A legend — wait for it — ary premiere. The first two episodes of How I Met Your Father just debuted on Hulu and at the end of the premiere, the show reminded fans that it exists in the same universe as How I Met Your Mother.
The spinoff kicked off with a revised version of the opening song used in every episode of the original show, which aired from 2005 to 2014.
The new show takes place in 2022, following Sophie (Hilary Duff) as she ventures through the tough dating world in New York City. Kim Cattrall opens the episodes from the year 2050, portraying an older Sophie talking to her kids.
At the end of the first episode, the group of six decide to go to Jesse (Chris Lowell) and Sid’s (Suraj Sharma) apartment for drinks — which happens to be the same apartment that Ted (Josh Radnor) and Marshall (Jason Segel) lived in on How I Met Your Mother.
“Wow, I love your place,” Sophie says in the episode when they walk in.
“Thanks, it was a total score. We got it from this old married couple who posted it on the Wesleyan alumni group,” Jesse responds, referring to the college that Ted, Marshall and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) attended.
As the camera pans around the apartment, Jesse notes, “We even got them to leave their swords.” Ted and Marshall’s swords — which the cast played with many times over the 208 episodes — are still hanging above the mantel.
In the first season of How I Met Your Mother, Ted and Marshall have a sword fight to determine who gets the apartment. In season 9, the best friends fight again and accidentally rip the dress Lily was going to wear to Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Barney’s (Neil Patrick Harris) wedding. Later in the same episode, Lily and Robin get into a sword fight as well.
The swords were also pretty meaningful to the men as they were one of the first things Ted and Marshall bought when they moved in together. Later in the show, when Marshall wanted to take them down and replace them with Lily’s painting, it became a story line as Ted felt like he was being replaced by Lily.
None of the original cast of How I Met Your Mother are set to appear in the show, but Harris, 48, recently told Us Weekly that he’s a fan of the idea.
“I hope it’s great. I think the structural conceit of that show was very good storytelling,” the two-time Emmy winner said in September 2021. “[Creators] Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, they came up with a really cool idea that future narrator is telling kids a story about hit their past. It allows for quick edit cuts. It allows for embellishments within character’s development because it’s a story that he’s telling. It’s not the actual factual things that happened. And so, morals can be heavy handed. There can be left turns that you weren’t expecting. We had a great time filming that show.”
