The Bracket

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Bracket
Series = How I Met Your Mother


Caption =
Season = 3
Episode = 14
Airdate = March 31, 2008
Writer = Joe Kelly
Director = Pamela Fryman
Photographer =
Guests = Ken Barnett (Colton Dunn), Brendan Patrick Connor (Janitor), Yvonne DeLarosa (Charra), Maite Schwartz (Holly), Katy Savoy (Karen), Kathy Uyen (Julia), Chris Tallman (Mark), April Bowlby (Meg), Dawn Olivieri (Anna), Hallie Lambert (Kate), Tess Alexandra Parker (Mysterious Woman)
Production = 3ALH14
Episode list =List of How I Met Your Mother episodes
Prev = Ten Sessions
Next = The Chain of Screaming

"The Bracket" is the 14^th episode in the third season of the television series "How I Met Your Mother". It originally aired on March 31, 2008.

Plot

Barney attempts to track down and identify a woman who is stalking him in order to warn women he picks up from sleeping with him. He narrows down a list of 64 women most likely to want revenge, then has the gang help him eliminate possibilities tournament style. Lily, the only person who has seen the stalker, forces him to confront his "final four," none of whom is the stalker, although the woman from , started [http://www.tedmosbyisajerk.com/ tedmosbyisajerk.com] , under the impression that Barney's identity is Ted's. Lily is irked by his refusal to apologize to the women he's hurt, Barney reasoning that they were consenting adults, he showed them a good time, and remembered each and every one, even going so far as to scrapbook each experience. Barney finally apologizes to a woman when he thinks that she is the avenger but he does not recall having slept with her. This turns out to be a case of mistaken identity, and future Ted tells us we'll learn the rest of the story later. At the end of the episode, Barney writes of the experience in his oft-mentioned blog, in a scene which has a similar-looking screen, similar mannerisms, and identical music to those in "Doogie Howser, M.D.", in which Neil Patrick Harris' character would similarly summarize each episode in a computerized logbook. After glancing over at another conquest he snagged through deception, he concludes that the lesson to all this is, "I'm awesome."

Notes

* For "thought Barney was Jorge Posada", Barney is pointing to the name "Madelaine (as in Madelaine Albright).
* The name "Oprah" is on the list.
* The website [http://tedmosbyisajerk.com tedmosbyisajerk.com] mentioned in this episode actually exists and has some content. A twenty minute-plus audio file on the site has a backwards message (at the very end), "Wendy the waitress is the mother" several times, followed by, "I'm just kidding she is not the mother."
** On the audio file, Anna claims that Ted had stolen her umbrella, only to find it moments later under her bed. She also claims that she is pregnant, but she recants this after a few moments of silence.
** The song's vocals are by Charlene Amoia, the actress who plays Wendy the Waitress. [cite web
url=http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/04/himym-tedmosbyisajerkcom-is-legendary.html
title=What's Alan Watching?] blog, posting an e-mail from Carter Bays.
accessdate=2008-04-08]
* There is a counter-part website (presumably developed by a fan) at [http://tedmosbyisNOTajerk.com tedmosbyisNOTajerk.com] . The site claims to be authored by Victoria, one of Ted's girlfriends in Season 1.
* In Ted and Marshall's NCAA tournament bracket, they picked the Washington State University Cougars to win the national championship. The bracket was similar, but not identical to the actual 2008 bracket.
* When Barney and Lily go to meet Holly, the restaurant across the street from her place is Nolita, the same restaurant featured in short-lived sitcom "Kitchen Confidential", which premiered in the same time slot as "How I Met Your Mother". ("Kitchen Confidential" included John Francis Daley, the sole "geek" of "Freaks and Geeks" not yet appearing on "How I Met Your Mother". Jason Segel starred in both "Freaks" and "Mother").
* The sequence at the end of the episode is an allusion to the end of each Doogie Howser M.D. episode, where the title character is also played by Neil Patrick Harris
* The identity of the stalker is revealed in the episode "Everything Must Go".

Music

* A rendition of One Shining Moment is played after Lily takes Barney's final picture for her scrapbook, a mock to the NCAA tournament of Barney's failures that day and past is seen with the song. However the song played is the version done by David Barrett for the tournament from 2000-2002. The current version used for the NCAA tournament is a rendition done by Luther Vandross.

Continuity

* The montage of women that Barney has slept with includes a picture of Madeleine Albright that is visible if the montage is viewed frame by frame. In addition, Madeleine is one of the names on the upper right side of the bracket. Then, when looking at the scrapbook off all the women Barney has slept with, Lily mentions "one government official." This follows from The Yips, in which Barney implied that he slept with the former Secretary of State.
* Meg re-appears, last seen being left by Barney in Marshall and Lily's new apartment in Dowisetrepla.
* The identity of the saboteur is revealed in Everything Must Go
* In Brunch, Ted states that Barney always uses 83 percent when he makes up a statistic. Barney uses the statistic 83 percent when he was acting as a blind man.

Errors

*In the episode Arrivederci, Fiero it is revealed that Barney does not know how to drive. However, a flashback in this episode shows him driving a truck to escape from a one night stand. However, it is possible he has learned to drive since then.
*Barney claims that he doesn't have a list of his sexual conquests, but in Little Boys, Barney clearly says, "You've seen my list."
*In Ten Sessions & Everything Must Go Abby is shown to have straight hair. However a woman with a different voice and curly, darker hair tells Lily about Barney.

External links

* " [http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/the-bracket/episode/1188681/summary.html The Bracket] " at TV.com
* " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1206872/ The Bracket] " at the Internet Movie Database

References