REVIEW: ‘How I Met Your Father’ Episode 3 – “The Fixer”

The Episode 3 of Hulu’s newest original show How I Met Your Father, “The Fixer,” premiered earlier this week. Last week’s debut episodes introduced audiences to Sophie (Kim Cattrall and Hilary Duff), the series’ main character who tells her son the story of how she met his father. Her story begins in the present time and revolves around the experiences that she and her close-knit group of friends go through. These stories focus on trying to figure out who they are, what they want out of life, and how dating life was in an age of dating apps.

How I Met Your Father Episode 3 sees Sophie trying to help Jesse (Christopher Lowell) with his Tinder profile picture. She convinces him to let her take new pictures at his job, which leads her to have an unexpected connection with one of Jesse’s coworkers. Valentina (Francia Raisa ) helps Sid (Suraj Sharma) maintain his long-distance relationship with Hannah (Ashley Reyes) when Hannah decides to liven things up. Finally, Charlie (Tom Ainsley) attempts to look for a new roommate.

“The Fixer” does an incredible job setting up the bond between Sophie and Jesse. While the first two episodes teased that Sophie could potentially be Jesse’s future husband, there’s no doubt that they’re incredible friends after watching this episode. Their chemistry together is wonderful to watch, and they’re able to play off each other really well. It’s clear that the bond they’ve managed to form has been established rather quickly, but it never feels forced. Sophie genuinely wants to help Jesse, especially after learning more about his failed relationship. Jesse accepts her help, even if he was reluctant at first, which shows that he does trust Sophie. It will be interesting to see where this mutual trust goes and whether it does lead to them forming a more romantic relationship down the road.

One of the more compelling scenes in “The Fixer” comes towards the episode’s final moments. Sophie is explaining to Jesse why she was so adamant about helping him. In her explanation, she describes herself as a “fixer” and goes into the root of why she sees herself like this. Without going into spoilers, one thing that this conversation points out is that she’s clearly a romantic but differs heavily from Ted Mosby, the main character from How I Met Your Mother.

Ted was romantic but could often get swept up in the moment or be completely desperate to find the love of his life. Sophie’s explanation for being a “fixer” is rooted in familial struggles that should definitely be explored more in future episodes. But Sophie gives a well-delivered reason for her desire to help those she cares for since no one provided that sort of help when she was growing up. The title of an episode being referenced in the dialogue isn’t something new in the realm of TV, but the reference proves to be great character development for Sophie and will surely get viewers to be more invested in her story.

Unfortunately, “The Fixer” suffers from having too many stories in one episode, making most of the stories feel forced. Sophie’s narrative focuses on the central premise of the series, which automatically sets up how important it will be to the episode. So the stories that suffer involve the side characters, especially Charlie’s. While there are plenty of comedic moments in his story this episode, it feels so rushed that it loses any impact that it would make on his character. His storyline would have made a bigger impact on his character had it been given more time to develop. I truly want to care about Charlie, but nothing from these three episodes has given me any reason to care.

As with Valentina helping Sid with his long-distance relationship, “The Fixer” gives them a bit more limelight than Charlie but still not enough to be fully invested in their characters. I was extremely excited for a Latina actress like Raisa to have a more prominent role, and the debut episodes certainly gave me hope. However, I’m finding it difficult to care for her character after her introduction showed promise. Yes, there are only three episodes of How I Met Your Father released so far, but there are still other plot points to be told. It will be hard to imagine her being given a bigger spotlight since most of the series will revolve around Sophie. However, the original series found a way to give all its side characters prominent roles right from the start, so there’s hope for Valentina to be more than just the comedic best friend that people go to for support.

Ultimately, How I Met Your Father Episode 3 delivered hilarious and enjoyable storylines but had flaws that could make viewers lose interest in certain characters. However, with seven episodes left, there is plenty of room for these faults to be corrected, or at least lessened to make viewers care about other characters. Fortunately, the series has found a way to make a unique impact with the character of Sophie rather than relying on nostalgia from the previous series.

How I Met Your Father Episode 3 is streaming now, exclusively on Hulu.