Marshall and Lily freak out about the upcoming wedding while Ted goes on the perfect date.
This episode provides examples of:
- Birthday Episode: The episode opens during Ted's 28th.
- Call-Back:
- A literal case with Ted being called by the dating agency he visited earlier this season.
- Lily having cold feet was tackled at the previous episode. She also mentioned Victoria and how the latter followed her dreams and went to Germany.
- Career Versus Man: Lilly has a Conflicting Loyalty to both her dreams to be a painter and her relationship with Marshall.
- Chekhov's Gag: Ted wanting to name his children Luke and Leia.
- Chekhov's Gun: Nicholson, Hewitt, and West, the company which the man Barney and Marshall are antagonizing this episode works for, will become relevant in Marshall's Story Arc in Season 3.
- Continuity Nod: Ted mentions off-hand that he's picky, something Marshall mentioned earlier this season.
- Creator Cameo: Series creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays play the fake paramedics in Barney's ploy.
- The Faceless: The slideshow of Ted's match has her face censored all throughout.
- Foreshadowing:
- Lily having conflicting feelings towards her and Marshall's wedding.
- Future!Ted mentions Missy the goat for the very first time. Said goat will be an Arc Villain of sorts towards his 30th (actually 31st) birthday.
- Ted's description of his ideal woman basically sums up The Mother.
- The Nicholson, Hewitt, and West company stated in Chekhov's Gun above.
- Fridge Logic: Invoked by Ted, who tells Lily that since they live in New York City, it shouldn't be that hard for her to apply for an art program that wouldn't require her to move, but she instead applied to a program on the other side of the country. He then comes to the realization that she's having doubts about the wedding.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: The culmination of Barney's ploy at the beginning of the episode.
- Hypocritical Humor: After Marshall says that he drank some of the rancid milk the day before, Ted asks why he didn't throw it away, and immediately puts the jug back in the fridge.
- Informed Flaw: Robin's bad highlights actually don't look bad on her.
- Literal-Minded: Apparently, Robin told her hairdresser to "make her look like a tiger" (meaning fierce). The hairdresser gave her tiger stripe highlights.
- Love Epiphany: More like still in love epiphany on Ted's part regarding Robin.
- Male Gaze: The montage of Lily having insomnia has her breathing heavily while wearing very low-cut lingerie.
- Meaningful Echo: "It's a mistake, but it's a mistake I have to make".
- Moment Killer: Lily called Ted out of (and ultimately cost him) his blind date.
- Noodle Incident: Barney and the guy working at a rival company have a feud, but the cause isn't stated. Also, Barney did something to the sandwich that guy was eating at the beginning of the episode just to pull an I Ate WHAT?! reaction from him, which the guy retaliated by doing something at Barney's coffee.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Marshall's word-for-word reaction when Ted declares that he'll go for Robin again.
- Personalized Pledge: Lily Invokes this trope by asking Ted to swear on his future children. It becomes Played for Laughs when their names are a Star Wars Shout-Out.Lily: You can never tell Marshall.
Ted: I won't.
Lily: Ever. Swear. Swear on the lives of your unborn boy and girl.
Ted: I swear on Luke and Leia. - Red Herring: After this episode, Ted's supposed match became one of the strong candidates on being The Mother in
Fanon. - Rescue Romance: Barney's ploy at the beginning of the episode started this way.
- Shout-Out:
- Barney says the actors he hired (see Creator Cameo above) are from "Troilus and Cressida neighborhood playhouse" a reference to a Shakespeare tragedy. May also count as an Actor Allusion since Neil Patrick Harris is a Shakespearean actor himself.
- Future!Ted mentions that the favorite book of his supposed match is Love in the Time of Cholera, while her favorite musician is Otis Redding.
- Ted says he is going to name his children Luke and Leia, which are the names of two main characters in the Star Wars saga.
- Lily is shown playing Super Bomberman.
- When Robin tells Ted that her new hair highlights make her look like a tiger, Ted says "I'll bet it looks 'grrrrreat!', in reference to the tagline of the Frosted Flakes cartoon spokesman, Tony The Tiger.
- Ted says his perfect woman plays bass, like Kim Deal and Kim Gordon.
- When she gets stranded in Dutchess County, Lily calls Ted and convinces him to come help her change a flat by stating that she is scared and in the "beginning of a very scary campfire story". She then makes reference to the Hook, a popular urban legend that always begins with the unsuspecting victims being in a car.
- Ted makes a joke about Robin's highlights by referencing Highlights for Children.
- Clark Butterfield is a combination of the names of two dorms at Wesleyan University, which was Ted, Marshall and Lily's (as well as the show creators') alma mater.
