How I Met Your Father season 2 episode 6 recap & review: Universal Therapy

Open Go TV / February 28, 2023 / Reviews

In episode 6 of How I Met Your Father, Sophie finds a workaround to get free therapy, Valentina and Jesse make progress in their professional lives, and Charlie and Sid have a celebrity encounter. The episode is streaming on Hulu.

Recap

Jesse, Charlie, Ellen, and Valentina are all drinking together when Sophie returns from her date with Oscar. She tells them that the date was going well until he revealed a huge diamond necklace that he was wearing.

Sophie finds it weird but doesn’t know if it’s a dealbreaker. Ellen suggests that she talk to a therapist about this but Sophie convinces Ellen to speak to her therapist about this for her.

Sid returns from a visit to California and finds out that Charlie ordered multiple cases of disgusting wine just because it was sold by an attractive sales rep.

Valentina is busy at her job when Jesse walks in. He was sent there by the temp agency because Valentina needed an assistant for the busy week ahead. Valentina’s boss is a nightmare but Jesse has no other options so he agrees to stay on.

He doesn’t want to go back to teaching because he’ll have to face Drew and they didn’t exactly end things on the best terms. Ellen brings up the issue of the necklace as her own with her therapist and shares the feedback with Sophie.

She then helps Charlie and Sid with their wine problem by suggesting they add a celebrity’s name to it, someone universally loved. Charlie and Sid both land on Judge Judy and they call the wine, “Judy Juice”.

Sophie asks Oscar about the diamond as she was advised and he tells her that he had the ashes of his departed mother turned into jewelry. Sophie is creeped out even more and asks Ellen to go back to her therapist and find out what to do.

Sophie spends the night with Oscar and has amazing sex with him. The next morning, he asks her what she honestly thinks of the necklace and she tells him what Ellen’s therapist said, that he’ll eventually realize that he doesn’t need to wear it all the time.

However, when he doesn’t have the necklace on, the sex isn’t that great and Sophie is even more confused.

Judy Juice is selling well and Sid and Charlie order more cases to capitalize on it. Jesse is trying his best at the job but Valentina is becoming more like her own boss and treating Jesse very poorly. He points this out to her and they wonder how they can fix their predicament.

After Sophie, Jesse, and Valentina also approach Ellen with their problems so that she can ask her therapist and she reluctantly agrees to help them but insists that this will be the last time.

Sid and Charlie get a visit from the real Judge Judy who asks them who’s responsible for Judy Juice. She tries it out herself and despises it but Sid and Charlie explain that everyone loves her so much that they don’t care how the drink tastes.

She takes in what they have to say and proceeds to take away the remaining cases of wine that they have at the bar. She ends up marketing it herself as Judy Juice without cutting Charlie and Sid into the deal.

Ellen lets her friends know what her therapist said and then shares that she’s been dropped as a patient due to “UFS” or “Uninsured Friend Syndrome”. Sophie, Jesse, and Valentina feel guilty for their part in this situation.

They visit Ellen later and tell her that they convinced her therapist to take her back with very persuasive arguments. They also took the therapist’s advice and it helped each of them, sort of.

Jesse went back to Drew to teach again because the children always made him feel better about himself, Valentina walked up to her boss and quit after speaking her mind, but he was impressed and gave her a promotion.

Sophie was supposed to have an honest and mature conversation with Oscar about her sexual needs but she believed that the diamond necklace was the reason he performed so well so she tries to get him to put it on again.

He’s creeped out by her request and dumps her on the spot, and Sophie’s friends agree with Oscar’s decision, even though Sophie still insists that the necklace was magic.

Review

This week’s episode is one of the weaker offerings of the season with only a passive reference to the ridiculousness of the American healthcare system adding some substance.
Yet again, the appearance of a celebrity is undercut thanks to the piped-in live audience. Someone as significant as Judge Judy would definitely have drawn a much louder reaction at a live taping, and the recorded reaction just doesn’t do justice.
Sophie’s relationship with Oscar and the weird diamond is just one of the quirky plots of the week that will not be considered one of the more memorable episodes by the show’s conclusion.