How I Met Your Father – Disengagement Party

By: Gladys Luna

Future Sophie (Kim Cattrall) is explaining to her son that sometimes in life there’s the need to do something that she refers to as “rescue a friend” and recalls a time when she had to stop Val (Francia Raísa) from doing something as bleaching her hair. However, unfortunately, that was not the only time she had to help her out of a life changing decision, which takes us to the present time where Sophie (Hilary Duff) has called for everyone to join at Jesse (Christopher Lowell) and Sid’s (Suraj Sharma) apartment to hear the plan she has made in order to break Val and Swish’s (Michael Cimino) engagement. Once there she explains that each one of the friends will play a specific role, including Hannah (Ashley Reyes) who has just arrived from Los Angeles to help her carry on her devilish project. In said plan Ellen (Tien Tran) is in charge of playing the role of a bitter divorced lady. Charlie (Tom Ainsley) would have to be that someone who must remind Swish how wonderful it is to be single; however, he is not so willing to do it since he is now dating Julia (Hina Abdullah). Jesse will play “Mr. Casual Sex.” Meanwhile, Sophie will try to show him how old she is, which means his fiancée Val is as well.  Last, but not least, Sid and Hannah must play the role of the married couple that happen fighting most of the time. With this said, the plan is set in motion wishing they get the best results as possible.

At the engagement party Val and Sophie are already there waiting for Swish to arrive and the moment he walks into Pemberton’s Sophie pretends to have a back pain, alluding to her age as the main reason. She makes sure to let the young man know that Val and her are the same age and she probably will find herself on the same situation soon but the guy does not seem to mind about that at all. Realizing her failed attempt, she goes to Jesse who tries to convince Swish about how casual sex is better than anything else. Unfortunately, he gets completely caught up with his own words messing everything up at the end. With attempt number two being a total failure, it is now Ellen’s turn to start playing her part. She does very well at first, but at some point Swish manages to gain her sympathy – turning the tables on the conversation leaving Ellen disarmed. She even mentions that she felt a motherly vibe towards him, something that gives Sophie a new idea.

In the meantime, Sid and Hannah are chatting waiting for their turn to talk to Swish when Sid sees a notification on his wife’s phone about a new house she wants to buy in L.A. This makes him realize that she actually wants to stay there instead of moving to New York after her residency is over just as they had planned. It seems that the fake fight they were supposed to have has just turned into a real one and it is not going well at all. While they are still in the middle of their arguing, Sophie interrupts them letting them know that for the moment there is no need for them to talk to Swish yet and mentions that the energy in the room feels pretty heavy already.

Charlie and Julia get into the bar and meet Sophie and Ellen who seem to be uncomfortable in his presence.  She just rushes them into keep moving until they are out of her sight. Jesse notices that something is going on between his friend and his sister so he asks Charlie about it, who ends up confessing that Ellen and Julia are “back twins.” That means the first night Julia stayed at the apartment with him he woke up in the middle of the night, went to the kitchen and hug Ellen from behind thinking it was the other woman. So, now they can barely look into each other’s eyes.

Val is growing more nervous by the hour when noticing that her friend’s plan to help her out of her engagement have terribly failed. It is right then when her parents, Juan (Mark Consuelos) and Raquel (Constance Marie), walk in desperate and demanding to know how it is possible that she has decided to get married without even telling them. They even believe that maybe some of their decisions as parents have influenced her to do this. Sophie tells them that Swish is looking for their blessing to marry their daughter and convinces them into not approving of said marriage. A few minutes later Swish shows up introducing himself to them and Sophie encourages them to get to know each other better. Juan talks to his son-in-law and expresses his concerns about the couple not having a stable financial status, but Swish shares his five-years plan he had created with the help of a friend to make sure that he will give Val the life she deserves – something that leaves the father-in-law quite convinced. Val and Sophie watch them from the other side of the bar and realize that another attempt has failed. Sometime later Juan and Raquel approach the couple of friends and tell them that they have given Swish their blessing to marry her. Although at first Val tries to fight their decision, she ends up accepting that soon she will be a married woman – something that Sophie does not agree with.

At the other side of the bar Jesse tries to find a way to make her sister and friend to forget what happened and go back to their usual dynamic so he tells them about that one time that he walked on Sid while he was on the shower believing it was someone else and recalls how uncomfortable it was for them to even look at each other’s eyes the next days until one day, he found a book that suggested a bunch of foolish activities to do with a friend that they used as a distraction that helped them bury deep down the experience they had so, that raised some hope for Ellen and Charlie who went immediately in search of said book making the second one leaving his date Julia all on her own and pissing her off.

Meanwhile, Sophie tries to talk Val out of her decision of marrying Swish for all the wrong reasons and asks her about her feelings for Charlie. However, her friend is convinced that even though she really loved him that maybe he was just not the one for her. Sid leaves the bar to get some air and sees Val’s parents. She asks for their advice about relationships since they are a couple that have been together for a long time and seem to have a successful marriage. Juan tells him that there was a time when they wanted two completely different things and he decided to choose the same thing as her because, in the end, that meant he was choosing her. Sid goes back to the bar carrying an iPad with him and shows Hannah a video he made for her the night they got engaged and she had to leave back to L.A. In the video he had promised her that they will always solve everything together and he wants to continue honoring that promise so he will consider to move with her to L.A. The couple walk out of the bar leaving the iPad behind, which Sophie finds and sees that in the screen there is an image of Charlie and Val kissing. She locates her friend and shows her the video trying to remind her the love she used to feel for him and tells her that she deserves something as good as that if not with Charlie maybe with someone else. She goes on to say if that someone else is Swish then she should go for it but if not she might consider looking for another options. Val begins to cry and tells her that she’s right and she should wait for true love.

Future Sophie shares that even though Val broke Swish’s heart that night he managed to recover very quickly, got married weeks later and now he owns an island. Val talks to her parents and tells them she knows they want her to find true love and she promises she will, but her father confesses that what he really wanted was for her to marry Swish. Next, Sophie and Val celebrate being single again and then Ellen and Charlie enter the place running and looking very excited to have managed to get past their awkwardness thanks to the book Jesse recommended. Then, Sid sees the book and suddenly brings to his memory the weird encounter he had with his friend years ago, something that makes Jesse suggest Sid to go with him and use the book again.