Warning: This post contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father season 2
How I Met Your Father season 1 included a few How I Met Your Mother cameos, including Cobie Smulders’ character Robin Scherbatsky, but season 2 exacerbates the Hulu series’ cameo problem. Premiering in 2021, How I Met Your Father took the basic premise of its parent show, introduced brand-new characters, and signed on Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall to play the older version of Hilary Duff’s Sophie.
It’s no secret that How I Met Your Father is tied to How I Met Your Mother in more ways than one. In addition to being a spinoff, the Hulu series employs flashbacks to tell its story, and centers a group of friends who have their fair share of romantic problems. While How I Met Your Mother included a number of famous guest stars, they were there to advance the main plot of any given episode. In the spinoff, the cameos are yet another connection to How I Met Your Mother, and the cameos — Neil Patrick Harris most recently appeared in season 2 — are quickly becoming a problem for the show.
HIMYF Relies Too Much On HIMYM Guest Stars To Maintain Interest
How I Met Your Father is able to stand on its own, but it relies on How I Met Your Mother guest stars to keep audiences hooked. It’s unnecessary since the comedy is still separate and far removed from its predecessor’s story. Instead, viewers wait with bated breath to see who else from How I Met Your Mother might show up when the focus should be on the characters who exist in How I Met Your Father. Sure, it was refreshing to see Smulders and Harris reprise their roles as Robin and Barney, respectively, but they become primary talking points for How I Met Your Father and wind up overshadowing the series.
Having cast members from How I Met Your Mother appear on the Hulu comedy series isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, How I Met Your Father has yet to firmly establish itself apart from its predecessor to warrant such big cameos. When characters like Robin Scherbatsky and Barney Stinson appear, they become the main attraction, as fans wonder at what point in How I Met Your Mother’s timeline they’re in. The cameos keep How I Met Your Father interesting, but it should actually be the story and new characters that hold the audience's attention.
How I Met Your Father's Barney Cameo Hurts Season 2
At the end of How I Met Your Father’s season 2 premiere, Sophie is driving when she rear-ends Barney Stinson. Unlike Smulders’ appearance at the end of season 1, Neil Patrick Harris’ character will seemingly play a bigger role in season 2, since viewers won’t know what happened after the car crash or its effect on Sophie’s life until later on in the season. It’s a tease that actually hurts How I Met Your Father season 2 because it distracts from Sophie’s arc and the other characters’ storylines. The comedy series has once again pulled focus in an attempt to make Barney a bigger part of a subplot that won’t pay off anytime soon.
The interest will now be in how Barney ties into season 2’s story rather than on anything else. How I Met Your Father season 2 is teasing more from a character that isn’t a part of the show. Barney’s cameo further prevents How I Met Your Father from separating itself from its predecessor and going its own path. It makes it hard to forget about How I Met Your Mother at all. What’s more, Barney’s cameo doesn’t add anything significant to the Hulu series, and seems built in to keep audiences from turning away to find out what happened. That isn’t the marker of a series that can fully stand on its own.