Major ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Cameo Planned for ‘How I Met Your Father’ Season 2

January 24, 2023, 12:42pm

How I Met Your Father — Season 2 — In the near future, Sophie is telling her son the story of how she met his father: a story that catapults us back to the present where Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options. Sophie (Hilary Duff) and Jesse (Christopher Lowell) , shown. (Photo by: Patrick Wymore/Hulu)

How I Met Your Father Season 2 just premiered, and fans are eager to see how the next cameo from How I Met Your Mother plays into the story. Duff previously teased more involvement from the cast of the original series, but she would not say who. After seeing the season premiere on Wednesday, fans know who the character is, but they can only theorize about his connection to Sophie.

Fair warning: there are spoilers for How I Met Your Father Season 2, Episode 1 ahead! The new season premiered on Tuesday on Hulu, and with it came a cameo appearance by Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson. In one scene, Sophie tells her best friend Valentina (Francia Raisa) that she feels like she’s hit “rock bottom” in her love life. There, the show pauses while the future version of Sophie (Kim Cattrall) narrates: “I was wrong. Rock bottom wouldn’t come until later that year.”

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Rock bottom is yet to come. The How I Met Your Father Season 2 premiere is streaming NOW on @hulu! #HIMYF pic.twitter.com/EOHu4y2sOW
— How I Met Your Father (@HIMYFonHulu) January 24, 2023

From there, the show cuts to a later scene where Sophie furiously chases a car, apparently embodying “rock bottom.” She says to her phone: “Mom, please call me back! I think I’m dating my dad.” She then crashes into the car she’s chasing and gets out to apologize. The other driver steps out and he is Barney.

“Dude!” Barney says by way of introduction, and the cut scene ends there. Fans will obviously have to wait for more context on this interaction, but many are hard at work crafting theories in advance. A popular one is that Sophie will learn that Barney is her father, unbeknownst to both of them.

At the end of How I Met Your Father Season 1, actress Cobie Smulders made a cameo as her old HIMYM character Robin Scherbatsky. She had a heart-to-heart with Hilary Duff’s character Sophie with references to the original series that were relevant to the current story. In January, Duff appeared on Good Morning America where she said that another cameo is coming soon, and that she hopes that there will be even more in the future.

“I think I might lose my job if I told you who, but we do have a special guest from the original cast coming this season,” she teased. “It was a dream come true working with them. I think our dream would have the entire cast come through at some point.”

Obviously, Smulders and Harris have both agreed to participate, and Josh Radnor has spoken out in favor of the idea as well. He previously told Newsweek that he has talked to Duff and made it plain that he is interested.

How I Met Your Mother is streaming now on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. How I Met Your Father is streaming on Hulu, with new episodes coming every Tuesday for the next few months.