How I Met Your Mother, but it's possible to pinpoint where the original characters will be during the events of the new series. The HIMYM spinoff won't feature returning cast in a lead capacity, but instead, it will feature Hilary Duff in the central role of Sophie. Set to release on Hulu, How I Met Your Father is being created by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger with the original show's creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, tapped to executive produce.
While many of How I Met Your Father's plot details are being kept under wraps, the spinoff will follow Sophie telling her son the story of how she met his father. The storytelling will follow the same method in which Future Ted Mosby shared the epic tale of meeting the eventual mother of his two kids in HIMYM. Existing within the same fictional universe, the spinoff will also take place in New York City while following Sophie and her group of friends exploring all aspects of their lives.
While Future Ted was telling his story from 2030, the rest of the plot played out primarily between 2005 and 2013. The HIMYM timeline also presented events beyond 2030 with an abundance of flash-forward sequences. Similarly, How I Met Your Father will feature Sophie telling her son the story from the future, whereas the show's story will begin during events in 2021. Based on details from the original series, fans can determine where the likes of Ted, Tracy, Marshall, Lily, Robin, and Barney are during the start of How I Met Your Father.
Ted Mosby
Not much was revealed about Ted's life during the year 2021, but he was still living in Westchester County, New York, at the time. By then, he was married to Tracy after re-proposing to her the previous year. In 2020, the couple already had two children, Penny and Luke, so the wedding served as icing on the cake for Ted. He still would have been close to Marshall and Lily, seeing as the trio celebrated their 20th college reunion shortly before the events of How I Met Your Father. While traveling to Hong Kong in 2021, Ted supposedly ran into Wendy the Waitress. At the end of the year, Ted and Tracy attended a New Year's Eve party, resulting in the need for Barney's Hangover Fixer Elixer. Just two years later, Ted would sadly lose his wife and the mother of his children to an unrevealed illness. Still, Ted remained in the New York City area to raise his kids before reuniting with Robin in 2030.
Tracy McConnell
Tracy officially met Ted in 2013 during Robin and Barney's wedding, meaning she was deep into the relationship by the time the events of How I Met Your Father roll around. In that eight-year span, Tracy gave birth to two children and married Ted, presumably living a happy life as a family. In 2021, Tracy was also gearing up to publish a book about ending poverty, which she and Ted were celebrating as part of their New Year's Eve festivities. As previously mentioned, Tracy ed away in 2024 from an undisclosed illness. Still, plenty of her story is left to be told if How I Met Your Father decides to fill in any blanks to the underrated character.
Marshall Eriksen
It might be easier for How I Met Your Father to reference Marshall in the spinoff series based on his status in the timeline. Following Ted and Tracy's wedding in 2020, Marshall announced he was officially running for the state supreme court. By the end of the year, Marshall won the election, giving him a seat on the New York State Supreme Court. However, in the process, he lost his hair, resulting in the need for a toupee. When he received his latest dream job, he and his wife Lily were still raising their three young children, Marvin Jr., Daisy, and another girl in the suburbs. Sometime before 2030, Marshall supposedly discovered the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.
Lily Aldrin
After spending a year in Rome so Lily could work as an art consultant, the Eriksen-Aldrin family returned to the New York City area, where they would be during the How I Met Your Father. Before 2021 came around, Lily was already a mother of three while ing her husband in his election for the seat on the state's Supreme Court. She subsequently remained the glue that attempted to keep the friends' group together after confronting Robin about drifting away from the others. Like Tracy, there would be many gaps in Lily's life during the 2020s decade that could be filled with tidbits and references in the spinoff series.
Robin Scherbatsky
Even though Robin and Barney's wedding weekend was the focus for much of How I Met Your Mother's ninth and final season, the pair divorced in 2016. Robin spent the next few years prioritizing her career as a journalist, which took her all over the world, becoming a successful businesswoman and bullfighter. Before the events of How I Met Your Father, Robin moved back to New York City permanently. Sometime in 2020, Ted and his young daughter ran into Robin while walking around the city. Despite initially distancing herself, Robin began to show up to more events, including Ted and Tracy's wedding. Based on her career and presence in the city in the decade in which the spinoff takes place, Robin or references to the character could plausibly appear in the new series.
Barney Stinson
Seeing as How I Met Your Father will focus on Sophie and her friends tackling the dating app life in New York City, Barney could easily fit into the spinoff's plot. In 2020, Barney became a father after the birth of Ellie, but he didn't stay with the child's mother. With his romantic relationship with Robin over, according to the revelation in How I Met Your Mother season 9, it would be unlikely someone like Barney would stay single forever. Still living in the city while helping raise Ellie, it wouldn't be surprising to see Barney also dive into the world of dating apps in 2021 and beyond. Even if Barney managed to mature, shedding his womanizing ways, he might not want to live his remaining years alone. As long as Ellie lived in the city, there would be no way he added any distance between himself and his daughter.