Marshall and Lily seek time alone together, while Robin struggles to breakup with her boyfriend Nick, prompting help from Barney.
This episode provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Patrice from Robin's office is a little obsessed with her.
- All Women Are Lustful: Lily is going crazy with the post-baby lack of sex and Robin can't break up with Nick because the sex is so good.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Barney crashes Nick and Robin's date to confess that he's still madly in love with her.
- Armor-Piercing Question: After an entire episode of Marshall being extra aggressive and Lily being extra sex-charged, Ted gets fed up and asks:Ted: Okay, why aren't you two having sex?
- Black Comedy Burst: For the second time in a row, a character jumping is Played for Laughs; in this case, it's Robin jumping off of the top of the Ferris wheel (as Patrice looks in horror)
- Brainless Beauty: As soon as they stop having sex, Robin realizes that Nick is a moron and she's really just been attracted to his body.
- Comically Missing the Point: Every phrase Robin uses to try and break up with Nick, he takes the wrong way.Robin: I'm worried we're not working out as a couple.Nick: You wanna start going to the gym together?
- Dinner and a Breakup: A variation with a wordplay on Heartbreak and Ice Cream, the ice cream parlor named "Splitsville" is the place where people dump their partners when a banana split is ordered. It's where Robin breaks up with her boyfriend Nick, ending the "Autumn of Breakups", and where Ted's basketball team kicks him out.
- Double Standard: Lampshaded by Barney, who gets called shallow when he hooks up with a Brainless Beauty, yet Robin doesn't face any criticism from the gang for hooking up with Nick for the same reasons.
- Pair the Spares: Nick takes home not one, but two women from the restaurant who had just been broken up with.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Barney helps Robin break up with Nick... but the "Robin and Patrice's BFF Fun Day" gets sent out regardless (because, to give Robin extra incentive, Barney had it put on an automatic timer... which expired when Barney left to go to Splitsville).
- Sadistic Choice: Barney gives Robin incentive to break up with Nick. If she doesn't get it done, he'll release an e-vite to a party hosted by Robin and Patrice declaring them BFF's.
- Skewed Priorities: Marshall doesn't want Robin to break up with Nick because he fears doing so will distract him from helping Marshall's basketball team, since he got Nick to join his team as a ringer.
- Something We Forgot: Barney forgot about the e-vite's automatic timer.
- Unusual Euphemism: Subverted. Splitsville is an ice cream bar, not a reference to female nether regions.
