Photo: EW
Cobie Smulders made a surprise appearance as Robin Scherbatsky in the final episode of How I Met Your Mother’s spin-off season 1, advising Hillary Duff’s Sophie Tompkins on her boy problems while they were hanging around at MacLaren’s Bar.
While Sophie and her friends often visit a different bar, her more-than-friend Jesse (Chris Lowell) resides on the upper floor of MacLaren’s in the very same apartment space that Ted (Josh Radnor) and Marshall (Jason Segel) once lived in, making it a perfect time to reintroduce a HIMYM regular.
The producers of the spin-off series, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, said it was magical to see Smulders on set and described how their show is still making a difference from its original run, which ended eight years ago.
“We really wanted to let people get to know [Sophie and her friends] as a crew before we started bringing in characters from the original,” says Aptaker. “It’s been a really, really interesting balancing act to take something that’s such a huge title and so loved and try to create something that honors it and has many similarities to it but also stands on its own two feet.”
It is great to see many original cast members come back for the finale, including The Captain (Kyle MacLachlan) and his spouse Becky (Laura Bell Bundy) in an incident involving a pineapple crook.
Berger adds that watching Smulders return to the character to work again with director Pam Fryman and a few of the original show’s crew was “truly an emotional experience for her and everyone who worked with her.”
In the HIMYM talked-about finale, Robin breaks up with Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and starts her reporting career. The show’s sneak peek into 2020 reveals Robin’s face displayed on buses as she earns fame, and in 2030, she takes Ted’s blue French horn romantic move.
On the other hand, in the HIMYF finale, Sophie faces a bit of a dilemma with her new relationship with Jesse following his uttering of “I love you” on their first night together and declines his aspired gig of being on tour with his ex (Leighton Meester).
The show’s second season will allow for even more guest cameos, with Aptaker saying that Bays, Thomas, and Fryman have ease in working together as they remain friends even after the original show ended.
“I think they’re all kind of watching this one curiously, wondering if they’re going to get a phone call,” Aptaker suggests. “The door is definitely open to having more of the gang return.”
