When Trudy (from "The Pineapple Incident") and her friend both express an interest in Ted, he takes the opportunity to try a three way and win "The Champions Belt" that Barney has been saving to give to the first of the two that accomplishes a threesome.
This episode provides examples of:
- All Women Love Shoes: Lily talks about a big sale where she lost against another girl a nice pair of boots. Said sale has all the women at the store fighting each other. Also once Lily discovers that Rachel was the one who took her boots, she only agrees to help Ted when he offered to pay her the retail price of the boots.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: The waitress on Robin's date actually outdoes her in snarkiness.
- Arc Number: The titular number. Not only is the episode's premise about Three-Way Sex, but this is also the third episode of the third season.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Rachel, Trudy and Lily respectively. Robin is away from the gang on a different date.
- The Bus Came Back: Trudy.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Subverted. Rachel turns out to be the woman whom Lily got a dispute during shopping she was talking about early in the episode, but their fiasco doesn't really affect the plot.
- Exact Words: Robin asks the waitress to get her a razor. The waitress does so, for fifty bucks. She neglects to buy shaving cream.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lily, impressed that Ted is about to score a threesome, high-fives him. However, when Marshall goes to high-five Ted as well, Lily slaps his hand away and tells him to not be gross.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Rachel and Trudy were in the sorority Kappa Alpha Gamma, rather than the real life Kappa Kappa Gamma.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ironically, it is the red dressed Trudy who is more refined and composed compared to the spirited and expressive blue dressed Rachel.
- Shout-Out:
- The Three Way belt is a replica of the 1988-1998 era WWE (then WWF) World Heavyweight Championship.
- Marshall alludes to the famous Ghostbusters (1984) line; "See you on the other side".
- Barney references Superman, comparing Ted claiming the Belt before him to Jimmy Olsen capturing Lex Luthor while Superman watches impotently from the bedroom.
- Three-Way Sex: The whole premise of the episode.
- True Blue Femininity: Half of the women with dialogues this episode are wearing blue (Lily, Robin and Rachel vs. Trudy, the waitress at Robin's date and Barney's two conquests in his almost three-way flashback).
- The Unreveal: Ted refuses to tell Barney whether he did or didn't partake in the threesome, though it's heavily implied he did and is just screwing with Barney.Future!Ted: There are some stories you tell, and there are some stories you don't.
