While HIMYF has been growing into its own thing, the show doesn’t ignore its origins, so throughout season 2, there are still many HIMYM callbacks that certainly leave the fans happy. From cameos to references or just vibes, here is every Easter egg we’ve spotted in the second season of How I Met Your Father so far. Did you notice them all?
02×01 – Barney Cameo
Neil Patrick Harris is not the first from the original gang to appear in the spin-off but it looks like his presence won’t be a one-time thing. During the season 2 premiere, the fans got to see a flash-forward where Sophie has hit rock bottom. She’s sending a voice message to her mother while driving through the suburbs, asking her to call her back because she thinks she’s dating her father, when she hits a vehicle.
Besides having a license plate “LGNDRY” we get to see Barney as he exclaims his iconic “Dude!”. In the future, when Sophie’s son asks about Barney, she says “we’ll get there soon enough” which makes it clear that we’ll see the likes of him again. It’s still to be understood under what conditions: as a kid’s father, as president/worker of Goliath National Bank?
It’s interesting that this moment took place when it did, seeing that just like Barney, Sophie also doesn’t know who her father is.
02×03 – Rando Is Familiar
How I Met Your Mother was all about storytelling, but after decades, details begin to slip into oblivion, that’s just how memory works. That’s what happened with Blah Blah, someone from Ted’s past whose name he doesn’t recall. In HIMYM style Blah Blah even joked “I’m just some random girl to make Robin jealous and after she takes you back, you probably won’t even remember my name!”.
Well, Valentina also had a forgettable date with a “Rando” man, and besides his name, Sophie can’t remember his face, thus, we get an emoji story. While not a copy of the original, it definitely has the same tone.
02×03 – Object Gone Missing
We all remember the legendary yellow umbrella that kept disappearing until it magically connected Ted and Tracy. Sophie puts the photograph she took of Jesse on top of the back of a taxi, and in a moment of distraction, the taxi drives away and takes it.
We know she’ll retrieve it as she has it in her future apartment, but how it will come to happen is another mystery just like the father’s identity. Of course, this parallel screams father vibes, but maybe it would be too obvious to replicate the formula.
02×05 – Sandy Rivers Cameo
Sandy Rivers is the sixth cameo on HIMYF and the second this season. From co-anchoring with Robin at Metro News 1 and World Wide News, by the end of HIMYM it is revealed that, after workplace misconduct claims, his career in the US is over and he’s exiled to Moscow.
He appears in HIMYF, before these events, interviewing Meredith and Jesse, as the host of Good Day Live, World Wide News’ entertainment beat, to which he got demoted because of unproven accusations. While plot-wise, his cameo doesn’t add much, it fits naturally and completes his storyline.
02×07 – Lizzie McGuire Flashback
Okay, this one isn’t HIMYM related, but Hillary Duff has been pretty iconic since her Lizzie McGuire days, so when Sophie is recalling her 13-year-old self going through Valentine’s Day, we cannot help but scream as the flashback in question is a scene from Lizzie.
02×07 – University Flashbacks
This one is more generic, as many sitcoms have pretty epic flashbacks, but HIMYM always insisted on university flashbacks with weird outfits and hairstyles since Ted, Lily and Marshall all attended the same university and met there. In this episode, we got to see how Sophie and Valentina also met in university and how Jesse used to speak up in riots.
Additionally, the complete structure of the episode was very HIMYM, as it was a play with time through a compilation of short stories recurring to ridiculous flashbacks.
02×07 – Jesse Is Ted Mosby
We already knew Jesse was Ted when he blurted the “I love you” way too soon to Sophie just like Ted did with Robin, but through many flashbacks, in this episode, we got to see him doing it multiple times. Once, he was even playing the french horn, surrounded by blue lockers!
02×07 – Have You Met Ted?
Yet again, during another flashback where Jesse confesses his premature love, we see a character approaching him and saying “have you met molly?”. While the character’s not introducing Jesse to a person, the tone that he uses is the same that Barney uses in his pick-up line “have you met Ted?”.
02×08 The Rewardishment
HIMYM created a full dictionary of made-up words, concepts and contests, from the possimpible, the crazy/hot scale to the slap bet. So, to witness the first, of what we hope will be many, in HIMYF is legen – wait for it – dary. The rewardishment, allows them to get a reward if they accomplish something together, or a punishment if they don’t. Just like the slap bet, we hope it makes a comeback in future seasons.
