How I Met Your Father – Season 2 Episode 2 “Midwife Crisis” Recap & Review

Midwife Crisis

Episode 2 of How I Met Your Father season 2 starts with Future Sophie telling her son that she once used to be a liar. Any situation that made her insecure, led to her lying. Although, she claims she put a stop to it once she was 40.

After getting her photograph in the gallery, Sophie was itching for the news of its purchase. Valentina calls her out on not paying attention to things around her as Sophie is glued to her phone as they walk. Sophie says her yoga class has really helped. We get a flashback to a yoga class where a ringtone makes Sophie spring up from her mat, knock over the other participants and pick up the phone only to realise it wasn’t her own.

Valentina and Sophie reach the pub entrance and see Jesse and Meredith sitting inside. Sophie doesn’t want to meet Meredith while looking ‘like this’. She feels insecure about Meredith being a successful pop star and her being a successful photographer.

Inside the pub, Meredith tells Jesse, Ellen and Charlie about all the news shows she will be featured on soon. Ellen complains about how Rachel has her number and hasn’t texted her yet despite having time to tweet about Sarah Paulson. When Sid arrives, Meredith asks about all the foam in her beer glass. Sid says the foam is called ‘head’. When Meredith makes a joke about it he tells her off but when Jesse does the same, Sid gives him a high five. It’s clear he’s not too happy about Meredith being around. Jesse then sees Sophie through the pub’s window as she hurriedly puts on makeup.

Sid comes out to tell Sophie that everyone can see her. When she claims that Meredith might be threatened to see her Sid quickly shuts her down, Meredith is not threatened. Sophie ends up going inside and impulsively lying about her photograph, saying that it got sold after a bidding war amongst a number of powerful people. Future Sophie admits to her son that the lying was a huge problem.

In their apartment, Ellen whines to Charlie about Rachel not asking her out. Charlie has an idea. He suggests they clean up their apartment, style it up and leave the door slightly ajar so Rachel will be convinced to ask Ellen out. Only…they turn around to look at the mess in the flat and sigh.

Sid brings a grilled cheese for Jesse in their apartment. When Meredith tries to take a piece, Sid doesn’t let her and they get into a childish fight. Jesse catches them and tells Sid that he knows he’s mad about the situation about the proposal video but Jesse and Meredith are happy now. When Sid says he’s mad about things other than the proposal video, Meredith suggests they air out their grievances. Jesse wants to bottle things up instead but Sid says he’s in.

Sophie thinks she handled the situation with Meredith quite well but Valentina reminds her that she lied through the entire conversation. Sophie retorts that Valentina herself has lied about her age to get discounted movie tickets. Ramona, their neighbour in the building, comes to their door and tells Sophie that she is in labour. She does so because she hired Sophie to photograph her home birth. Ramona is happy that Sophie’s done a bunch of home birth photos before and so would be comfortable with the whole thing. She leaves and Valentina demands an explanation. A flashback shows Sophie telling Ramona about all the high-profile clients she’s photographed during home births.

In Ramona’s flat, Valentina and Sophie manually blow up the inflatable birthing tub until they realise that there’s a pump. Sophie pours water into it. She claims that this doesn’t seem so hard after all but takes her words back when she realises the water in the tub is too hot. As she rambles about shifting the birthing to the sofa, Valentina asks her why she had to lie about it. Sophie admits that she’s scared that these kinds of photography gigs are as good as it’s going to get for her. And this is why she can’t lose them.

At Jesse’s place, Sid has flashcards describing his grievances about Meredith. After going over petty things like her sneezes and her message ringtone, he gets to the main point — the burrito incident. It was the day of Jesse’s first musical recital at the elementary school where he was working and Sid, who had recently gotten into exercise, had made burritos for himself. Meredith was sick and wasn’t going to attend Jesse’s recital. When Sid stopped by before the program to pick up flowers for Jesse, he caught Meredith eating his burrito. Meredith protests that she was bummed about missing the recital and had a fever and so ate the burrito. When Sid says there’s more to his grievances, Jesse gets up to make three scotches for them.

After Ellen gets dressed and the apartment is cleaned up, she and Charlie crack the door open and wait for Rachel to notice. Instead of Rachel though, two old men enter the apartment and begin to talk about how their wives died (or disappeared, they’re not sure) while they were all on a safari. Other people from the building soon follow their example, thinking Ellen and Charlie are throwing a building party.

At Ramona’s, Valentina puts a box of frozen shrimp into the tub to cool down the water. Just as they’re getting a handle on things, Sophie’s phone rings. She panics trying to get it and falls into the tub — and the phone call is not from the gallery.  Ramona enters and demands to know what is going on. Sophie confesses to everything. When Ramona reveals that her midwife is stuck on the tram, the two girls decide to take her to the hospital. But a scream from Ramona tells them it’s too late and the birth will have to be done at home now.

Meredith and Sid talk about what really happened on the night of the burrito incident. Meredith says that it wasn’t her finest moment but she’s grown since then and she and Jesse are happy now. She tells Sid to let his best friend be happy. When Jesse comes back, Sid tells him that things are fine now.

Ellen and Charlie’s house party is going really well until Ellen realises someone shut the main door. She finds out it was Rachel herself who did so.

Meanwhile, Sophie tells Ramona the paramedics are on their way and they have a midwife on the phone. That’s about exactly when her phone falls into the tub. A lot of screaming ensues but the scene ends with Future Sophie showing her son a photograph of Ramona holding her swaddled baby.

Ellen knocks on Rachel’s door and confronts her about not texting. Rachel says she got in her head about what to say in the text. When she finally did figure it out, she saw Ellen’s party and figured Ellen hadn’t invited her. So why would she want to go out with Rachel? The two women clear the air of the misunderstanding and Ellen suggests they go on a date right now. Rachel agrees. Behind the apartment’s front door, Charlie and the others cheer for Ellen.

At his pub, Sid gives Meredith and Jesse drinks, a proper one for Meredith too this time. He looks at one of his flash cards. A flashback shows us what really happened that night. Sid came home and caught Meredith not only eating his burrito but also speaking on the phone with someone, dismissing Jesse’s school recital as unimportant. Turns out, she only pretended to be sick so she didn’t have to go. Back in the present, the flash card in Sid’s hand reads “She doesn’t really love you”.

Valentina and Sophie enter the bar, congratulating each other on Ramona’s successful birth. Sophie confesses to Jesse and Meredith about her photograph but admits that she did do something cool by helping Ramona. Future Sophie reveals that Meredith had indeed helped a woman deliver a baby on the subway but at the time simply told Sophie that sounded cool.

Sophie suddenly gets a phone call and finds that her photograph is indeed being sold! She shares the happy news. Future Sophie narrates she also decided to live a more honest life at that moment. Meredith then finds a piece of shrimp in Sophie’s hair and Sophie automatically lies about it being a new form of leave-in conditioner.

The Episode Review

Episode 2 balances fun, light-hearted segments with more insightful ones. The burrito incident and the Meredith reveal were a great way to learn more about Jesse’s relationship with her in the past and to do so in an enjoyable way.

Meredith is clearly being positioned as someone who isn’t right for Jesse so it will be interesting to see where they take her character. Rather than making her a downright bad person, I think it would be more interesting if she were as complex and real as the others in the gang. Meanwhile, Jesse and Sid’s friendship continues to be wholesome and a treat to watch on screen!

Ellen and Charlie’s escapades while trying to entice Rachel has to be my favourite part of today’s episode. The two old men whose wives disappeared (or died) was an amusing bit of humour — odd but unique and somehow, perfect for How I Met Your Father. Sophie and Valentina’s segment didn’t exactly make me laugh out loud but Hillary Duff’s portrayal of anxiety about her career was very, very relatable and I’m sure a lot of people will resonate with that. Overall, a good episode!