How I Met Your Father season 2 episode 9 recap & review: The Welcome Protocol

Open Go TV / March 21, 2023 / Reviews

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In episode 9 of How I Met Your Father, Sophie and Valentina attend a fancy party while Jesse introduces the others to his new lady friend. The episode is streaming on Hulu.

Recap

Valentina has got an extra ticket to the premiere of a brand new musical because she dressed Daphne Dupree, the star of the show. Sophie is the lucky one to accompany her and they’re both very excited to go.

Daphne does have a reputation for being extremely difficult and Val says that she showed her over 200 dresses before landing on the right one.

Jesse tells the others that he’d like to introduce them to Dana, a girl he recently met on a dating app. They tell him that since he’s only known her for a day, it doesn’t make sense to introduce her but Jesse invokes “the welcome protocol”.

The welcome protocol is a complex system the group devised whenever one of them wanted to introduce a significant other to the group. Each one of them would take up a specific role to make the friend seem as charming and spectacular as possible in front of the “target”.

Sid says that they’re two people short and it isn’t fair to invoke it but Jesse insists that once he’s said it, he cannot take it back.

Sophie and Val arrive at the party and Sophie immediately goes for the food but is interrupted by Robert, the chef who is catering the event. He tries to chat with her but she says she’s not interested and heads back to Val who has drinks with her.

Daphne shows up and commends Val on a job well done because she’s getting lots of compliments on the dress. The good feeling doesn’t last, however, when Sophie catches another woman wearing the same dress as Daphne.

Jesse brings Dana to the bar and Sid, Ellen, and Charlie get started on the protocol but they slowly realize that Dana is great and they really like her. Unfortunately for them, Jesse doesn’t feel the same and invokes the fake emergency protocol to end the night.

Sophie grabs some sauce from the table as Robert once again interrupts her. She meets up with Val who is talking to the other woman with the same dress and when Val tells a joke, Sophie drops sauce all over her.

She then gives the woman her coat to cover up with and they assume the problem is solved when they notice a third woman with the same dress. Val realizes that she was so sleep-deprived from showing Daphne so many dresses that she forgot to tell the designer not to let anyone else wear the dress she chose.

This time, Val convinces Sophie to part with her dress and they do the sauce trick once again. Sophie removes her dress and waits in the pantry while Val says she’ll get a coat from the coat check.

She returns too late, however, and the two women wearing the same dress notice that they’re matching and make a big deal of it which catches Daphne’s attention. Daphne tells Val that she’s so embarrassed and will ruin Val’s career for this.

As Sophie is waiting in her underwear, Robert walks in and they have an awkward moment as Sophie asks Robert to turn around until she can figure out what to do.

Val goes to the coat check to calm Daphne down and finds her almost crying. Daphne says that she’s had a tough time in the business which is why she’s so difficult to deal with and she just wants to be a woman of the people.

Val says she’ll help Daphne achieve that and in return asks Daphne not to ruin her young career. Robert gives Sophie a chef’s coat and lets her hang out in the kitchen where they get to know each other.

Jesse gets a call from Ellen and tells Dana that he needs to leave because his mother is in the hospital. Someone walks in and tells Dana that her grandmother is in the hospital as well.

Jesse misreads the situation and makes the wrong assumption that Dana has a fake emergency too but Dana says her issue is real and leaves in a huff after insulting Jesse.

Jesse is feeling quite down about the whole thing and Ellen tells him he probably rushed through this because he’s not over Meredith. He says that it’s actually Sophie that he hasn’t gotten over and feels like there’s still something there so Ellen tells him to go for it.

Meanwhile, Sophie and Robert are having a nice time and Robert asks Sophie if she’d like to have dinner with him, and she ends up kissing him. Daphne goes up on stage and compliments the two other women for their dressing sense and wins over the crowd before she performs her big number from the musical.

Review

This is a very typical How I Met Your Father episode, tone-wise. The “welcome protocol” is something unique to this series and the Ocean’s Eleven-style presentation is quite entertaining.
Hilary Duff has great chemistry with many of her co-stars and her scenes with John Corbett are very warm and playful. It feels so natural and authentic and it will be interesting to see how it progresses.
The 20-episode season is something people aren’t used to nowadays so the concept of “filler” episodes isn’t something they will be too happy about. The series has done its best to make these episodes as fun as possible but sometimes it’s too difficult to fight the tide.