The second season of How I Met Your Father premiered this Tuesday (24th) on Star+ and brought fans of the original series a bombastic surprise. Neil Patrick Harris, the eternal Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother (20052014), returned to the iconic character in the first episode of the new series.
Barney’s return was only revealed in the final seconds of the episode. In the scene where Future Sophie (Kim Cattrall) hints at a time yet to come when today’s Sophie (Hilary Duff) will hit rock bottom in her love life later this year, the series skips forward in time to show the protagonist She leaves her mother a voicemail while driving, saying she’s freaking out that she’s dating someone very similar to her father.
Sophie then crashes the vehicle into the car in front of them. When the driver leaves to discuss the accident, he turns out to be Barney. When future Sophie’s son asks, “Wait, who’s that?” She replies, embarrassed, “We’re arriving soon.”
Harris’ return as Barney is the second surprise prepared by the creators of the original series. At the end of the first season, Cobie Smulders returned as Robin Scherbatsky, one of the protagonists of How I Met Your Mother.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine, showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger gave details of how they convinced Harris to return to the character for the spinoff. The duo also assured that more surprises are being prepared for the future of How I Met Your Father.
“We’re always excited at the prospect of having someone from the Original Series. We had an idea of how to use Barney this season, which was very exciting for us from the start. From there we called quickly [a diretora de How I Met Your Mother] Pam Fryman, who texted him and said, “Do you want to come play?” Since everyone loves Pam so much, she had a very quick response. We zoomed in with Neil and presented our idea to him and he was on board very quickly which was amazing,” explained Elizabeth.
Cobie Smulders returned as Robin in the first season of How I Met Your Father
Promotion/Star+
According to Aptaker, the return of Barney or any other character from the original series would only be possible if she contributed to Sophie’s story. The showrunners didn’t want the surprises to feel unnecessary and not help the spinoff’s character development.
“We talked about what makes the most sense for the story and where Sophie is. In season one, it felt like meeting Robin was really organic to what she needed to hear at that point in her life. Likewise, season two will take a while for the exact situation to unfold, but once we get back to the Barney moment, people will see that he’s exactly the person they needed to meet at that point in their lives, according to the showrunner .
“There’s a bit of a cosmic sense that she meets the original series characters exactly when she needs them most. We know fans want to know where these characters are in their lives right now and get those Easter eggs, but it’s so much more satisfying when they can not only reveal all of that, but also play a really important part in Sophie’s life Travel.”
Without naming names or dates, the duo confirmed that they intend to bring back all of the protagonists from How I Met Your Mother to take part in the spinoff. The wish goes against a statement from Josh Radnor, who portrayed Ted Mosby on the original series, who said he was open to returning as a character.
“Yeah absolutely. We’ve really discussed the plots of all the original characters. Now it’s just a matter of analyzing and hoping that when the time is right to ask people will be available and want to do it. But yeah, we found it all very amusing. [Os retornos] it makes our world bigger and it satisfies the fans on a very deep level, so we like doing it and we have the ideas.”
How I Met Your Father Season 2 will have a total of 22 episodes. The first year is available in full in the Star+ catalogue.