WARNING: The following contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father, Season 1, Episode 4, “Dirrty Thirty,” now streaming on Hulu.
How I Met Your Father’s fourth episode starts, once again, in 2050, with older Sophie talking about being thirty and confessing she wasn’t the most mature 30 year old. Back in the present, younger Sophie enters the bar in a killer blue dress to cheers from her new group of friends. She’s going on a fancy date with Drew. That’s how her birthday weekend starts.
It apparently moves on from that to a Christina Aguilera themed party. Well, a Christina Aguilera “Dirrty” video themed party, because that’s Sophie’s favorite music video. Ellen is excited to be going to a party with her brother. It’s their first party together since her 5th birthday party – blame cheating parents and a divorce – and they make plans to hit on girls together.
Then there’s Drew, the actual grown-up 30 year old. Sophie is into it. And while she is, her friends are getting stuff for her party into the apartment she shares with Valentina. The aforementioned is still struggling with what she and Charlie actually are, though. The word girlfriend feels too big for her, even though that’s exactly what Charlie wants her to be.
Sophie and Drew make out outside the restaurant, as he throws a random “when you tell the story of this date” comment at us that feels a little too casual. Especially as she is, indeed, telling the story of this date. After he asks her out once again, Sophie ends up inviting him to her birthday party, which sounds like it’s going to be a disaster, but Sophie’s rolling with it. What other choice does she have?
Oh yeah, she can make her friends change the whole vibe of the party to impress Drew. Or try to, at least. Valentina, Charlie, Sid, Ellen and Jesse pass muster, but no one else got the memo, it seems. Which means Sophie spends the entire evening trying to pretend she’s someone she’s not, while everyone else is having more fun than her. Except Ellen, because Jesse is a terrible wingman.
Charlie and Valentina are especially having fun. It seems she enjoys seeing him flirt with girls who can’t have him, because only she can. But the party continues to unravel faster than Sophie can fix. It’s extremely hot in the apartment, the food is a bust – the shrimp in a raw bar are supposed to be cooked, Sophie – and Ellen goes from upset that her brother is a terrible wingman to upset that her brother doesn’t know her at all. But all of that is better than what happened to Drew, who ends up burning his hand on the hot pipe.
The episode, thankfully, doesn’t end in disaster, as Jesse recounts to Ellen his earlier memories of her. He tells her excited he was to have a sibling, as he apologizes for the fact that, to spare his dad’s feelings, he stopped asking about her and missed out on being her big brother. Ellen, meanwhile, seems to realize at that point that Jesse was just a kid too – he couldn’t have done anything.
Valentina, meanwhile, confesses to her fear of monogamy, out of a fear of commitment, but a fear of becoming boring. But she wants to be with Charlie, and he agrees. And Sophie, well, she comes clean to Drew about who she is, only to find out he actually likes her for who she is. And he knows the words to “Dirrty.” Since this is Josh Peck and Hillary Duff, that means they have to sing the song. Drew is, of course, sticking around after that. He can sing and he might just be the balance Sophie needs. At least for now.
To find out if Drew is indeed The Father, the first four episodes of How I Met Your Father are now streaming on Hulu.
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