In the closing seconds of the episode "Cool and Chill," the timeline shifts to one year after the events earlier in the episode. Sophie leaves her mom Lori (Paget Brewster) a hysterical voicemail saying she thinks she's dating her dad, before suddenly crashing into a luxury SUV. When the driver's side door opens, the victim turns out to be Barney. He shrugs and says to Sophie, "Dude!" just as the Audi's bumper hits the pavement.
When future Sophie (Kim Cattrall) is asked by her son who that man is, she replies, "We'll get there soon enough."
Harris (pictured) played Barney for nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother. After meeting Ted (Josh Radnor) for the first time in a cafe, he quickly considers himself part of the gang. Barney, the group's serial womanizer, usually rejected any kind of commitment and had a series of debaucheries in the series' early seasons. His relationship with Robin (Cobie Smulders) eventually turned into marriage, but the couple divorced three years later.
In an interview with TVLine, creators Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger revealed that Barney will return for more episodes. Although the duo remain silent about Barney's role in How I Met Your Father, they confirm that he is not Sophie's father.
“We’re not telling a teen dad story. I think given Lori’s age, that’d become a pretty uncomfortable story,” said Aptaker.
And now that Barney is separated from Robin, the creators shared how his return will expand his story into the present.
“Whenever we talk about bringing back a member of the original crew, you want it to serve two purposes: You want to give some tidbits about what is going on in their lives, where they’ve landed and where they’re at, but it’s also about how they impact the How I Met Your Father story, and how they send one of our characters in a new, unexpected direction” Aptaker shared.
“Similar to Robin last year, we’ll learn some more about where Barney’s at, but it’ll also have a major impact on the trajectory, and main narrative, of our season.”
As fans await further details regarding who Sophie was talking about when she said she thinks she’s dating her father, the casting of John Corbett in How I Met Your Father is teased as a love interest. Could he be the aforementioned daddy?
