How I Met Your Father – The Jersey Connection

By: Gladys Luna

Sophie (Hilary Duff) enters Sid’s (Suraj Sharma) bar to meet with some of her friends. She shares how excited she is that the work week is finally over, something that surprises Sid making him comment that she has only been working for just one week. However, since Sophie isn’t exactly used to work five days in a row, this has turned out to be exhausting for her. As they are having fun together Jesse (Christopher Lowell) suddenly sees Drew (Josh Peck) and some of his other colleagues Bob (Alex Boling), M.C. (Garrett Schweighauser) and Melanie (Tipper Newton) enter the place. This makes him realize that he has been completely left out and that leaves him with a bad taste and the doubt of why he was not invited. Ellen (Tien Tran) tries to comfort him by saying that there must be a very good explanation for it but he does not want to wait any longer. So, he tries to confront the group, but before he does, Drew takes him aside and confesses that the reason why he was not invited to celebrate one of his co-worker’s birthday was because the others actually hate him, especially Melanie. At first Jesse doesn’t understand why she would be having those feelings towards him but then he tries to disguise his disappointment and pretends that he doesn’t care saying that he has other plans and wouldn’t have been able to join them anyway.

Meanwhile, Ellen asks Rachel (Aby James), who has been there all along, if she would like to go to the movies with her but the woman reacts suspiciously as she declines the offer saying that she has something else to do. She leaves without further explanation, something that immediately set the alarms for Ellen who’s first thought is that maybe her girlfriend is cheating on her. Ellen mentions that recently this has become into a regular behavior of hers. Sophie does not know what to say to cheer her friend up, so seeing the currently situation and in an attempt to help his friend, Sid suggests to have a stakeout to figure out what is truly going on with her and Ellen agrees. Then, the three of them embark on this new adventure.

In the meantime, Charlie (Tom Ainsley) shows up at Val’s (Francia Raísa) apartment all dressed up and ready to take her to dinner to a place they had made a reservation for back when they were together. It turns out that said restaurant is ran by a kid chef (Kayden Alexander Koshelev), who happened to win a cooking reality show so it has become quite popular. Val is unsure about whether she should go or not with him given that she feels there are still some unresolved things between them and they haven’t truly spent a one-on-one time since they broke up. Val ends up agreeing to the invitation. When they arrive to the restaurant both are surprised to see that the setting is very romantic and can only hope for this experience not to be too awkward. However, soon  that fails when they are served a dish with only one noodle being practically forced to eat it at the Lady and the Tramp style.

Back to the “three amigos on a mission,” we see Sid, Ellen and Sophie have managed to follow Rachel all the way to New Jersey where they are shocked to see Jesse walking by (fortunately, he didn’t see them). Moved by their curiosity, they decide to split up so Sophie will follow Jesse while Sid and Ellen will go after Rachel. Rachel has now arrived to a building where she is greeting another woman (Ambar Martinez) and going into the place something that leaves Ellen tremendously worried. Sophie follows Jesse into a bar where she learns that he will be playing at the open mic night so she stays to see more. Jesse takes the stage and begins to sing a bad parody song about his colleagues and how they left him out earlier that day. After he gets off the stage he is surprised to see his friend there and he ends up confessing that he uses open mic night as a way to deal with his emotions. All of a sudden Sophie realizes that Melanie (Jesse’s colleague and who we had previously seen at Sid’s bar) was wearing a jacket with the bar’s logo, which makes her believe that maybe she had heard Jesse singing about them. She assumes they probably told the others about it which might be the reason why they hate him. She shares some of this information with Jesse which leaves him thinking about it.

Ellen and Sid had managed to sneak into the apartment where Rachel has entered along with another woman and hide expecting the worst. While hiding they realize that Rachel is not cheating but looking for another apartment away from Ellen since she believes she needs to take some space from her. Later on Sid and Ellen attempt to leave the place without being noticed but unfortunately, Rachel sees them so the realtor and Sid leave them alone to talk. It is there where Rachel confesses that living across the hall from Ellen has just become too much so they decide to break up.

Back at the restaurant Val and Charlie cannot continue with the situation they are in, so they decide to leave.  On their way out they see the kid chef crying under a table. While Charlie wants to just leave as soon as possible, Val tries to figure out the reason behind the kid’s tears. Unfortunately, the chef only agrees to talk to Charlie who unwillingly accepts. He confesses that he had invited a girl he likes to his restaurant, but she just stood him up. This makes Charlie empathize with him and give him good advice along with the promise that he will surely find the right girl for him someday. This gesture melts Val’s heart who, once they are outside the place, decides to ask Charlie if he has changed his mind about having kids. Sadly, his answer is still the same. This makes Val realize they will never be back together again.

Ellen meets with Sid and tells him about the sad news, but fortunately for her he has the cure to help her forget about the sad moment she just experienced (at least for now). He then shows her the video of Jesse singing his parody song.

At Sid’s bar Jesse confronts Melanie about her seeing him perform and she confesses that she has heard all of his songs so she went to tell the others about it and that is why they disliked him. Sophie tries to help her friend mend his relationship with his colleagues, so she recommends that as a way to be even that they should roast him and things will be solved. Hence, one by one they do it and now, everything seems to be back to normal and Jesse thanks her for that. Sophie leaves the bar but before, she turns back and sees Jesse talking excitedly to another woman (Meaghan Rath) as she looks at him wistfully.