How I Met Your Father’s Valentina Debuts A New Take On Lily’s Talent

Warning: Contains spoilers for How I Met Your Father, episode 9.

In How I Met Your Father episode 9, Valentina show’s a special talent regarding kisses that echoes an old Lily ability for How I Met Your Mother. As its successor, How I Met Your Father has contained plenty of references and easter eggs to the original How I Met Your Mother. While these could easily be used as cheap touchpoints, How I Met Your Father regularly improves upon the original versions.

In How I Met Your Father episode 9, Sophie (Hilary Duff) returns to her apartment and sees Valentina (Francia Raisa) for the first time since she kissed Jesse (Christopher Lowell) the night before. Sophie is clearly happy and Valentina is on guard about it and questions her why. Sophie tries to explain that it’s because she dropped her photo off at Naomi’s gallery that morning, but Valentina says that is not it. After a moment’s pause, she can tell and says “You kissed someone! You kissed Jesse!”

This is a fresh take on a talent that Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) first displayed in How I Met Your Mother season 6, episode 3, “Where’s The Poop?” When Robin (Cobie Smulders) is trying to be discreet about the fact that she is struggling over her break up with Don, but Lily claims she knows something is up, saying “where’s the poop, Robin?” before explaining that their old family dog knew she wasn’t allowed to poop in the house and would make a particular expression when she did, and they would ask the dog where the poop was. Lily uses the same talent to tell when people are lying to her about things, later in the series using it again on Robin and also on Ted.

Rather than just being a complete repetition of the “where’s the poop?” idea, Valentina’s use of the ability in How I Met Your Father is shown in a much more positive light. Lily’s talent is always used to identify things that someone is trying to hide and represents a type of invasion of privacy and it is shown as the extraction of guilt. While the question of the quality of Sophie’s actions is raised with the concept of “good cheating” in the episode, Sophie is happy about the kiss and excited to share. Rather than being an invasion of privacy or a mystical talent, it fits with how well Valentina truly knows her friend, Sophie.

The talents shown by Valentina in How I Met Your Father and by Lily Aldrin in How I Met Your Mother both also fit with their larger characterizations as abilities that suit them. Lily has a penchant for vengeance and discovering guilt, as characterized by her use of “Aldrin Justice,” so “where’s the poop?” lines up with this naturally. With Valentina’s How I Met Your Father talent, the ability to tell when Sophie has kissed someone and her excitement over it fits with her more bubbly and sex-positive energy in the new series.

How I Met Your Father releases new episodes Tuesday on Hulu.

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Faefyx Collington
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Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

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