Now that “How I Met Your Father” season one has passed the halfway mark, our curiosity about who the titular father is is higher than ever! The Hilary Duff-led Hulu reboot of the CBS fan-favorite sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” has drawn more than its fair share of comparisons to the original, and while we had to wait for nine long years to find out who Ted (Josh Radnor) eventually married and had children with, it seems that the identity of Sophie’s (Duff) son’s father might be revealed sooner rather than later.
The writers for “How I Met Your Father” have decided to keep the physical appearance of Sophie’s son under wraps, as to avoid giving anything away about the possible identity of the father among its diverse cast. So fans truly have nothing to go on but the story as it unfolds. Thus, we put on our sleuthing hats and uncovered several strong candidates that could fill these formidable shoes.
Ahead we’ve rounded up every promising theory about who the potential father might be, and ranked them from most to least likely. While Sophie tells her son that she met his father on the night of the premiere episode, they can introduce characters Sophie met that night in later episodes, like they did with Drew (Josh Peck) in episode three. In other words, the possibilities are endless! Assuming the father has been introduced in the show already, these are our top theories!
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Is Jesse the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
Ah, the Robin equivalent of our spinoff! Everything in the reboot tells us that Sophie and Jesse (Chris Lowell) will fall in love. They enjoy each other’s company and, even though they’re strictly friends at this point, Jesse clearly has feelings for Sophie and the chemistry is there.
As Robin once said in “HIMYM,” “If you have chemistry, you only need one other thing: timing… But timing’s a b*tch.” Could that be the case with our lovelorn Jesse here? He’s a strong frontrunner, unless “How I Met Your Father” takes a page from the original series’ playbook and turns him into a good ol’ red herring, of course.
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Is Drew the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
Drew (Josh Peck) is Sophie’s current love interest in season one, and he seems promising, healthy, and everything Sophie is looking for in a partner. We also find out in episode three that they met on the night Sophie met her child’s father, so he certainly fits the bill.
Still, Sophie and Drew’s romance seems a little too perfect for Drew to be the answer to this riddle. He could be Mr. Right Now, but not the person Sophie ends up with in the end.
Drew is a fan favorite thus far, but this may have more to do with nostalgia than anything else. Peck starred in Nickelodeon’s hit show “Drake & Josh” around the same time Duff was starring in “Lizzie McGuire” on Disney Channel, making this pairing a 2000s kids’ dream.
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Is Sid the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
Sid ranks pretty low on the list of possible fathers, but only because he’s happily engaged to his partner, Hannah, and they’re currently in a long-distance relationship.
Still, Hannah seems to be spread pretty thin with work. Who can forget when she had to cut her own engagement party short in the pilot episode to fly back to L.A. to perform a transplant surgery? While Sid and Hannah are happy now, the whole long-distance thing could throw a wrench in their romance down the line.
So while there’s no indication Sid will be the father right now, he’s certainly not the least probable.
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Is Ian the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
Ian seems to represent what Ted had with his ex, Victoria. Even though they came so close to being together a couple of times, they just weren’t each other’s Lebenslangerschicksalsschatz (a German phrase that means “lifelong treasure of destiny”).
Similarly, Sophie and Ian seem like endgame in a lot of ways, but something always gets in the way, the biggest thing at the moment being that he’s on the other side of the world. Still, nothing is impossible. Ian makes a solid contender for the titular position.
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Is Charlie the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
Since the older Sophie (Kim Cattrall) said she met her son’s father on the night of the premiere episode, we can’t rule out Charlie (Tom Ainsley) as a contender. Still, among Sophie’s crew of friends, Charlie is the least likely to be the father.
Charlie is currently dating Sophie’s best friend Valentina (Francia Raisa), so it seems like a stretch that he would ever end up with Sophie. Still, there’s nothing time and a few twists and turns can’t change on a show like “HIMYF.” He’ll be on our radar until we get the final answer to this puzzle.
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Will the Father Even Be Sophie's Partner on "How I Met Your Father"?
Some fans think the father is a sperm donor rather than Sophie’s ultimate partner or her child’s actual parent.
“WHAT IF the father is a sperm donor- like what if Jesse and Sophie end up together and the TWIST is that they need a sperm donor who happens to be like Sid or Charlie,” one fan wrote on Twitter. Other fans believe Sophie might be bisexual and end up with a woman as a partner. Add the above donor theory to that, and voila!
It might seem a little far-fetched, but it would also be a super progressive twist, serving as a reminder that society’s outdated cultural ideal of a “nuclear family” isn’t the only way this story can end.
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Is Barney the Father on "How I Met Your Father"?
One of the possible tie-ins between the original and the reboot could be the identity of the father.
Imagine if Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) turns out to be the father of Sophie’s offspring! While the womaniser had a baby girl named Ellie with an undisclosed mother in “How I Met Your Mother” season nine finale, it is possible Sophie will later meet Barney, fall in love, and have a kid with him who’s a half-sibling to Ellie? That’d be a brilliant bridge between the two series.
Becoming a father has changed Barney for good, so it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility, just saying!
