How I Met Your Father’s Robin cameo was a welcome surprise in the season 1 finale, but should the How I Met Your Mother star return in season 2?
While How I Met Your Father season 2 could bring back How I Met Your Mother’s Robin, this might not be the best move for the series to make. The sitcom spinoff How I Met Your Father did not get off to an ideal start. Early reviews of the How I Met Your Mother follow-up complained that the sequel series did not do enough to differentiate itself from the earlier hit, feeling like a warmed-over retread of the 00s sitcom.
However, How I Met Your Father managed the impressive feat of turning this consensus around by the end of season 1. How I Met Your Father’s heroine Sophie proved she was nothing like Ted thanks to her believable, relatable fear of commitment, while her friend group was fleshed out and thus moved past the broad caricatures that they appeared to be in the show’s pilot. That said, How I Met Your Father still struggled with its connection to the original How I Met Your Mother – something Robin’s appearance did little to resolve.
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How I Met Your Mother was beloved by a massive fan base, meaning it is understandable for How I Met Your Father’s creators to underline the connections between the two shows. However, How I Met Your Father managed to wait until the show’s season 1 finale before featuring a cameo from a major main cast member of the earlier series. While there were problems with How I Met Your Father’s cameo from Robin, there is still fan enthusiasm online for a comeback from the unexpected star in season 2. Yet, despite this, a further Robin How I Met Your Father season 2 return would both feel inauthentic as a narrative device and would risk derailing future story development. As such, it’s best for the show to steer clear of another Robin cameo.
Robin’s How I Met Your Father Season 1 Role Explained
Robin appeared in How I Met Your Father’s season 1 finale to dole out some life advice to the lovesick Sophie. While she was understanding of Sophie’s struggles with commitment, Robin warned the heroine that she should not run from a relationship with Jesse if she liked him. After all, it was only a matter of time before Sophie’s love interest moved on to someone else, something that Robin was all too familiar with thanks to her history with Ted (who “let go” of Robin in How I Met Your Mother’s worst episode right before meeting his future wife). However, the advice came a moment too late, as Jesse had already rekindled his romance with his ex-girlfriend Meredith while Sophie weighed up her options.
Why Robin’s Cameo Worked
Robin’s How I Met Your Father season 1 cameo, crucially, came at the end of a season that had avoided much mention of the original How I Met Your Mother’s characters and had spent most of its time fleshing out the new cast. The appearance worked because both Sophie and Robin both acknowledged how unlikely the meeting was, and the scene was brief enough to not seem out of character for either heroine. The silliness of Robin advising Sophie on her love life was even directly addressed when Sophie said she couldn’t believe a news anchor was simply sitting in a bar telling her what she should about her commitment issues, a joke that worked once but would seem hackneyed if How I Met Your Father were to bring back the same character for another unlikely appearance.
How I Met Your Father Season 2 Should Avoid Excess Cameos
How I Met Your Father season 2 will need to avoid becoming an unofficial revival of How I Met Your Mother now that the spinoff has decided the series can and will bring back characters from the original series. How I Met Your Father’s cameo from Kyle McLachlan’s The Captain already effectively pulled this off by keeping the character’s appearance limited to a cold open scene, but visits from How I Met Your Mother’s main characters warrant more than this. When How I Met Your Father brings back a major cast member from How I Met Your Mother, this should be a big, rare event on the series, and the spinoff bringing back Robin twice in two seasons could instead make it seem as though there is a revolving door between the two shows. This approach would make How I Met Your Mother cast cameos less impactful and more expected, while also distracting from the new characters of How I Met Your Father and their stories.
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Why Robin Shouldn’t Return In How I Met Your Father Season 2
While season 1’s How I Met Your Father reboot cameos mostly worked, Robin can’t crop up again in season 2 of the spinoff since this would make it even more implausible for the rest of How I Met Your Mother’s heroes to appear on the series. Not only would Sophie (or her friends) running into Robin again feel inauthentic, there are plenty of other characters like Ted, Barney, Lily, and Marshall who the How I Met Your Father cast still haven’t met yet. Setting up the return of one of these characters would be a more effective way of capitalizing on the connection between the two shows, since How I Met Your Father viewers now know what Robin was up to in the intervening years between the two series.
How I Met Your Father’s Season 2 Cameos Could Still Work
It is debatable whether How I Met Your Father season 2 should feature more cameos from How I Met Your Mother‘s supporting cast. Bringing back Barney’s ex Quinn, for example, would be a solid way to give Sophie further advice on single life in New York, but the character’s status as a more minor How I Met Your Mother star might mean that she won’t draw the same publicity to the spinoff as Robin’s return. That said, How I Met Your Father should be making creative decisions based on their story impact rather than their viral potential, something that season 1 mostly got right.
While the Captain’s cameo was central to the episode’s story, it was also an excuse to bring back McLachlan, and future How I Met Your Father episodes can do the same with minor How I Met Your Mother cast members provided the show doesn’t start simply recycling characters from the earlier show. How I Met Your Father can’t become an indirect How I Met Your Mother revival by bringing back all the older show’s main characters repeatedly, which is exactly why Robin can’t appear in season 2 despite how fun the character’s appearance in the season 1 finale was.
