How I Met Your Father season 1 episode 5 recap: The Good Mom

This article contains SPOILERS for How I Met Your Father season 1 episode 5.

Sophie’s mom comes to town, and Charlie does his best to help the damaged Jesse and Sid in this week’s episode of How I Met Your Father season 1.

Catch up on everything from the last episode here!

This week’s episode of How I Met Your Father season 1 begins with Future Sophie telling an anecdote about how everyone has a blind spot for their parents and how kids often imagine theirs as perfect when, in actuality, they are filled with flaws. In the present day, Sophie just finalized plans to see Drew tonight when her mom shows up at her door. Sophie’s mom Lori (Paget Brewster) says she is around because of her daughter’s birthday — something that was actually last week. Nonetheless, Sophie is happy to see her mom and invites Lori to brunch to meet all of her new friends.

How I Met Your Father season 1 episode 5: Lori meets Sophie’s gang

During the brunch at Pemberton’s, Lori hits on Charlie and blatantly talks about her modeling days when she was younger and promiscuous. As she is going on, Sid brings over bloody marys for the group but turns around when he makes eye contact with Sophie’s mom. Lori invites them all to a gig her new boyfriend is playing before she goes on a European tour with them. Sophie agrees even though she made plans with Drew, something that Valentina is not pleased about. Everyone agrees to go until Jesse backs off since it is at the location of his viral proposal failure, and Sid weirdly stands in solidarity even though Jesse says he does not have to.

In his own apartment, Jesse is told by Charlie that the Brit is going to fix his traumatic experience by overcoming his infamous viral video. Charlie plans to use his years of going therapy to try and help people overcome their own emotional struggles. This begins with Jesse watching the video of his failed proposal for the first time — something that Sid quickly queues up. At the gig, Sophie and Valentina are surprised to see Lori’s new boyfriend breaks the mold of her past bad boyfriends and is actually a 27 year old named Ash (Mason Gooding), who turns out to be a relatively decent man who cares about Lori.

Back at her apartment, Ellen is in need of some tomatoes that can be found at the event going on across the hall. It turns out to be a shiver for one of her elderly neighbors. Ellen tries to make a quick in-and-out job that is derailed when the granddaughter Rachel (Aby James) walks up to her, and the two make awkward but comforting small talk about produce. This evolves into Ellen digging herself deep into lies about her relationship with Rachel’s grandmother.  The two eventually leave the sorrowful service, and Ellen takes Rachel to Ash’s show.

How I Met Your Father season 1 episode 5: Jesse watches his failure

When Charlie and Sid make Jesse watch his proposal video, other than some defensiveness about drinking cosmos, Jesse takes watching the video rather well. So with that, Charlie thinks it is time to have Jesse return to the bar, but Sid still fights because Sophie’s mom took his masturbation virginity. Sid goes on to tell the story when young Sid’s mom almost walked in on him doing the deed, Sid knocked his lava lamp on his pet and killed his hamster. After he buried the deceased animal, that is when he lost his masturbation virginity to Lori’s picture. When Sid saw Lori after all these years, all of his trauma and emotions came sweeping over him.

During Ash’s show, Valentina witnesses Lori backstage making out with Ash’s manager, who is much more Lori’s type. Valentina bravely confronts Sophie about what she saw and, even though Sophie denies that her mom has been the bad one in her relationships, she ultimately believes her bestie’s words. As Sophie composes herself, Sid buys Lori a drink in a very suave manner that helps him overcome the guilt and dread he felt regarding his hamster. After Charlie confuses two elderly Jewish women with one another, where one has grandchildren and the other does not, Ellen accuses Rachel of elderly fraud. Right after this accusation, Charlie realizes his mistake, but Ellen’s chances with Rachel have decreased, and she leaves the bar.

How I Met Your Father season 1 episode 5: Sophie confronts her mom

When Sophie eventually does confront her mom, Lori justifies her promiscuous lifestyle by having chronic wanderlust and never wanting to settle. Sophie does not like this answer since, because of her mom’s unsettled nature, Sophie never had a place to call home or any lifelong friends because they moved 13 times. Sophie comments about how her infamous poster was always a priority to her mom, and Lori explains that it is special because that was taken the day Lori found out she was pregnant with Sophie. Sophie respects her mom’s admiration for the poster, but she finally makes a choice to not tend to her mom and look out for herself.

After Ash’s set, Charlie is able to convince Jesse to get up on stage and perform a song. When he gets up there, he has some heckling about his admiration of a cosmopolitan drink and actually does not perform. Jesse does get up on that stage again, so he and all of his other friends take some great solace in that. Charlie is very proud of himself for helping Sid and Jesse and decides to become a psychiatrist as his life’s purpose. When Valentina tells him about the education required, Sid decides to make him a bartender at Pemberton’s, which, as we all know, shares a lot of the same characteristics as a psychiatrist.

Future Sophie explains that she would not be able to truly be happy with her child’s father if she still held onto that baggage of her mother. However, after that night she confronted her mother about her childhood, Sophie walked out of the bar and showed up at Drew’s apartment as someone who would start putting her own needs before her mom’s and others.

How do you think Charlie will do as a bartender for Sid’s bar? Will Jesse ever fully overcome his infamous failure? Let us know your answers or any thoughts about the episode in the comments below?

Stream the new episode of How I Met Your Father Season 1 next Tuesday, only on Hulu!