Neil Patrick Harris to Return as Barney on the ‘How I Met Your Father’ Midseason Finale
The How I Met Your Father midseason finale is going to be legendary.
We caught a glimpse of How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson at the beginning of How I Met Your Father Season 2, with Sophie (Hilary Duff) accidentally rear-ending Barney’s car. On the two-episode season finale of the spinoff series, Neil Patrick Harris is reprising his role as the iconic character.
While one popular theory about Barney and Sophie is that Barney could be Sophie’s dad, that theory has been debunked by the spinoff’s showrunners. He will, however, be pivotal in Sophie’s story.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker said that Barney is “really seminal in setting Sophie on the path she needs to be on to continue her journey to come of age and find love.”
Barney isn’t the first How I Met Your Mother character to appear in the spinoff series. Season 1 saw the return of Robin Scherbatsky as well as “The Captain.” Sandy Rivers was another familiar face to show up in Season 2.
Co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger also confirmed to EW that they “absolutely” want to try to have all of the main original characters appear on How I Met Your Father.
“We truly have discussed plot lines for all of the original characters. Now it’s just a question of parsing them out and hoping that people are available and want to do it when it’s the right time to ask,” she said.
The two-part How I Met Your Father midseason finale will stream Tuesday, March 28th on Hulu.
How I Met Your Father Season 2 will continue with additional episodes on Tuesday, May 23rd.
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Ashley Bissette Sumerel
Ashley Bissette Sumerel is a television and film critic living in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV as well as Eulalie Magazine. Ashley has also written for outlets such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and Insider. Ashley has been a member of the Critics Choice Association since 2017 and is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her work as an editor and critic, Ashley teaches Entertainment Journalism, Composition, and Literature at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.