Name: How I Met Your Father
Director: Pamela Fryman
Released: 2023-05-23T09:00:00

In episode 12 of How I Met Your Father, Sophie gets a lead on who her biological father might be and tasks the gang with finding the right one. The episode is streaming on Hulu.

Recap

Sophie talks to her mother to find out more about her father and when she shows her a picture from that day, Lori recognizes a person’s arm being her father’s because it has a barbed wire tattoo on it.

Sophie catches the ending of a name on the nametag within the picture and thanks to Valentina’s digging, they narrow it down to three men with names ending in “ick”.

While Jesse and Sid reach a dead end with an Asian trainer named Rick, Charlie and Ellen follow up on a washed-up stripper named Dick who could possibly be Sophie’s father.

Jesse and Sid accompany Sophie and Val to Staten Island to scope out a man named Nick Foster. Sid has been texting Taylor, the friend he made on his flight to L.A., and Jesse begins to feel jealous about this new friendship.

Sophie and the others check out a hotdog store named after Nick but they find out that the founder is dead. While they’re at the grave site, they see a man arrive with a barbed wire tattoo on his arm. They figure that this man is Nick Foster II, Sophie’s actual dad.

Charlie and Ellen hire Dick to perform at Ellen’s fake bachelorette to get him to reveal his body and confirm whether he has the tattoo or not. Meanwhile, the others follow Nick back to the city and eventually to a local branch of the hotdog store.

Sophie is worried that Nick might be a bad person so they decide to conduct some “dad tests” to find out more about his character. Nick aces all the tests and wins over Sid, Jesse, and Valentina.

They let Sophie meet him on her own but she backs out at the last moment because she’s worried that he won’t like her. After helping him get through an emotional crisis, Charlie and Ellen finally see Dick without a shirt and confirm what the others already knew, that he isn’t the father.

Jesse gets back home and tells Sid that their friendship has lost their spark because he’s more focused on Taylor. Then Sid mentions for the first time that Taylor is a woman and Jesse gets doubtful for a second.

He mentions that Sid has been talking about her the same way he does when he’s into someone but trusts him to do the right thing. Sid thinks about this and tells Taylor that they cannot continue talking to each other.

Sophie goes back to the bar where the others tell her that she can reach out to Nick whenever she’s ready and they will be there for her every step of the way.

They are then interrupted by Nick who stands across them with a look like he has something to say.

Review

The “dad tests” are really sweet and a fun part of this episode that sort of rushes through Sophie’s search for her father. The show will probably focus more on their relationship rather than draw things out as they did with Barney’s father.
Another plot that seems to have been rushed through is Sid’s friendship with Taylor. Now there is still an opportunity for it to progress somehow as Hannah’s reaction to this hasn’t been shown yet but it does feel like they rolled through the story quite quickly.
Clark Gregg is a wonderful actor and it will be enjoyable to see him portray this role of Sophie’s potential father.