How I Met Your Father’s cameos, Easter eggs, and in-universe references reveal several key details about what happened after How I Met Your Mother. Hulu’s How I Met Your Father is the first HIMYM spinoff, which follows Sophie (Hilary Duff) telling her son the story of how she met his father. While none of How I Met Your Father’s main characters were featured in the original series, the spinoff has plenty of overlap with Ted’s stories from How I Met Your Mother.

Sophie’s story in How I Met Your Father begins in 2022, which is set 9 years after HIMYM’s present timeline. However, HIMYM’s two-part finale featured several flash-forwards to reveal what happened to Ted, Robin, Marshall, Lily, and Barney between the years 2013 and 2030. As such, How I Met Your Father viewers are already aware that Barney and Robin got divorced in 2016, Barney had a daughter in 2020, Marshall became a justice of the New York Supreme Court, Ted’s wife Tracy died in 2024, Lily and Marshall had another child after Daisy, and Ted and Robin will get back together in 2030. Despite so much of the HIMYM characters’ futures already being revealed, How I Met Your Father continues to fill in the blanks for details that weren’t addressed in the original show’s finale.

Marshall & Lily Sold The Apartment To Wesleyan Alumni

The first big connection to HIMYM in How I Met Your Father is Ted and Marshall’s apartment. Having originally moved into the apartment above MacLaren’s after college, either Ted or Marshall remained living in the place throughout all nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother, with Robin and Lily also living there at various times. How I Met Your Mother’s finale revealed that Marshall and Lily moved out of the apartment when they needed space for their third child, but the sitcom didn’t explain what happened to the iconic location.

How I Met Your Father’s premiere finally confirms what happened to Ted and Marshall’s apartment, as main characters Jesse and Sid now call it home. Jesse reveals that he and Sid got the apartment for a steal when some “old couple” posted it on the Wesleyan Alumni website, which is a clear reference to Lily and Marshall, whose alma mater was Wesleyan. While it’s odd seeing different furniture and decorations in the familiar HIMYM apartment, it’s fitting for a new generation to spend their late 20s and 30s hanging out there.

Ted & Marshall Didn’t Keep Their Swords

How I Met Your Mother season 1 established that Marshall and Ted each had a sword that they hung up in the apartment, with the weapons leading to various accidents throughout the series. While it was assumed that Ted and Marshall would have each taken a sword when they parted, How I Met Your Father reveals that this wasn’t the case. When Sid and Jesse got the apartment from Lily and Marshall, the young guys convinced them to leave the swords, which Lily was likely ecstatic about after the disasters they had already caused. Now that Ted and Marshall’s HIMYM swords hang up in Jesse and Sid’s apartment, viewers can expect a few sword fights throughout How I Met Your Father.

Robin Still Went To MacLaren’s Alone

One of the more bittersweet details regarding what happened after How I Met Your Mother is that Robin Scherbatsky continued to go to MacLaren’s Pub alone. Following her divorce from Barney and having to see Ted and Tracy happy, Robin drifted apart from the group. In HIMYM’s finale, both Lily and Marshall had noted that around 2020, it was almost as rare to see Robin as it was to see Sasquatch, but Marshall further likened her to a cold Yeti.

However, How I Met Your Father reveals that this may not have been an accurate interpretation of Robin during this time by Ted. Sophie meets Robin in MacLaren’s during How I Met Your Father’s season 1 finale, with Robin explaining that she comes in there alone whenever she’s in the neighborhood and reminisces about the good old days with Ted, Lily, Marshall, and Barney. Robin wasn’t nearly as detached as HIMYM’s finale made her seem, so her How I Met Your Father cameo helps support her controversial yet happy HIMYM ending.

The Captain & Becky Got Divorced

How I Met Your Father season 1 not only confirmed that The Captain and Becky got married after HIMYM but also caught up with them at the time of their divorce. The Captain, who was Lily’s boss and the ex-husband of Ted’s ex-girlfriend Zoey, became engaged to Becky, Ted’s ex-girlfriend and Robin’s former co-anchor, in HIMYM season 9. Bonding over their obsessions with boats and nautical themes, The Captain and Becky seemed like a match made in HIMYM heaven.

However, How I Met Your Father season 1, episode 9, sees Sophie tell her son the story of how they got divorced. Becky walked in on The Captain cheating on her with another woman, after which she shockingly revealed she hates boats. During The Captain and Becky’s divorce proceedings, Becky took all of his boats and sank them, which included the ship near Australia that Sophie’s brief love interest Ian had been working on.

Goliath Went Into The Grocery Market

Barney Stinson works at Goliath National Bank all throughout How I Met Your Mother, with season 9 finally disclosing his job: P.L.E.A.S.E (Provide Legal Exculpation and Sign Everything). However, HIMYM’s ending featured a major twist revealing that Barney had been an FBI informant for the illegal practices of Goliath, so it’s unclear whether he’s still working for the corporation during How I Met Your Father’s timeline.

The Goliath Corporation was a major company that went into various sectors of the business world, so it wasn’t surprising in the least to find out in How I Met Your Father that Barney’s employers had a grocery subsidiary after HIMYM’s timeline. At the end of How I Met Your Father season 1, Ellen interviews for a job with Goliath Corporation, which fans quickly connected back to Barney. How I Met Your Father’s creators confirmed that the Goliath title wasn’t accidental, explaining that Goliath Market was inspired by a company like Amazon buying Whole Foods Market in real life.

The Captain Never Found Out Who Took His Pineapple

One of the greatest deleted scenes in HIMYM season 9 finally found its way into How I Met Your Father season 1, canonically confirming the original sitcom’s biggest mystery. The Pineapple Incident Mystery was solved by a cut scene in which Ted went to The Captain’s house and saw that he had a pineapple on his porch, with MacLachlan’s character elaborating that it was an old maritime tradition. The Captain then mentioned that someone had stolen a pineapple off his porch in New York City back in 2005.

After hearing this, Ted has a flashback to the drunken night that the pineapple ended up on his nightstand, revealing that he had unknowi