How I Met Your Father – Family Business

By: Gladys Luna

Sophie’s (Hilary Duff) presumed father Nick (Clark Gregg) shows up at Pemberton’s saying that based on the footage of his front door cameras he found out that he has a daughter and is now there to learn more about it. It is here when we see a whole footage of Sophie as she practices outside Nick’s restaurant the best speech to approach him and let her know about her suspicions. So, after a bizarre conversation that ends up so differently as Sophie had it in her head, she tells Nick how is that she had come to the conclusion that he is her father. The man does not show any opposition. Sophie invites him for a drink but given that all of her friends are there acting weird about the situation, she decides that it is best to meet with Nick the next day at his restaurant to what the man happily agrees.

The next day Jesse (Christopher Lowell) shows up at Pemberton’s slowly and weirdly approaching Charlie (Tom Ainsley) and talking to him in what future Sophie (Kim Cattrall) calls a “bro talk.” Jesse invites Charlie to hang out with him at a new bar, but according to the “bro talk” code what he actually is asking for is for Charlie to be his wingman. Charlie seems to be in need of the same so he agrees with no objections. A few minutes later Val (Francia Raísa) enters the place looking happy knowing that there is a chance that Swish (Michael Cimino), her fiancée, might be cheating on her and she is confident that only in that way he’ll be able to forget their commitment and he will finally get over her. Ellen (Tien Tran) takes the opportunity to invite her to celebrate by attending to a fancy open house that Val seems to be very interested about.

Later that night Jesse and Charlie get to the bar willing to have as much fun as they can, but unfortunately for the first guy it seems that Charlie and his British accent are more magnetic and attractive to girls than whatever Jesse has to say. This doesn’t go unnoticed by him, so he decides to hide in a corner and dwell on his misery until Charlie finds him and says that a group of girls had him record a voice note pretending to be sexy Paddington bear. Jesse is still upset about the recent events and confesses him that maybe going out with him to find a date was not the best choice since he seems to be getting all the attention. However, contrary to what he thinks, Charlie believes that his accent is actually a curse since it appears to be all the girls see in him so in a way to twist things a little. Jesse suggests that maybe they must switch places and now he will pretend to be a British guy and Charlie will just be a random American guy. As soon as Jesse starts to practice his fake accent a couple of girls Julia (Hina Abdullah) and Angelina (Lindsey Gort) approach them praising Jesse’s accent.

Meanwhile at Pemberton’s, Sophie returns from her meeting with her dad and tells Sid (Suraj Sharma) that she believes that her and Nick do not have a lot in common based on the conversation they had earlier and that disappoints her somehow. Sid encourages her to continue knowing him and lets her know that she cannot expect to bond with him overnight. She confesses that she actually found something they agree on and it is that after realizing that her father’s business has been a little low on sales recently given the bar across the street had closed (and that seemed to send the best customers to the restaurant), so she offered him to have a pop-up at Pemberton’s giving no chance to Sid to refuse the offer.

At the open house Ellen and Val make jokes about the fancy life they’ll have if they were to live there. Val realizes that the apartment belongs to Missy Moritz (Kyle Richards), a famous socialite best known for wearing the most amazing hats and who has a very sticky song that Ellen immediately recognizes. The two cross the boundaries set by Missy and enter her closet and begin to try on her clothes and hats until the woman shows up and throws them away from there. They return to Pemberton’s and, while they are looking at the photos they took, Val realizes that she had lost Swish grandmother’s engagement ring and is convinced that she left it at the apartment. She persuades Ellen to go there with her and get it back. On the other side of the bar Nick and Sophie seem to finally be in sync as they prepare hot dogs for everyone while also having a lot of fun. Apparently, Sophie’s attempts to bond with her father has worked and they had been a complete success – something that make the woman very excited. Unfortunately, said sentiment vanishes as soon as a guy named Gio (Nick Thune), also known as “the polish hot dog king,” claims that they have crossed the line by selling hot dogs in his territory. Sophie feels aggravated by it and tries to stop him but Nick explains that he has all the right to claim what is his.

Meanwhile, Charlie arrives to Jesse’s apartment in a haste saying that he has managed to convince Julia and Angelina to go to the apartment and have some drinks with them – something they get very excited about but also feel tired of pretending to be someone they are not. So, they come up with a plan to put an end to it. When the two women arrive and they are happily chatting, Jesse pretends to get an unpleasant call that makes him switch back to his original accent. They explain that the reason why they were faking it was because they are method actors and were supposed to work on a play that has been cancelled so now they are able to speak as they usually do. The women are surprised by the confession, but seem to sympathize with their story. They ask about the play and request them to perform it for them. In a way to get out of it, Charlie lies and says that they can’t – given that they had puppets in it and they don’t have any around. Much to their dismay, Angelina happens to be a teacher and is actually carrying a couple of puppets. Therefore, the men have no choice but to give in to their request. Sadly, they cannot carry on much longer with their lie and Charlie just blurts out the truth behind their charade.Although they think the women will be upset and surprised by his confession, they are the ones that end up in shock when Angelina confesses that her and Julia were just going on a scavenger hunt for Angelina’s bachelorette party and one of the tasks to achieve was to pick up a British guy. However, it turned out that Julia really liked Charlie so they decide to see them again. This confession makes Jesse disappointed given that the woman he was interested is already engaged to someone else.

Back at Missy’s apartment Ellen and Val show up at her door and tell her that they need to go inside the place since she believes she had lost a ring in there.  Missy claims to know nothing about it, but Val notices that she is wearing it. When she demands her to return it, the socialite refuses and shuts the door right on their faces. A few minutes later the two friends go back to knocking on Missy’s door,  but this time Val tells her that she has a picture that proves that the socialite has been lying about the fake brand of shoes she wears and threatens her with revealing the truth if he doesn’t return her the ring. Ellen is forced to comply.

At Pemberton’s Sophie is not willing to leave things as they are with Gio and decides to go face him. Although Sid tries to stop her from doing it, he ends up going with her. She walks straight to him looking all brave, but then starts to cry begging him to stop threaten her father and Gio is forced to confess that he is actually Jake – Nick’s nephew. It seems Jake was asked by his uncle to help him. Sophie returns to the bar and faces her father saying that she knows the truth about Gio/Jake and Nick confesses that he didn’t know how to tell her that he was happy with being at his restaurant and didn’t want to do a pop up again. He just did not want to hurt her feelings. Sophie believes that without this they might have nothing left in common, but then the man confesses that given the life he has been living he had ridden off the idea of having a family but her showing up in his life has changed that for him. He tells her that she doesn’t have to try so hard.

Later at the bar Val, Ellen, Sid and Sophie are recapping about the day when Swish shows up to talk with her fiancée and reveals her that the person she thought he had been cheating on, is actually their engagement party planner that he has been preparing for her, leaving Val in complete shock.