LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 10: Hilary Duff attends the “How I Met Your Father" fan experience in Los Angeles celebrating the show’s first season finale with cast on March 10, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
Movies - TV
How I Met Your Father Brought A Legacy Character To Justice
By RAFAEL MOTAMAYOR
Haley Joel Osment as Cole talking with Bruce Willis as Dr. Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense
Spoiler Warning!
This story contains spoilers for
"How I Met Your Father."
The main characters of How I Met Your Father lounging in a bar
“How I Met Your Father” manages to capture the essence and the slightly unreal tone of the original series while also introducing a more diverse cast and more modern problems. However, the series has also slowly brought back some of the original show’s cast for fan service, such as the recent cameo of Barney Stinson, who reveals he finally got what he deserves.
Barney Stinson points his finger at Sophie
Barney encounters Sophie after she flees from the older man she’s dating — who might be her father — and mistakenly assumes she is someone he slept with who’s seeking revenge. He introduces himself as a “recovering serial womanizer,” explaining that he now has a shock therapy device attached to him that delivers a jolt whenever he says something problematic.
Sophie and Barney side-by-side, talking
His cameo is more than just a one-off joke and serves as a seminal teaching moment for Sophie. When Barney shares that finding his father and becoming one himself didn’t fix him but instead inspired him to change, it prompts Sophie to want to find her father at the end of the episode. These cameos act as cool plot purposes, much like the side characters did for Ted in the original show.