Purple Giraffe

Infobox Television episode


Caption=Barney and the girl who doesn't know anyone
Title = Purple Giraffe
Series = How I Met Your Mother
Season = 1
Episode = 2
Airdate = September 26, 2005
Production = 1ALH01
Writer = Carter Bays & Craig Thomas
Director = Pamela Fryman
Guests = Lyndsy Fonseca (Daughter), David Henrie (Son), Anna Zielinski (Cute Girl), Pedro Miguel Arce (Dana), Jae Head (Leroy), Jon Bernthal (Carlos), Beth Riesgraf (Girl), Lindsay Schoneweis (Dream Girl), Jay Head (Leroy), Sean Lucore (Sean), Alyshia Ochse (Tatiana)
Episode list = List of How I Met Your Mother episodes
Prev = Pilot
Next = Sweet Taste of Liberty

"Purple Giraffe" is the 2^nd episode in the first season of the television series "How I Met Your Mother". It originally aired on September 26, 2005.

Plot

After telling Robin that he loved her, Ted changes his stance and decides to not contact Robin on the pretext of wanting to give everyone the false impression that he is not in love with Robin anymore. However, after he finds out from Marshall that Lily has officially met Robin, having recognized her from the news, and that Robin told Lily that she was still interested in him, Ted decides that he is still in love with her. Since Robin did not want a serious relationship, Ted decides to try and convince her that he is "casual".

He runs to meet her at a location where she is reporting (where coincidentally a kid is stuck inside a crane machine trying to get a purple giraffe) and informs her that he is throwing a party. He holds it repeatedly when she says that she is unable to come and she only manages to come when he holds the party for a third successive night.

Robin inadvertently finds out (when Marshall bursts out that Ted should stop waiting for her) that the parties were held for her. Ted covers it up by saying that he wanted her to meet another guy. But after a while, as Robin goes up onto the roof, Ted decides that he has to confront and confess his love to her and thus try to win her affections.

On the roof, they decide that they both want different things and since Robin is new to the town, Ted agrees to be friends with her and they go to buy a drink. Robin then tells Ted that she will help him find 'the one' for him.

Meanwhile, due to the repeated parties, Lily has an increased sexual desire which is also partly due to the new ring on her finger given to her by Marshall. This troubles Marshall as he has to submit a 25 page paper for a class in his law school. After someone uses one of his law books as a coaster in the party, Marshall appears to get angry but drinking two beers at the bar with everyone else increases his confidence and he ends up doing fairly well on the paper, especially considering that he wrote the 25 pages in the night before the deadline.

Barney, on the other hand, is also facing his own relationship troubles. After finding the one girl at the party who does not know anyone else (which is the norm in parties in the city), Barney decides to pursue her. However, this woman returns to the parties in the subsequent nights and deciding that the best way to get rid of her was by following Ted's "I think I'm in love with you" line, he manages to end their impromptu relationship. Nevertheless, she appears on the party for Sunday night as well and he eventually finds that she is with the guy who Ted tried to setup Robin with.

Trivia

* This is the only episode in which the word "awesome" has not been used.

Continuity

Barney's Blog

*Barney's blog featured an update in which he stated why he disliked the third party (Via the use of 'The Venn Diagram of Lame Parties'), before giving advice on other lame parties to watch out for [http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/barneys_blog/9_26.shtml .]

Recurring elements introduced in this episode

* Barney making up statistics
* Marshall calling himself "the kid"

Cultural references

*Marshall calls Ted "Gatsby" at one point in reference to the novel "The Great Gatsby", in which Gatsby throws successive parties in the hopes that the woman he loves, Daisy Buchanan, might attend. At one point in the imaginative party, the lamp next to the couch glows green, which is one of the most popular metaphors in "The Great Gatsby".
* In describing the party, Marshall says, "Everybody Wang-ed. Everybody Chung-ed," in reference to "Everybody Have Fun Tonight".

External links

* " [http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/purple-giraffe/episode/452901/summary.html Purple Giraffe] " at TV.com
* " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0606111/ Purple Giraffe] " at the Internet Movie Database