Barney uses a tournament bracket to figure out which girl he slept with is following him and ruining his chances with other women.
This episode provides examples of:
- The Atoner: Lily makes Barney go and apologize to the top four women he's wronged, in hopes that one of them is the stalker and he can make amends.
- Call-Forward: While Barney doesn't find his stalker, Future!Ted mentions that he will eventually. He finally does in "Everything Must Go".
- Continuity Nod:
- The first woman, Meg, was the one Barney slept with in Marshall and Lily's apartment in "Dowisetrepla".
- Anna, the woman who made the site TedMosbyIsAJerk.com slept with Barney back in "Ted Mosby: Architect".
- In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, you'll see Shannon and Penelope among the names in the list.
- In another Freeze-Frame Bonus, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright can be seen in the montage of Barney's previous hookups. Barney mentioned sleeping with her in "The Yips".
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Defictionalization: Two websites were made for this episode: TedMosbyIsAJerk.com
, and then another one TedMosbyIsNOTAJerk.com, made by Victoria, of all people. - Easily Forgiven: Two of the girls (Meg and Holly), forgave him on the spot, even though they had a lot of reasons to hate his guts (Meg got arrested when she was found in the apartment after Barney left her, while Holly was abandoned far away from the city while Barney drove away in her car). Averted with Anna and Kate still hate him.
- Epic Fail: In an effort to finally win their annual March Madness bracket competition, Ted and Marshall meticulously watched every game, read box scores, and tracked injuries before making all of their picks. Barney then informs them that their pick to win the championship was knocked out of the tournament's first round 20 minutes ago.
- Everyone Has Standards: For all the awful things he does to the women he hooks up with, Barney is still horrified at himself when his stalker appears to be someone he doesn't even remember sleeping with.
- Ignored Epiphany: Barney appears to feel genuine remorse for how he treats women when he thinks he has completely forgotten about one of the girls he slept with, and offers her a sincere apology. However, in The Stinger, he goes right back to his old ways, being in the midst of a hookup with a girl he lied to.
- Karma Houdini: Invoked by Lily, who can't believe that Barney never got any real consequences for his bad treatment towards these women... except for one of them who beat him up.
- Mistaken Identity: Barney exploited this, sans Anna creating the TedMosbyIsAJerk.com website.
- Remember the New Guy?: Two women on Barney's "final four list" are never seen in previous episodes.
- Shout-Out: In The Stinger, Barney's latest conquest mentions that he needs to be up early tomorrow to stop an asteroid about to destroy the planet, a reference to the plot of Armageddon (1998) and/or Deep Impact.
- The Unreveal: Barney doesn't figure out who the stalker is until much later, and Future!Ted specifically tells the kids it's a story he'll tell them down the line.
