How I Met Your Father – Season 2 Episode 17 “Out of Sync” Recap & Review

A Day Without Phones

Episode 17 of How I Met Your Father season 2 begins with Future Sophie telling her son about how she and her friends used to spend a lot of time on their phones. At present, the gang is in Sid’s pub and each and every person has their eyes glued to their phones. Ellen keeps checking what Rachel is doing and according to Sophie, Val fell off the sofa while scrolling on her phone.

Sophie suggests they all take a day away from phones and the internet. Jesse is going for a date with Parker, from the school where he works, and is more than happy to surrender his phone. Everybody slowly agrees and they all put their phones in a basket to be locked away by Sid. They’ll only get them back at midnight.

Sophie enters her apartment all excited about her first paycheck. Val is pretty annoyed about not having her phone but Sophie convinces her to join her on a trip to the bank — since she needs to physically deposit the cheque. This turns out to be a good call since they bump into none other than Lance and Joey, members of NSYNC!

The girls end up talking to them and the pair even make a song about ‘banking beauties’. Before leaving, they invite the girls to a party at the old baloney factory. Afterwards, it hits them, they don’t know where the factory is. And, of course, they can’t exactly look it up…

Meanwhile, Charlie sets up a spa day for Ellen who is more interested in staring at Rachel’s doorway from the peephole in her front door. Charlie tapes up the holes and cracks in the door to stop her from doing so.

On his date with Parker, Jesse gets nervous because she knows a lot of interesting things but his responses are dull. Moreover, he can’t go to the bathroom to Google stuff like he normally would. He panics and remembers a list of things to do to impress one’s first date and decides to go with being generous.

In doing so, he orders all the specials on the menu and an expensive bottle of champagne. That’s when he remembers that his credit card is in his phone case.

Having made their way to a library, Sophie finds a book on the history of New York’s meat factories. But turns out, there are quite a few old baloney factories. Frustrated, Val decides to break the pact and rushes off to find her phone.

When the cucumbers on Ellen’s eyes don’t make her any more relaxed than before, she tells Charlie they should try sensory deprivation. She gives him an eye mask and headphones and once he’s successfully deprived of his senses, she climbs out the window. On her way down she ends up breaking a pipe.

By now, Jesse is panicking about how to pay for all the food he ordered. He needs help and tries calling the only phone number he knows but it turns out to be that of a radio station. While Parker sits waiting, Jesse bolts out the restaurant door.

Val and Ellen rush into the bar and demand Sid give their phones back. Sophie follows and tells him not to. Sid says he will only accept emergencies and Ellen’s need to know what TikToks Rachel is posting is not enough. Val’s need to find the old baloney factory though is solved pretty quickly since Sid knows exactly where it is.

Turn out, he’s pretty enthusiastic about old processed meat factories but nobody paid attention because they were all on their phones. Another fun fact they didn’t notice, Sid’s a big fan of NSYNC! So, naturally the three of them close up the bar and head to the party…just before Jesse comes by to get his phone only to find the place locked.

They reach the party and find two men who look similar to Lance and Joey but are definitely not them. Val and Sophie wonder if their phone addiction has made them susceptible to strange men who sing to them in banks. Sid is disheartened too. Sophie says she was hoping their no-phones day would lead to some magical reconnection. Just then, Val spots Ian in the crowd.

Jesse runs back to the restaurant and stops Parker from leaving. He comes clean about the whole situation and Parker is surprisingly understanding. She plucks a hair from the woman next to her and puts it in the mountains of food Jesse ordered for them. She points it out to the waiter and voila, their meal is free.

Ian and Sophie catch up at the party and she gets introduced to Kiana, his girlfriend. In typical Sophie fashion, she makes an awkward joke and has to excuse herself from the situation.

Ellen comes back to the apartment to find that there’s been a gas leak thanks to her escapades. The firefighters say they evacuated everyone but she knows Charlie wouldn’t have heard their calls and runs into the building. She breaks down the taped-up apartment door, makes sure Charlie is okay and then carries him out princess style. As she does, she realises that if Rachel can’t deal with how big Ellen’s love is, then that’s her loss.

Sophie admits to Val that she knew about Ian’s new girlfriend all along, she’d seen them together on his Instagram. In fact, everyone she’s dated — Oscar, Robert, Ian, Jesse — is in a relationship. Except her.

Val realises that it was Sophie who really needed a break from her phone, so she would stop seeing other people’s life updates and feel stuck. Meanwhile, Val uses her phone so much so she can escape from thoughts about Charlie. Having this conversation, Sophie and Val do reconnect with each other in a way.

At Sid’s bar that night, the group count down to midnight and finally take their phones back. Everybody goes back to scrolling immediately and Val and Sophie find out that the NSYNC members really were at the party!

The Episode Review

As a pleasant surprise, episode 17 of How I Met Your Father season 2 does more than just make us laugh. It actually has a poignant message about how millennials use their phones — whether it helps them escape reality or rather drowns them in it. And it still doesn’t compromise on humour as all the characters have some amusing escapades.

Ellen and Charlie make a wonderful comic pair and their dynamic is spot on. Sophie and Val, as usual, are great together and the NSYNC part of the episode is hilarious. As is Jesse and his inner monologue about how to impress his first date. Parker’s ingeniousness at the end is just the cherry on top.

Further, the joke about the group not knowing about Sid’s interests simply because they were on their phones is not just funny but also so relevant. Overall, this is a fantastic episode where all the stories work well individually and together.