The Duel (How I Met Your Mother)

"The Duel"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 8
Directed by Pamela Fryman
Written by Gloria Calderon Kellett
Production code 1ALH07
Original air date November 14, 2005
Guest stars

Lyndsy Fonseca (Daughter)
David Henrie (Son)
Martin Starr (Kevin)
Miki Mia (Chinese Waitress)

Season 1 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

Plot

Lily decides to take Robin over to her apartment (which she herself has not been to in three months) while they are out, but when they get to Lily's apartment, they find that it is a Chinese restaurant called Madame Chew's House of Dumplings. They realize that the landlady has died, which caused this to happen. Lily even sees 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." Barney warns Ted that things will change with Lily officially living at the apartment, and that eventually they will force him out of the apartment. Ted does not believe him, but after he finds "Shocky" (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 the two swords hang. In order to try to reclaim his territory, Ted begins to label all of his food and then orders a life-sized English phone booth for the apartment. 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, and he stumbles backward and stabs Lily with the sword. After she is patched up at the hospital, Lily tells them that she does not 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 five minutes to decide if the date will go on for the rest of the night or not. They can call the date off for any reason in the first five minutes, avoiding bad dates. Barney goes on to say that it will become "a thing" after "lemon-lawing" two different women on dates. Robin argues that it takes longer for people to get to know each other, so she challenges 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. Only a few minutes later, she gets a real call from the hospital telling her that Marshall has accidentally stabbed Lily, and leaves, feeling a bit guilty, because the guy thinks that it is a fake call. At the hospital Barney reveals that his lemon law is now "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.

Music

Continuity

Cultural References

External links