Choosing the right character to narrate this smaller story is critical to its success.

This is the second thing the writers did really well: the writers gave us a really, really powerful distraction.

If you’ve gotten to the end of the story, and you don’t feel like you’ve earned it, you need to back up.

This week, we’re talking about closeness and how these storylines demonstrate that these characters are now closer than ever.

This episode isn’t really about the stuff and it isn’t really about the play. Both are just highlighting character conflicts.

To get a story, you have to dig. Either dig into the past, asking “but why?” or “but how?” or dig into the future by asking “so what?”.

They focused on the emotional impact, not the specifics. Barney loses money, the friend group holds their tradition a day late.

This week, we “plop” you right into the episode without giving you any backstory. This is a concept that writers refer to as “in media...

Once again, Ted opens this episode with an ominous teaser. “Life was good. But everything was about to change.” He’s telling us the...

This episode opens at the bar, where we learn that Ted is turning 28. He gets some food and Lily feels the need to touch the plate to...

Tonight, we’re talking about unlikeable characters. Barney has been a jerk from the beginning, his behavior is almost entirely...

Warning: once you know about Bottle Episodes, it's impossible to stop seeing them everywhere.

Ted starts doing shots of something mysterious and then remembers nothing. He wakes up with a pineapple.

A bunch of stuff from this episode comes back around: NYE, Super Bowl, Coat Check Girl...