After many months of waiting, the How I Met Your Mother reboot, How I Met Your Father is finally here!
The show is all about Sophie (played by Hilary Duff ) looking for love in all the wrong places (aka Tinder). Along the way, she meets new friends, like Valentina, Jesse, and Sis.
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Since the show belongs under the same universe as HIMYM , creators didn’t waste any time linking the show together in a fun way.
Get out your baskets, folks! It’s time to go Easter egg hunting.
Before the show premiered on Hulu, co-creator, Isaac Aptaker, had one suggestion for fans: “be eagle-eyed.”
Of course, he was talking about the many nods to the previous show, which starred Josh Radnor (Ted), Neil Patrick Harris (Barney), Jason Segel (Marshall), Alyson Hannigan (Lily), and Cobie Smulders (Robin).
“It’s also something [co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger and I] love doing on This Is Us, where everything is very, very intentional,” Aptaker told TVLine.
“These shows are so much fun because they are puzzle,” he added .
Some fans already believe that there is a connection between the character Ian (played by Daniel Augustin) and the character Naomi (Katie Holmes) from the original series.
Like Naomi, Ian is a marine biologist who is moving away for work.
When asked about this possible connection, Aptaker remained tight-lipped.
“Whether that specifically connects to Katie Holmes, I will not say,” he said. “But yes, that sort of level of randomness and detail [is baked into the show, and] there are connections to be drawn throughout.”
What we *do* know is that the season’s first official easter egg was delivered in a big way.
This took place at the end of the first episode when the new friend group gathered for a nightcap in a living room.
“Wow, I love your place,” says Sophie. “Thanks,” replies Jesse, played by Christopher Lowell. “It was a total score.”
But fans could barely focus on the words.
They were too busy gasping at how the apartment is the same one that Marshall and Ted shared!
It’s the same one where the gang regularly gathered throughout the original sitcom’s nine seasons.
You might be surprised to learn that this nod to the original show wasn’t a replica.
The studio of the apartment had been held in storage since the original series ended in 2014.
This means that everything in the apartment is original, down to the upholstered valances and window blinds.
“This is very much its own show and we’re telling an entirely new story here,” co-creator and co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger told ‘La Times.’
“But at the same time, we wanted to pay tribute to the original and give this loyal fan base — and we are part of that fan base — something special .”
In the Hulu reboot, Jesse explains that they got the apartment from “this old couple who posted it on the Wesleyan alumni group.”
Of course, this is in reference to the couple played by Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan. “We even got them to leave their swords,” he says as the camera shows it mounted over the fireplace.
Much like the apartment, the swords aren’t a replica, either.
After set decorator, Amy Feldman, couldn’t find something similar, Carter Bays, who co-created How I Met Your Mother , offered up the original weaponry he had in his home.
“That was a big relief, believe me,” Feldman said. “It was nice to put something so memorable from the original into that new set.”
Of course, certain décor touches were added to fit the personalities of Jesse and Sid.
As a musician/Uber driver, Jesse had vintage records and instruments.
Meanwhile, Sid (Suraj Sharma) had space to experiment with cocktail recipes after he changed his career focus from medicine to hospitality.
Another easter egg fans noticed from the first episode was the pineapple-shaped cutting board in Sophie and Valentine’s kitchen.
This was an obvious nod to the HIMYM episode, “The Pineapple Incident.”
We get that this is all a lot to take in for just one episode! So as new episodes roll in, heed the creators’ advice and stay eagle-eyed!
