The Duel (How I Met Your Mother episode)

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“The Duel”
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 8
Written by Gloria Calderon Kellett
Directed by Pamela Fryman
Guest stars Lyndsy Fonseca (Daughter), David Henrie (Son), Jacqueline Piñol (Jackie), Keisuke Hoashi (Doctor), Maya Parish (Erin), Martin Starr (Kevin), Brian Petrucelli (Moving Man #1), Keri Safran (Katie), Miki Mia (Chinese Waitress)
Production no. 1ALH07
Original airdate November 14, 2005
Episode chronology
← Previous Next →
"Matchmaker" "Belly Full of Turkey"
List of How I Met Your Mother episodes

"The Duel" is the 8th episode in the first season of the television series How I Met Your Mother. It originally aired on November 14, 2005.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Lily decides to take Robin over to her apartment while they are out, but when they get to Lily' apartment, they find that the landlady has passed away, and Lily's apartment is now a Chinese restaurant called Madame Chew's House of Dumplings. Lily even saw many of her personal belongings still there. Lily and Robin immediately head over to Ted and Marshall's apartment to explain the situation, and Ted tells Lily that she is welcome to live with them now, "since you practically live here anyway." However, Barney tells Ted that things will change with Lily officially living at the apartment, and that eventually they'll boot Ted out of the apartment. Ted doesn't believe him, but after he finds "Shockey" (his very old coffee pot that always gave him an electrical jolt) in the garbage and replaced by Lily's coffee pot, he begins to think Barney is right. He feels even more threatened when Marshall tells him he wants to hang Lily's painting where two swords hang. In order to try to reclaim his territory, Ted begins to label all of his food and then orders an English phone booth for the apartment. When he arrives, he begins to argue with Marshall about who should get the apartment, which leads to a duel with the swords that hung on the wall. Both consider this duel awesome even though they are fighting for the apartment and mad at each other. Events become tragic when a coffee table collapses under Marshall's weight (the explanation is that Marshall could not find the right pieces for it when he originally assembled it the day he moved in), and he stumbles backward and stabs Lily with the sword. After she is patched up at the hospital, Lily tells them that she doesn't want to live there once they are married because she feels that it is a manly environment.

Meanwhile, Barney has created a revolutionary idea in the dating world: The Lemon Law. Similar in nature to lemon laws for used cars, Barney's new lemon law for dating gives a person 5 minutes to decide if the date will go on the rest of the night or not. They can call the date off for any reason in the first 5 minutes, avoiding bad dates. Barney continues to say that it will be a thing after "lemon-lawing" two different women on different dates. Robin argues that this is wrong, and that it takes longer for people to get to know each other, so she dares Barney by taking a nerdy guy obsessed with Star Trek on a date. Barney calls her to try to get her to use the lemon law, but she refuses. The guy asks if it was a fake call from the hospital, and she tells him that she would never do that. However, only a few minutes later, she gets a real call from the hospital telling her that Lily had been stabbed accidentally by Marshall, and leaves, feeling a bit guilty. At the hospital Barney reveals that his Lemon Law is a thing, as he had just been "lemon-lawed" by a girl earlier that night. He also regrets not calling it Barney's Law so as to get some name recognition or fame. Once Lily is released from the Hospital, they go eat Chinese dumplings at the restaurant in Lily's old apartment.


[edit] Trivia

  • Jason Segel previously worked with Martin Starr, who plays Robin's date Kevin, on Freaks & Geeks. Starr is the second cast member from Freaks & Geeks to guest star on the series.
  • The first episode where Robin is assumed to be a prostitute (Best Prom Ever, Slap Bet)

[edit] Continuity

  • Alyson Hannigan wears the white shirt with the blue toile design that she wears in this episode's opening montage again in "Zip, Zip, Zip."
  • Referring to her picture from Homecoming, Lily says, "Yeah, the bangs were a mistake." In the flashback to Lily's prom in "Best Prom Ever," Lily does, in fact, have unflattering bangs.
  • While arguing with Ted about the apartment, Marshall says that they might need a second room sooner than Ted thinks because they aren't that careful with their birth control. In the following episode "Belly Full of Turkey," Lily worries that she might be pregnant when her period is late.
  • Marshall accidentally wounds Lily for the second time on the series.
  • Barney mentions he is on a date with a girl he met online, in the Season 3 episode of "How I Met Everyone Else," he makes fun of Ted for meeting a girl online.

[edit] Barney's Blog

  • Barney starts his blog off by talking about the Lemon Law, even going so far as uploading 'Lemon Law' cards. The rest of the blog is spent responding to another email, this time from a man attracted to a co-worker. Eventually, Barney advises the reader to "score no fewer than six hundred biscuits without looking back" and to either quit his job or get the co-worker fired before trying anything with her.

[edit] External links