Disclaimer: The story below contains spoilers for the How I Met Your Father finale. Continue at your own risk.
The season finale of “How I Met Your Father” features a major cameo by one of the original cast members of “How I Met Your Mother.” During the episode, Hilary Duff’s Sophie gets romantic advice from none other than Cobie Smulders’s Robin Scherbatsky, who dealt with her own romantic entanglements during her show’s run.
Here’s how it all goes down: Sophie is reeling from a conversation she had with Jesse (Chris Lowell), who confessed he’s in love with her. Jesse lives in the same apartment that Ted (Josh Radnor) and Marshall (Jason Segel) lived in during the original series. After leaving Jesse’s apartment, Sophie heads to the bar MacLaren’s downstairs, which she jokes that she’s never been to. “HIMYM” watchers will remember this is the bar where that show’s gang spent most of their time.
Sophie heads to the bar to get a drink, where she runs into none other than Robin. “Oh my god, Robin Scherbatsky? I know you from the news,” she exclaims, which rubs Robin’s ego in just the right way. Robin asks her about her romantic drama, but Sophie says it’s not that interesting.
Robin explains, “Back in the day, my friends and I wasted years in this very bar, talking about our stupid love lives. I stop in here whenever I’m in the neighbourhood.” She asks Sophie to share it all so she can go “back to the good old days.”
The pair settle into the booth where so many “HIMYM” scenes were shot, and Sophie asks for advice about what to do. “I once had a guy say ‘I love you’ on our first date,” Robin shares. “HIMYM” watchers will remember that was Ted.
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” Sophie says.
“You have no idea, but a good piece of work,” Robin says with a smile. She urges Sophie not to do things out of fear and run from things that could be good for her. She tells her, “Sophie, I have been married, I have been single, I have been everything in between. And the only decisions I regret making are the ones I made out of fear. So do me a favour, OK? Time-travel 20 years into the future and ask future you, ‘Future me, what do I wish I’d done 20 years ago, the night I met smoking hot, yet somehow still full of gravitas news super star Robin Scherbatsky?’ And whatever future you says, do that.”
If your knowledge of the original series’s infamous finale is a little blurry, here’s where this moment happens in the “HIMYM” timeline. “HIMYF” is set in 2022. Scenes from the “How I Met Your Mother” finale showed that by the 2020s, Robin is a very successful newswoman. But it won’t be until 2030 that Ted, now a widower, and Robin reunite for good.
“HIMYF” showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger told Entertainment Weekly that more cameos from the original cast are definitely possible.
