- For How I Met Your Mother episode, see Pilot.
| “Pilot (How I Met Your Father)” | ||
| ← | HIMYF episode 1x01 (1) | → |
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| First aired: January 18, 2022 | ||
| Director: Pamela Fryman | ||
| Writer: Isaac Aptaker Elizabeth Berger Carter Bays Craig Thomas Emily Spivey | ||
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After a slew of let-down Tinder dates, Sophie meets the seemingly perfect guy. Sophie's roommate, Valentina, returns from London Fashion Week with a sexy souvenir. A car service phone mishap leads them to an eclectic new group of friends.
Recap[]
The year is 2050 and Future Sophie uses her smart home system to call her son using her voice. She wants to tell him the story of how she met his father. Although he thinks he already knows, Sophie thinks it is time he hears the unabridged version. Sophie begins by saying their love story started with a Tinder date like many love stories from 2022 did.
In 2022, young Sophie rushes across the street because she is late for her Tinder date. She gets into a car with Jesse and his friend Sid who is just hitching a ride.
Sid won’t stop until Sophie asks why he is hitching a ride. When she does, he says he is going to propose to his girlfriend who will be his fiancée. Jesse pleads with Sophie to choke him out using his charging cord because Sid is so annoying. Instead, Sophie asks to use it while joking her phone’s belly is hungry. Sid goes on to say his girlfriend’s name is Hannah and she is a surgical resident in LA so they’ve been doing the long-distance dating thing. As for Sid, he has been running his bar called the Pemberton’s. He is going to pretend to take his girlfriend to Beyonce only to bring her to the bar to propose to her.
Sophie and Jesse are worried Hannah is going to be bummed she doesn’t get to see Beyonce. Sophie says she thinks she has found the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with, but there is a catch. He is from Tinder and they haven’t met each other yet. Jesse thinks she might have unrealistic expectations although Sophie denies it. She tells them about her last Tinder date with a guy who was 20 minutes late because he had another date that went well and had sex. He believed she’d want to hear that. He was wrong. Sophie screamed what is wrong with everyone before going outside to quit Tinder. When she went to deactivate her account, she matched with Ian. Sophie walks them through the relationship and says it started with friendly banter.
Ian learned that Sophie is a photographer who mainly shoots stuff like birthday parties and engagement photos to pay the rent. Her heart is in street photography though. He jokes about that before saying he is a marine biologist. They began texting more frequently until they are doing it all day. She eventually questions when he is going to invite her out for a date. He’d love to do that, but he is in Australia for two weeks for work. They made plans to meet up when he got back and that is where Sophie is going. She calls it her last first date ever. Sid says it is romantic although Jesse believes there is a slim chance it is going to work out. Once Sophie gets out, Jesse and Sid argue about Jesse liking Sophie. He denies it while Sid says otherwise.
Sophie goes inside and meets Ian. In the present, older Sophie says that begins the best first date she had ever been on. During the date, Sophie tries to score another date by offering to go to the movie where Joaquin Phoenix plays Amelia Earhart. However, Ian breaks the news that he is moving to Australia. It was supposed to be temporary until they offered him a full-time position on a team that’s helping endangered coral reefs procreate. Ian goes on to say he is leaving tonight and only came back to pack and sublet his place. He didn’t tell her because he was afraid she wouldn’t come. They agreed a long-distance relationship would be a bad idea. Although they want to kiss at the end of the date, Sophie says it is best if they don’t. She suggests it might happen someday though.
She was devastated. However, returning home to Aunt Valentina made it a bit easier. Valentina jumps, claps, and screams when she learns Ian was everything they thought he’d be. She stops and learns he is moving to Australia without Sophie. When Sophie suggests being two single women doing it for themselves and starting a podcast about not needing men, Charlie walks in naked. She thinks it is a pervert so she quickly grabs a bottle of mace. Valentina calms her, says they met at London Fashion Week, and they’re all going to live together. When Charlie told his family he was moving in with a Mexican assistant stylist, they made some outdated Ugly Betty jabs followed by revealing that Charlie's trust fund was cut off.
Despite that, Charlie thinks he can get by using his wits. Val says she wasn’t going to let rational thought get in her way causing Sophie to consider being irrational with Ian too. She wants to call him but finds out she took the wrong phone when she got out of the Uber. She has to rush to Pemberton’s to find Sid. Charlie is excited to get to go and see what the subway is like until he gets to ride on one. When they walk into the bar, Jesse and the others jump out and try to surprise Sid. Jesse learns that she has Sid’s phone so they weren’t tracking Sid after all. Once they all hide again, A woman named Ellen surprises and says hello to Val and Charlie.
She reveals she just moved here from Iowa and she happens to be Jesse’s adopted sister. After Charlie asks her about the subway, Ellen says she is getting divorced from her lesbian lover and that she has moved to New York to start over. Jesse makes sure Sophie stays hidden while saying he is never getting married because the one girl he loved broke his heart. Sophie recognizes Jesse as the guy from the viral video who got rejected by his bandmate. As he tells her about that girl, Sid and Hannah walk in together and get surprised. Sid talks to her about their time in med school and believing they can make it through anything together. He proposes and she says yes, but she still believes they’re going to see Beyonce. Sid then breaks the news to her yet Hannah takes comfort that she's engaged to Sid.
Sophie gets her phone back seconds later although it is dead. Charlie complains about the bathroom stalls and everyone urinating at once. Val gets mad when he says he can’t live in this hellscape. Hannah learns her patient found a lung for a transplant so she has to get back to LA. Jesse says his sister is hitting it off with Sophie’s friends although it doesn’t look like it. Sophie says she is going to get out of here as soon as her phone charges, but she doesn’t want Jesse to give up on love by claiming his "Brooklyn Bridge gir"l is out there somewhere before explaining she has never walked across and intends to do so with her soulmate. Once Sophie’s phone is charged, she says she is going to rush to JFK to tell Ian they’re meant to be. When Sid wants to borrow Jesse’s car to drive Hannah to the airport, Sophie decides to go too.
Charlie decides to tag along with Val since he’d had to sell his body to survive otherwise. Before Jesse leaves, he makes sure Ellen comes too. Sophie manages to make it to the airport in time to meet with Ian. She rambles before saying their relationship felt easy and that rarely happens. Although Sophie would like to try, Ian says it is going to be a 14-hour time difference and he’ll be living for weeks without cellular service. He says it might happen someday. Since Sophie doesn’t want to wait for someday to come around, she decides to walk the Brooklyn Bridge without her love. Charlie says the bridge is flowing with life and personality like Val. She says she fell for him so hard because she thought he was brave for giving up his pampered life to try it with them.
He agrees to be a part of their magic. Ellen uses that as inspiration to get over her divorce and ask a woman out to dinner. Jesse believes Sophie will be okay since she has her parents’ stupid love story to keep her optimistic. Val tells him that her mother was a party girl jumping from guy to guy and her dad wasn’t in the picture. The only thing magical about her life is the fact she still believes she can fall in love. They go back to Sid and Jesse’s place for drinks as older Sophie says that is the night she met his father. She admits the part about them getting together is a much longer story.
Continuity[]
- This episode was dedicated to the loving memory of Bob Saget, who provided the voice of Future Ted in How I Met Your Mother.
- The opening sequence features Hey Beautiful, the same song as How I Met Your Mother’s opening sequence, but this time it's a cover by Lennon Stella.
- Unlike in How I Met Your Mother, Future Ted was unseen. Future Sophie is seen, unlike in the version of The Wonder Years ideas, but her son is unseen and speaking to her through a webcam.
- In 2050, Sophie unsuccessfully tries to start a video call with her son by using a voice command, which is is similar to Marshall unsuccessfully using a voice command to play Star Wars in 2015 in Trilogy Time and Future Robin unsuccessfully trying to open a door by using a voice command in the series finale in the year of 2030. Sophie exclaims: "It's 2050, how does this still not work?" as a reference to the faulty technology in the future.
- Sid and Jesse live in the Apartment which they got from an "old married couple" - Marshall and Lily.
- The swords, most notably featured in The Duel, are still in the apartment.
- Behind Sophie on her date with Ian there's a graffiti saying "Glen McKenna Aged 30 Years".
Future References (Contains Spoilers)[]
- At the end of the episode, Sophie immediately tells her son that she met his father that night, which hints to the viewers that the Father may be Jesse, Sid, Ian or Charlie.
- In The Fixer it is revealed that Sophie also met Drew that night, adding him to the list of possible fathers.
- It is noteworthy that in the pilot episode of How I Met Your Mother, Future Ted also spoilered the audience that Robin is not the mother of his children.
Gallery[]
Memorable Quotes[]
Notes and Trivia[]
Goofs and Errors[]
Allusions and Outside References[]
- Charlie's situation is compared to Meghan Markle, who left England with her husband Prince Harry and were subsequently stripped of their royal titles.
Music[]
- Sooner or Later by The Grass Roots
Other Notes[]
Guests[]
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References[]
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Pilot (How I Met Your Father) (all episodes) |
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