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The third episode of How I Met Your Father is titled “The Fixer”. It is written by Dan Levy and directed by Kimberly McCullough.
Plot Summary
The episode begins in Sid (Suraj Sharma) and Jesse’s (Christopher Lowell) apartment where Jesse expresses his disdain for Tinder and other dating apps. In response, the rest of the gang teases him about dying alone and how he comforts himself with take-out food and porn. Determined not to let Jesse sink into hopelessness, Sophie (Hilary Duff) offers to help Jesse out by workshopping his Tinder profile and taking a new profile picture for him.
“One is the loneliest number that you can ever do”
This episode of How I Met Your Father begins much in the same fashion as the second, except 2050 Sophie (Kim Catrall) makes it clear that this episode is not the story of how she met or got with her son’s father. Instead, it is about how she tried to fix Jesse’s problems with photography and Tinder. Here, it becomes obvious that the writers are determined to make the portrait of this story one of relationship-building and maturation framed within the journey of how Sophie met with her son’s father. There are multiple threads within this episode that lend authority to this picture.
After the events of the Club F.O.M.O., this episode opens with the gang all together in Jesse and Sid’s apartment. This is the first time this has been done in the series and while Jesse’s failed engagement and Sophie’s failed eighty-eight failed first dates is the topic of discussion, each of the gang gets their equal share of the limelight in this episode. However, this time around, the story is more cohesive. Now, like the previous episode, eventually, the gang leaves the apartment and separates but unlike the action at Club F.O.M.O., each character experiences a kind of loneliness unique to them as another member of the gang helps them cope.
Sophie pairs off with Jesse to take his Tinder profile photo; Sid gets advice from Valentina (Francia Raisa) and vents to her about the struggles of a long-distance relationship; and Ellen (Tien Tran) — although not willingly at first — begins to help ease Charlie (Tom Ainsley) into living in the city.
Dating and Other Digital Dilemmas
Aside from the loneliness thread, the writers in this episode also craft a clever critique of dating and digital technology. This was bound to happen sooner or later given that How I Met Your Father takes place in 2022 and the plot kicks off with Sophie’s failed Tinder date with Ian. In this episode, apps and devices are shown as essential parts of a relationship. Is there anything inherently wrong with the use of digital technology in making and maintaining relationships? Not necessarily but, if the various lockdowns, closures, and quarantine measures during this pandemic have taught us anything, it is that there is no digital or cyber substitute for human interaction.
Now, dear reader, without spoiling you, please allow me to tease you. Forget about Jesse and Sophie. Shift your attention to Sid and his relationship with Hannah (Ashley Reyes). Throughout the episode, the writers illustrate the strain that a long-distance relationship can have on two people. Digital technology and cyberspace grant us nearly instant access to each other at any time of the day at nearly any location on Earth, but meeting and socializing in cyberspace will never generate the kind of intimacy that we crave in our platonic or romantic relationships.
While the writers initially illustrate the intimacy-lessness of online dating with Jesse’s struggle and disdain of dating apps such as Tinder, it is Sid’s relationship with Hannah and their adventurous attempt to create intimacy in this episode that drives the point home. Digital technology and cyberspace may grant us an instantaneous connection to our partners, but this digital access via cyberspace does not equal intimacy.
Final Thoughts on This Week’s How I Met Your Father
The dynamics we see between each of the members of the gang are a result of everything that the writers set up in both the pilot and the following episode. What viewers get here is a return to that familiar formula that we are so used to seeing played out on the show’s predecessor, How I Met Your Mother, as well as other sitcoms with similar premises and characters. Similar to previous episodes, we are given more insight into the inner worlds and motivations of the gang, specifically with Duff’s character, Sophie.
The episode is worth watching because, despite falling back on the tried and true formulae we have seen before, How I Met Your Father stands apart in the way that the spotlight remains on the gang’s relationship and maturation as they support and advise each throughout each of their misadventures.
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