How I Met Your Father's Just Been Canceled, Now We'll Never Know Who the Dad Is

The mystery of who Sophie (Hilary Duff) ends up with in How I Met Your Father will never be solved — Hulu has canceled the comedy after two seasons. The news comes just a month after the Season 2 finale dropped, and while that episode made it pretty clear who the father is, it’s still an unsatisfying end to a series based entirely on the promise of a dramatic reveal.

This was the second attempt to create a spin-off of How I Met Your Mother, the first of which was a Greta Gerwig-led pilot filmed in 2014 called How I Met Your Dad. That version of the series also starred Anders Holm, Drew Tarver, Tiya Sircar, and Andrew Santino, with Meg Ryan as the older version of Gerwig narrating the series. The show never went to series, but Tarver went on to star in The Other Two, Santino scored regular roles in I’m Dying Up Here and Dave, and Gerwig became one of the most celebrated filmmakers of our generation.

How I Met Your Father became Duff’s starring vehicle after two other rumored projects never came to fruition: theYounger spin-off centered around her character Kelsey and the Lizzie McGuire reboot, which was pulled due to creative differences between Duff and Disney. In many ways, her role in HIMYF was her outlet for playing a 30-year-old version of Lizzie without needing to adhere to the family-friendly parameters Disney was reportedly requesting — there was even an Easter egg in Season 2 that hinted at the series being a covert Lizzie McGuire sequel.

The hardest blow is that this cancellation comes just as the series was finding its footing. The second half of Season 2 in particular had a cast that was thriving in its ensemble chemistry, writing that was filled with laugh-out-loud jokes, and emotional arcs that kept viewers invested in the characters. Whether or not the series will be shopped around at other networks remains to be seen, but it’s worth a shot to give the show the chance to reveal the father’s identity on its own terms.

Brianna Wellen is a TV Reporter at Primetimer who became obsessed with television when her parents let her stay up late to watch E.R.