‘How I Met Your Father’: The Major Difference From ‘HIMYM’ That Could Save the Series From a Hated Finale
How I Met Your Father is trying not to follow the same path as How I Met Your Mother. As beloved as the original CBS series was, its finale has become one of the most controversial series endings in TV history. It’s only natural for How I Met Your Father fans to fear the same outcome with Hulu’s new sequel. However, according to the sequel’s creators, there’s a big difference between the “endgame” plans of How I Met Your Father and HIMYM.
‘HIMYM’ had a notoriously controversial ending
For the uninitiated, How I Met Your Mother followed hopeless romantic Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) as he told his kids the story of how he met their mother. However, his tale was anything but straightforward, as he shared dozens of anecdotes about his friend group of five and the potential soulmates he met along the way.
Throughout the show’s nine seasons, viewers met several candidates for the mother in Ted’s story, including his close friend and on-and-off girlfriend Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). However, it wasn’t until the final season that the actual mother, Tracy McConnell (Cristin Milioti), came into play.
After nearly a decade of waiting for the big reveal, fans finally got to meet Ted’s wife. And then, How I Met Your Mother killed her off. In the biggest twist of the entire series, Ted revealed that Tracy died when his children were younger.
The whole point of Ted telling his kids the story was to receive their permission to ask out Aunt Robin. And so, it turned out that Robin had been his true love all along, just as HIMYM suggested back in the very first episode.
‘How I Met Your Father’ won’t get ahead of itself like ‘HIMYM’ often did
Perhaps one of HIMYM’s most detrimental qualities was that it got too ahead of itself. From day one, the plan had always been for Robin and Ted to end up together. No matter how the series evolved, no matter whom Robin and Ted ended up with in the meantime, the plan never changed.
How I Met Your Father, on the other hand, is not so locked into its future. Series creators Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger recently revealed to TVLine that they haven’t started planning the “endgame” yet.
“We were much more concerned with having people fall in love with our show,” Berger said.
At the moment, Berger and Aptaker don’t have a long-term plan for multiple seasons; they’re staying flexible.
“I think it depends on what a season of this show looks like [moving forward],” Berger added.
Berger and Aptaker revealed they’ve considered writing longer seasons in the future, rather than the typical 10-episode order. Once they make those decisions, they can start to look ahead to a possible endgame. However, discussions like that will only happen if and when How I Met Your Father gets renewed for season 2.
For now, How I Met Your Father has established two things: 1) The father is someone that Sophie (Hilary Duff) met in the pilot episode, and 2) Sophie is no longer linked to the father in her older years. There will likely be more twists along the way, but hopefully none as big and shocking as HIMYM’s ending.
Hilary Duff has no idea who the father is on ‘How I Met Your Father’
Another big difference between How I Met Your Father and HIMYM is the lead actor’s involvement in the endgame. As CinemaBlend reported, Josh Radnor knew about the big mother twist from season 1. Hilary Duff, though, has absolutely no idea who the father is.
“I’ve given up because they’re just going to cat-and-mouse me, bat me around. It’s actually kind of hard to navigate sometimes shooting because I have moments with all the guys,” Duff told The New York Times. “It’s almost like The Bachelor, but better. Everyone is a possibility. So I’ve given up guessing.”
As Duff once said in her Lizzie McGuire days, we’ll figure it out on the way.
New episodes of How I Met Your Father premiere every Tuesday on Hulu.
