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The eighth episode of How I Met Your Father Season 1 is titled “The Perfect Shot”. It is written by series co-producer Jeremy Roth and directed by Lynda Tarryk (Dr. Ken, Raven’s Home).
Plot Summary
This week, we are treated to our first two part-er of the How I Met Your Father series.
This episode revolves primarily around Sophie (Hilary Duff) and Jesse (Christopher Lowell)’s shared misadventure as they navigate their day as artists. Meanwhile, Sid (Suraj Sharma) teams up with Ellen (Tien Tran) to deal with an unexpected visit from Jesse’s past, and Valentina (Francia Raisa) takes a stand against her boss.
Analysis
With eight episodes into the first season of Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, a two-part episode is a welcome change of pace. This week, the writers take a more microscopic approach to character development as compared to what we’ve seen in the past. Without spoiling readers, let’s note the threads that are picked up and continued in this episode.
First, we have Sophie and Jesse’s arc as artists attempting to make it in New York City without succumbing to that brooding and jaded cynicism that we often see with artists on the big and small screen. The writers also continue to examine Valentina’s work-life, specifically, how she deals with seemingly regular abuse from her boss, Fred (Dan Bucatinsky); and finally, we have someone from Jesse’s past who makes an unexpected visit.
To avoid spoilers, let’s focus on the struggling artist and Valentina striking back arcs.
Portrait of the Artists
To be an artist in this day and age — or to specialize in anything based in the humanities — can be something of a struggle. The plight of the artists has many contributing factors, a major one of which is that our skills are either not seen as marketable in an economy and society that is more quantitative than qualitative. But before I digress too much, let’s return to the arc at hand.
Sophie, as we know from the previous episode, is struggling to find her “perfect shot,” a single picture that will put her work on the map, meanwhile Jesse continues to struggle in finding the courage to write songs after being publicly humiliated by his ex, Meredith (Leighton Meester). The struggling artist arc presented here is a nice call back to a How I Met Your Mother arc where Ted had struggled to eventually have one of his buildings become a part of the Manhattan Skyline. Given Ted’s success in How I Met Your Mother and the fact that we’re seeing Sophie and Jesse’s struggle early on is a nice call back to the show’s predecessor.
By highlighting Sophie and Jesse’s journey as artists trying to make it in New York City, the writers have shown us yet another way they are emphasizing the importance of the journey over the destination. The only gripe I have thus far is that Sophie’s development as an artist has been rather slow in comparison to Jesse’s, whom we’ve seen struggle with overcoming past trauma. However, we must remember that this is only the start of an arc that promises a very satisfying character development, and I am looking forward to how the writers flesh out more of Sophie and Jesse’s journey through New York as artists.
V is for Valentina (Francia Raisa)
Outside of Jesse and Sophie’s artist arc in this episode, we are treated to seeing Valentina’s work life. This is something we have never seen before and as we know from the previous episode, Valentina’s job is far from glamorous. From what she explained there and from what we see this week, we know that Valentina and her co-workers take abuse from their boss on a daily basis. Given the recent news of how Amazon workers’ rights have been severely violated and the increasingly popular subreddit r/antiwork which documents various cases of worker abuse, Valentina’s story was particularly poignant this week.
Although this arc is not the central focus of the episode, it was one I enjoyed immensely because Valentina eventually must retaliate against her boss. Now, this retaliation was far but perfect, and if this had been attempted in reality, there would be more serious complications and consequences. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Valentina’s rebellious streak.
Again, here we see a very nice albeit subtle echo of an arc in How I Met Your Mother where Lily would often retaliate against figures who mistreated her or who had mistreated Ted when they briefly worked together. Much like the artist arc in this episode, I have a feeling that writers have much more in store for us in regard to Valentina’s plight at work and whatever else may ensue from this arc.
Final Thoughts on This Week’s How I Met Your Father
Overall, the change of pace in this episode was very refreshing. One thing to note is that unlike in previous episodes where the writers presented us with a well-used sitcom plot and had the members of the gang run around in it, we were given a much bigger playground this week. This led to the deeper character and plot development as well as some exciting possible long-term arcs that could be very fun and satisfying to see played out over the course of the season and throughout the series.
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