How I Met Your Father – Not a Mama Mia

By: Gladys Luna

Sophie (Hilary Duff) is determined to find her father, so she embarks on a relentless search to achieve her goal. Future Sophie (Kim Cattrall) tells her son she will have to divert the conversation and, instead of sharing a story of how she met his father, she confesses how she met hers. Back to the present Sophie meets up with her mother Lori (Paget Brewster) and shows her the only photo she has of her that was taken during a music festival where she supposedly met Sophie’s dad. Unfortunately, nothing in there seems to ring a bell for her until she sees the tattoo on somebody’s arm that she is sure it belongs to the man in question. Sadly, that is the only clue that Sophie has along with the fact that it seems he used to work as part of the crew in the festival and apparently his name ends with an “ick.” With just a few facts and a lot of faith, Sophie goes to her friend Val (Francia Raísa) and asks for her assistance who, with her skills, manages to narrow the possible sea of candidates to only three. The two friends meet the rest of the gang at Sid’s (Suraj Sharma) bar to tell them what they have found and also ask for their support on this quest; they split the team in pairs and sent each on a different direction in search of their own “ick”.

Jesse (Christopher Lowell) and Sid are sent to New Jersey at a gym where suspect number, who happens to be named Rick (Brian Yang), works. Jesse goes to ask for him while Sid waits outside. While he is there he receives a text from his airplane friend Taylor (Caitlin Thompson) who announces that the rapper they met on the plane, Lil’ Toasty (Ryan Goldsher), has released a new single where he talks about wanting to have a threesome with them. Sid begins to laugh at his phone screen and that does not go unnoticed by Jesse who has now joined him again. Jesse asks about it but Sid says that he just got a text from his friend. Right that moment Rick shows up making the pair doubt that he might be Sophie’s father.

Moving on to Yonkers, we see Charlie (Tom Ainsley) and Ellen (Tien Tran) going into a strip club run by a man named Dick (Travis Schuldt) who is confronted by the pair. When they ask him if he has ever been to Lollapalooza he denies it in a way that it can be said that he’s evidently lying. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from the man’s mother whom he begins to tell his love misfortunes. This makes Ellen and Charlie believe that he might actually be their friend’s dad. Since it seems that they won’t get the truth out of him easily, they move to the next part of the plan and try to figure out possible ways to make him show his arm where the second clue might be resting. It is the tattoo that Lori recognizes in the picture. Hence, they come up with the conclusion that asking him to do a strip show for a non-existent bachelorette party would be the best solution and agree to meet with him later that day.

In the meantime Sophie, Jesse, Sid and Val go to Staten Island in search of “Nick” who happens to own a hot dog restaurant. The four enter the place and Sophie goes straight to ask for him. She refers to the man as the restaurant founder and it is met with the news that he died a while ago. So, they decide to go to visit his grave where they begin to sing “Amazing Grace” in an attempt to pay their respect to Sophie’s possible father. While they are singing another man (Clark Gregg) appears so they quickly stop and move to the other side while watching how this man is leaving some flowers over Nick’s grave. The man happens to have the famous barb wire tattoo on his arm. Sophie is in shock so the first thing that comes to her mind to explain what is happening is that this unknown man might be her older brother who has the same tattoo as their father. However, her friends are quick to explain to her that apparently the man who died might have been her grandfather and the stranger with the flowers could be his actual dad.

Sophie and her friends decide to follow her presumed father. While they are on the ferry Sid continues his exchange of messages with Taylor, completely ignoring Jesse who now seems to be upset by it. The four end up at the same hot dog restaurant they visited earlier and go inside so Sophie can talk to the man. She realizes that this is the moment she has been looking for and does not have any idea about how to approach him. Meanwhile, Charlie, Ellen and Rachel (Aby James) have everything ready to host the fake bachelorette party just to be able to see Dick’s arm. The man arrives all dressed up as a pirate and begins his show for Ellen. Although, given the pace he is having it seems that it will take forever for the pair to accomplish their goal.

We head back to Sophie who is still having doubts about how to talk to her father so her friends come up with the idea to make a test on the man to see if he is dad worthy. The first round consists in testing his compassion. Therefore, Sid pretends to stumble and fall in front of him and the man immediately goes to pick him up realizing that Sid’s shoes have no traction. The man hands Sid his own shoes to avoid him from falling again, something that touches their hearts. The second test is to figure out how fun he is and this time Jesse ventures into asking him for a package of ketchup from the other side of the restaurant. The man throws a couple at him, but since Jesse only needs one package he sends the other one back making the man to compliment his arm and strength. This makes Jesse cry. The next test is about not being creepy and now Val pretends to be frustrated by her studies and complains about it. That is when the man hears her and asks her if she is doing alright. She asks him if she should start an OnlyFans account instead and expects for him to give her some suggestions. Thankfully, he recommends her to continue with her studies. The gang go outside the restaurant to discuss about how awesome Sophie’s dad is and now it is her turn to go face him. They give her some privacy and let her go inside on her own and talk to him. Sophie enters the restaurant and waits for him to come out of the kitchen where she sees him cheering on the Mets game. Something seems to spark something in her head and she leaves the place before she could face the man.

At Ellen and Charlie’s apartment Dick is still taking his sweet time to get rid of his shirt, but has practically gotten rid of all the rest of his clothes. So, the three encourage him to move faster until he finally takes his shirt off and they see that he does not have the so expected tattoo. Later on at Jesse and Sid’s apartment we see Sid is still texting Taylor when Jesse walks in carrying a box of food and beer. Jesse confronts him about his new friend and it is there when he learns that contrary to what he has believed all along – Taylor is actually a woman and not his replacement. This makes Jesse question his friend about what is truly happening between them and Sid realizes that maybe he is moving further than he should. Sid tells Taylor that maybe they shouldn’t talk anymore. All of the friends meet at the bar, enjoying the cake from Ellen’s fake bachelorette party, except for Sophie who shows up later looking a little disappointed. Everyone wants to know about her encounter with her father, but she says that while she was about to introduce herself she realized that there are so many things they don’t know about each other and all of a sudden it just seemed too much for her. She thinks that ship might have already sailed but then Sid tells her that perhaps today was  just not the day to meet him. He suggests that she should wait for when she is ready. She still has her doubts, but decides to wait for the right time to come. All of a sudden, the man shows up – leaving her and her friends completely shocked.