‘How I Met Your Father’ Episode 5 TV Review: Sophie Discovers Her Blind Spot

How I Met Your Father‘s episode 5, “The Good Mom,” introduce’s Sophie’s mother, Lori (Criminal Minds’ Paget Brewster), and explores the relationship that she has with her daughter.

While the pilot episode gave viewers a general background of their dynamic, the entire truth was not told.

Warning spoilers ahead!

The episode opens with Lori showing up without notice to Sophie and Valentina’s apartment to surprise Sophie for her birthday despite it being a week ago. Lori’s excuse is that Sophie was born a week early, so she came on the day her daughter was supposed to be born instead. Considering that she most likely forgot Sophie’s birthday, Valentina’s displeasure at Lori’s presence the moment she walked in and Lori hitting on Valentina’s boyfriend, it is obvious that something is very off with Sophie’s mother.

Despite already having plans for a game night with Drew and his friends, Sophie agrees to go to Lori’s new boyfriend’s concert instead after Lori pleads with her, explaining that she leaves town the next day and wants to introduce her daughter to her beau, Ash. Sophie goes to inspect the boyfriend and protect her mother since she has a history of dating “bad men” that break her heart, leaving Sophie to “pick up the pieces.”

Little does Sophie realize, however, that her mother is actually the problem rather than the men she dates. Valentina, accompanying Sophie at the concert, witnesses Lori cheat on Ash with his manager and reports it to Sophie.

Sophie then confronts her mother who admits to not only cheating on Ash but also the other men she has previously dated. This explains why Lori and her daughter moved 13 times which, unfortunately, resulted in Sophie missing out on her childhood.

Sophie leaves to spend the rest of the night with Drew who was completely understanding of the entire situation and adorably tells her through charades that he is happy to see her when she comes over at the end.

By the conclusion of this episode, it is obvious that Lori still loves Sophie, although, due to her “chronic wanderlust” and mixed-up priorities, she has caused her daughter a lot of pain in her upbringing that she needs to heal from. I definitely feel that she made the right decision in walking away from her mother at that moment to go back to her original night plans, however, I do still hope they truly reconcile at some point.

While Lori has lots of growing up to do, at the end of the day she is still Sophie’s mom, and we should love our parents no matter how messed up they may be. We pick and choose our friends that come and go, but family is inevitable and permanent.

I really appreciate Valentina in this episode. It is definitely refreshing to see the side of her that is a really good friend to Sophie who cares about how her mom treats her rather than simply watch her be immature about her love life.

Overall, this was a good episode. Though not quite centered on Sophie’s love life, it is still important to see the other layers and dynamics of this lead protagonist to better understand and appreciate her.

How I Met Your Father episode 6 releases February 15 on Hulu.