How I Met Your Father – Season 2 Episode 1 “Cool and Chill” Recap & Review

Cool and Chill

Season 2 of How I Met Your Father kicks off with Sophie’s future son calling out to her from the video call. Future Sophie, having made herself some spaghetti, enters the room and comments on her son’s eagerness to hear the rest of the story.

She picks it back up at her first gallery show, where young Sophie has just met Ian. Ian tells her that he’s back in New York now. He saw her post about her show and decided to surprise her. He asks her if she has anything going on in her romantic life. After a moment’s hesitation, Sophie replies that she has nothing at all going on. He asks if he can take her out for a drink and she says yes.

Valentina hears this and pulls Sophie aside to ask her what she’s doing. Wasn’t Sophie heartbroken about Jesse only five minutes ago? But Sophie insists that she doesn’t want to let Ian get away again.

Sid and Hannah talk about how their elopement was less dramatic than they expected. They decide to have a party back at the bar so they have a good wedding story to tell. Valentina and Charlie tell everyone that they broke up. When Ellen asks how they can just turn off their attraction for each other, the two claim that they are ‘bros’. When they hug, Charlie gets a hard-on.

Jesse arrives all excited on hearing the news about Sid. His spirits deflate when he spots Ian but he and Sophie loudly claim to have no problem between them. They tell the group they decided dating was not a good idea and are just friends now. Sid tells everyone to come to the bar for his and Hannah’s wedding party. Ian gets invited too.

At the party, Sid hands out duties to everyone. When he tells Ellen to play the Electric Slide, Jesse stops him by recounting the time he tried and failed to get students in college to spontaneously dance.

When Ian goes to get drinks, Sophie tells everyone to be cool and chill and not let Ian in on the fact that she was with Jesse.

Ellen asks Jesse what happened. He tells her about how he said ‘I love you’ to Sophie in his sleep, after which she freaked out and told him to go on tour with Meredith. So, he called Meredith and when she came over, they ended up making out. Ellen only focuses on the fact that he’s going on tour a.k.a leaving her and gets upset and leaves.

Sid orders Hannah’s favourite cake for the party but they get the wrong order and end up with a fish dish instead.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Valentina look for photos of Hannah and Sid to make a tribute. They praise themselves for being mature about being friends. Valentina agrees and pats Charlie’s leg. Charlie does the same to her. Sparks fly and they start making out.

Ian notices that Jesse keeps staring at him and Sophie. Sophie brushes it off by saying that Jesse is throwing around looks because he’s trying to be a model. Ian goes to get more drinks. Under the guise of taking photographs of the party, Sophie tells Jesse to stop staring and makes a comment about exes coming back into one’s life which leaves Jesse confused.

Drew also turns up at the party still reeling from his break up with Sophie and from the news that his father may go to jail. He is drunk and features an orange-tinted spray tan as well as whitened teeth. When Ian arrives he introduces himself as Sophie’s ex.

Jesse confronts Ellen, asking her why she told Sophie about Meredith. Ellen says she didn’t tell her.

As Sophie talks to Ian she spots both, Jesse and Drew, coming to talk to her. Before they reach her she calls the room to attention so Sid and Hannah can have their first dance. When Ellen’s phone doesn’t connect to the speaker, Sophie tries singing their song ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’. However, she doesn’t know the lyrics and it’s pretty much a disaster which is made worse when a drunken Drew tries to join in.

Once Sid makes the singing stop, the two men confront Sophie anyway. Sophie admits to Jesse that she had come back for him but saw him kissing Meredith. Sid overhears this and is shocked too. Drew asks if she started seeing Jesse in the 24 hours after she broke up with him and she says yes. When Ian arrives, Sophie heads outside for some air. She is soon joined by Ian who knows that things have been messy in her life but he would still like to have a chance with her. But Sophie admits that she may have had the love she wanted right in front of her and she ran away from it. She needs time to figure out why she did that.

Meanwhile, Sid asks Jesse if he’s really going on tour with Meredith. He says that he had been ready to spend his life with Meredith and those feelings don’t go away quite easily. When Sid asks about Sophie, he says that she’s amazing but complicated and maybe she didn’t like him as much as he did her anyway. Either way, he is going on tour for a month. Ellen hears this and is relieved, having thought that he was going away for a year.

Outside, Ian understands Sophie’s point of view and repeats the words she had once said to him — “maybe someday”. He wishes her goodnight and leaves.

Charlie and Valentina try to showcase their photo tribute to the happy couple but it soon gets interrupted by their sex tape. Sophie comes back inside and tells Valentina she watched Ian walk away once again.

Sid is upset because he wanted to give Hannah a wedding party worthy of her and wasn’t able to do even that, his first duty as a husband. In an effort to cheer him up, Sophie gets everybody to do the electric slide dance. As they dance, Jesse apologises to Sophie who says she is sorry too.

As young Sophie tells Valentina that going through three guys in a day has now left her at rock bottom, future Sophie narrates that rock bottom would come much later. A flash forward shows Sophie driving and talking to her mom on the phone, saying she needs her help because she might be dating her dad. As she does her car bumps into the back of another car. The owner of the car steps out — it’s Barney Stinson!

Sophie’s son asks who that is but Future Sophie says that he’ll find out soon enough.

The Episode Review

Episode 1 of Season 2 doesn’t quite make you laugh out loud but it very much does feel like returning to the warmth of a familiar house.

The characters are still quirky and likeable, with the cast doing a great job of making them endearing. We settle into their lives and trajectories quite smoothly, picking up the threads where we last left them. In that sense, the writing is deft and retains the charm of the previous season.

With three different men in play this episode, How I Met Your Father really gets back with a bang. It was fun and exciting even if all the jokes didn’t stick. Ellen still seems relegated to comic relief and the flash forward at the end of the episode is definitely just bait to keep people watching, but there are 19 more episodes for these two to prove their worth.

The scene with everyone dancing to the Electric Slide — fulfilling Sid’s dream and giving his and Hannah’s wedding day a happy memory — this is the kind of warm, wholesomeness that How I Met Your Father is really good at. The togetherness of the characters really shines through these little things. I have to say it’s nice to be back in Sophie’s world.