Summary
After the last episode’s kiss, Sophie has to break up with Drew while Jesse finds out his ex is in town.
This recap of Hulu’s How I Met Your Father season 1, episode 9 contains spoilers.
Read the season 1 review.
After last week’s satisfyingly dramatic kiss, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Sophie had broken up with Drew already, but that wasn’t an omitted scene but an item on the to-do that becomes the subject of How I Met Your Mother’s penultimate episode (of the first season).
How I Met Your Father season 1, episode 9 recap
Breaking up with a nice guy would be difficult already, but of course, when Sophie shows up at Drew’s apartment his parents are there, eager to meet her. After some awkward formalities, Sophie soon learns that this isn’t your typical social call. Drew’s mother tells Sophie that they are there to break some bad news (his dad going to jail for fraud!) and insists that Sophie stays with him for now.
Drew’s mother is pretty horrible but in a cutesy, HIMYF kinda way, and she blurts out her news before Sophie can share hers. Neither Drew nor Sophie seems the least concerned with the nature of these crimes, and it’s only a slight impediment for Sophie, who practices in the mirror a few times before breaking up with Drew.
It’s bad timing, she admits, and little does she know, across the city the man she is breaking up with Drew for is reconnecting with his ex. Jesse listens to Merideth’s new single, which is pretty straightforward in expressing her desire to get back together with Jesse (couldn’t she have just called instead of writing a song? These artists, man). After some food, they rekindle their chemistry, and Meredith admits she felt trapped by constantly being in a relationship and rejected Jesse’s proposal because she wanted to know herself first (similar to Lily’s actions at the end of How I Met Your Mother’s first season). Jesse’s to go on tour with her, a proposal that seems natural given their easy chemistry, although is a little strained considering we’ve had eight episodes building her up as some sort of monster (although who hasn’t wanted to get back with an ex that hurt them).
Meanwhile, Charlie gathers the rest of the cast to watch a “Soccer” game at Sid’s bar, which no one could seem less interested in (even though, in my non-sport fan’s humble opinion, it is one of the more interesting sports to watch). Nobody pays attention and he expresses his disappointment; he wanted to remember his heritage and none of his friends or girlfriend seems to support him.
Never mind that everything we’ve learned about Charlie would make it seem that he looks down on soccer as a “commoner” sport, Valentina grasps how upset he is and makes a Union Jack-filled Love Actually apology. I’m not sure this one totally works. In the space of a movie it works for a character to ignore their partner’s wishes and then make a dramatic apology in the third act, but on a weekly basis makes them seem like psychopaths.
At this same soccer “party,” Sid and Valentina can’t keep Sophie and Jesse’s kiss a secret, but Sid’s fiancé Hannah (there for a wedding planning weekend) becomes upset when Sid refers to it as “the good kind” of cheating. This leads to another argument and a resolution that “long-distance is hard,” that we’ve seen practically every episode Hannah is involved in, albeit this time with the added hurdle that Hannah might have to spend another year in LA. If it means another season of these repetitive plot lines she should definitely not take the position!
The ending
Finally, Sophie arrives for her date with Jesse, after learning that her photo has been accepted at the gallery. She sits at the table, unaware that Jesse may never show up. His abandonment of Sophie feels weirdly out of left field, considering how obsessed with her he’s been all season, but a last-minute tease of the aforementioned photo in future-Sophie’s apartment belies that this isn’t the end for them.
Additional Notes
- What better way is there to get viewers hooked on a story than opening with Kyle Maclachlan as a cheating boat captain! Can’t wait to see what he’s up to.
- I realize I sound like a broken record here but yet again Ellen is given the plotline that feels most like an afterthought. Here it involves trying to pick an outfit for a job interview. Great!
- Of course “J Street” is referring to Jesse. It’s not a place in New York for sure, although it is a Jewish advocacy group so maybe that…?
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