Warning: Contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father episode 6.
The story around Mia, Jesse, and Ellen in How I Met Your Father episode 6 demonstrated the perfect way for the new series to be as good as How I Met Your Mother. How I Met Your Father has big shoes to fill, coming to air almost a decade after its predecessor ran for nine seasons. After half a season How I Met Your Father finally managed to find its footing.
In How I Met Your Father episode 6, it is mentioned that Ellen (Tien Tran) has slept with a woman for the first time since her divorce. When Charlie (Tom Ainsley) throws a party in the apartment that he shares with Ellen, her brother, Jesse (Christopher Lowell), brings his new girlfriend, Mia (Margo Harshman). When Ellen sees Mia, she realizes that she is the woman that she slept with earlier that week and tries to keep the situation a secret from Jesse.
Several episodes of How I Met Your Father have at times felt forced or had stilted dialogue. How I Met Your Father episode 6, “Stacey,” was the first that felt fully fresh and natural because it worked to play into the strengths of the specific cast of characters. How I Met Your Mother had no dynamic similar to the brother/sister relationship between Jesse and Ellen. This relationship allows the two characters to develop a deeper, non-romantic bond when they are given the screen time to do so. While the show started to examine their relationship earlier in the season, How I Met Your Father episode 6 demonstrated how it could be used effectively for comedy, leveraging the pair’s shared interest in women to put them in an uncomfortable situation where they needed to work on their communication.
Previous episodes of How I Met Your Father have tended to be heavy with vague callbacks and easter eggs to How I Met Your Mother, or are attempting to reuse certain ideas from the original in new ways. Because the Ellen and Jesse dynamic is unique to How I Met Your Father, the story was able to feel entirely new and separate from all that had come before. It is by utilizing stories like this that How I Met Your Father can step out from its predecessor’s shadow, but this might pose a problem for a series that is committed to telling Sophie’s (Hilary Duff) story.
Interestingly, the Jesse and Ellen pairing as siblings has drawn comparisons not to How I Met Your Mother but to Friends, and to the inclusion of the brother/sister pairing between Monica and Chandler. Ellen’s sexuality helps to add a new dimension and avoid the new series from rehashing a completely different previous sitcom instead. However, it appears that How I Met Your Father might be gearing up to have Ellen date a woman who lives across the hall from her, which might introduce new comparisons to Friends.
How I Met Your Father releases new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu.
