A good romance author will tell you that kissing and even sex are not markers of intimacy.

They all prevaricate about her, but they all do it in different ways. This is more about the other characters than it is about Robin.

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 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?”.

This episode is funny and has cute moments, but from fifteen years in the future, a lot of it feels like it’s striking the wrong tone. In...

This episode opens up with Lily and Marshall eating pancakes and Lily assumes that she and Marshall are gonna get married. Marshall...

There are three couples in this episode competing for the title. Robin and Ted - things are going great for them. So great, in fact, that...

At the opening of this episode, Ted is telling the guys and Robin is telling Lily that they’ve had their first big fight as a couple. Ted...

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...

The episode begins with Marshall casually looking at Robin’s butt as she walks away, and while Marshall is super embarrassed about it,...

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...

This episode opens up with Lily and Marshall rushing to book their dream wedding venue. They have this really funny scene where they are...

First scene in this episode is Ted talking about how much he loves Victoria, then it smash-cuts to Marshall talking about how much he’s...

This is the only episode in the entire series to start with “previously”s. It shows some background info: Ted is in a long-distance...

This episode starts on Marshall as a kid, reading a book about an anthropologist studying gorillas. Then he takes her seminar and she...

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

This "Yes, but... No, and..." trick is a good way to check your Try/Fail cycles and keep tension in your story.

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