymous father but, instead, the Drew clue implied to canny viewers that he and Sophie would not last.
Why How I Met Your Father Season 2 Shouldn’t Backtrack Further
How I Met Your Father season 2 will likely keep the father's identity unsolved a while longer, even though the spinoff has already put more work into establishing Sophie’s rapport with Jesse than her romance with Ian. Regardless, How I Met Your Father should change the How I Met Your Mother storytelling style by revealing the father's identity sooner, rather than implying that every new love interest Sophie dates was secretly at Sid and Hannah's party and could be the father of her child. Instead of retroactively complicating Sophie's romantic journey, How I Met Your Father season 2 must avoid How I Met Your Mother’s excessive string of pointless romances.