Warning: SPOILERS for HIMYF episode 1.
Sophie’s date moves away in How I Met Your Father episode 1, but the series makes the right decision to avoid Ted and Victoria’s HIMYM season 1 mistake. In addition to How I Met Your Father featuring in-universe connections, Easter eggs, and a spin on HIMYM’s core storytelling device and premise, the spinoff also repeats a few key character dynamics from the original series within its first episode alone. From Sophie and Jesse having a Ted-Robin connection, Jesse and Sid a Ted-Marshall friendship, to Jesse and Ellen taking Barney and James’ confusing sibling gag, How I Met Your Father is riddled with parallels to How I Met Your Mother’s characters. While the larger storylines will likely mirror each other as well, episode 1 strategically avoided repeating Ted and Victoria’s early relationship mistake with Sophie and Ian.
The end of How I Met Your Father‘s pilot episode sees Sophie go to the airport to tell Ian that she wants to try to make a long-distance relationship work, but he says it would be too hard with a 14-hour time difference and without service for weeks on end. Considering Sophie and Ian had only met once, it seems that Ian made the right decision to not risk a tumultuous start to their relationship. Instead, Ian says there’s hope for them in the future, but not while he’s all the way in Australia for work. While this is crushing for Sophie, she’s also avoiding the mistake that Ted and Victoria made in HIMYM season 1 that led to their break-up.
After being in love with Robin in HIMYM season 1, Ted met Victoria at Stuart and Claudia’s wedding. The two quickly began dating and Ted really started to fall for her before she moved to Germany for a culinary fellowship. Ted and Victoria were hesitant to enter a long-distance relationship so quickly into dating, especially with a 6-hour time difference, but chose to continue being a couple. This led to a series of miscommunications, guilty feelings, and straying from the relationship – mostly on behalf of Ted. While Victoria was gone, Ted realized that Robin was in love with him, so his feelings quickly switched back to her. Ted ended up cheating on Victoria with Robin one night, only for Robin to discover that Ted hadn’t broken up with Victoria yet. The two had an extremely long fight over the phone despite their time difference, and Ted managed to lose both women. How I Met Your Father avoiding HIMYM‘s problem of a long-distance relationship for Sophie right off the bat is smart, because odds are this would have rehashed the same plot points as Ted’s storyline in HIMYM season 1.
While Sophie isn’t engaging in a long-distance relationship like Ted, How I Met Your Father has hinted episode 1 isn’t the end of Ian. The end of the episode reveals that nearly every guy Sophie met that night is a contender for the titular father, including Ian. Since Ian leaving in the first episode and never returning is unlikely, it’s possible that he will appear again later in How I Met Your Father season 1, similar to Victoria’s season 7 HIMYM return. This would give Ian and Sophie a better chance of working out a relationship, but it also risks the chance of her already falling in love with someone else in the meantime, with the most probable candidate being Jesse.
By not repeating Ted and Victoria’s HIMYM mistake of trying long-distance too soon, How I Met Your Father has the opportunity to reverse the circumstances of Ted and Robin getting together in the season 1 finale. Rather than Sophie and Ian breaking up because of Jesse (or whoever her love interest will become), How I Met Your Father season 1 may end with Ian returning to NYC and asking Sophie for another chance, thus possibly causing a break-up with her new significant other. While Sophie and Ian’s long-distance wouldn’t work, How I Met Your Father‘s spinoff also has the interesting dynamic of engaged couple Sid and Hannah, who have been living apart in LA and New York for some time now.
