| “Do I Know You?” | ||
| ← | HIMYM episode 4x01 (65) | → |
| ||
| First aired: September 22, 2008 | ||
| Director: Pamela Fryman | ||
| Writer: Carter Bays Craig Thomas | ||
| Barney's Blog | ||
Ted and Stella get engaged, but Ted soon learns that he doesn't know anything about her. Meanwhile, Barney confesses to Lily that he's in love with Robin.
Recap
The episode starts with Future Ted telling his children that the longest pause in anyone's life is right after they propose to someone; Present Ted, during this pause, imagined all of Stella's possible responses ("No", "Oh, God no", laughter, "I already agreed to marry the quarterback from your high school", etc.), after which Stella gave her actual answer of "Yes". Then there is a brief summary of what has happened in the gap between Miracles and the current episode: Ted and Stella spend the summer happily engaged; Barney goes through physical therapy; and Marshall copes poorly with unemployment. The next scene has the gang in the bar, while Robin expresses discontent with her nonprofound newscasting job, describing herself as a bogeyman with a teleprompter. In response, Barney laughs too hard at this joke.
The next day, Barney gets Lily to come over to his apartment and confides that he is in love with Robin. She agrees to help him if he will stop having one-night stands with bimbos. He then tries to call Robin but panics and leaves a high-pitched gibberish voice mail instead, followed by another awkward, unsuccessful phone call. Lily then sets Barney up on a dinner date with Robin, where he behaves quite unlike himself: not taking advantage of opportunities to make sex jokes, ignoring their waitress's generous cleavage, and being interested in the goings-on of Robin's day. Afterward, Robin gets April (their waitress) to go home with Barney by telling her that he is the second baseman for the New York Yankees. Barney then tells April that on any other night, he would try to convince her that he was a Yankee, but he can't because he is in love with the girl who just left. Then the camera goes back to Barney's apartment, where he has been telling Lily about what happened. Lily is sympathetic until April comes out of Barney's bedroom. He admits that he lied about not hooking up with April but that all the other stuff he said is true. Lily is disappointed and leaves. Barney then checks his watch and turns on Metro 1 News, affectionately watches a brief segment of Robin's newscast, and then goes back into his bedroom with a smile on his face.
Marshall asks Ted for some wedding shower gift ideas for Stella. He asks if Stella likes to cook, what her favorite color is, or if she has any hobbies, for which Ted doesn't know the answer to any of those questions. It is determined that Ted doesn't know Stella's eye color, so he says they are the color of the ocean after a storm, though he doesn't actually know what color that is. Ted later makes dinner for Stella and uses peanuts as the "secret ingredient", which, unknown to him, Stella is deathly allergic to. After they go to the hospital, Ted and Stella ask each other their "firsts" (first kiss, etc.) and Ted finds out that Stella has never seen 'Star Wars', his favorite movie of all time. Marshall is shocked when he learns this, saying that "nobody" hasn't seen Star Wars. They end up watching it and Ted concludes that it is the best movie ever and that if Stella dislikes it, he cannot marry her. The next night, Ted and Stella watch Star Wars, but Ted is really watching Stella to gauge her reactions. She mistakes this for foreplay and tries to kiss him, but he rebuffs her with "great scene, great scene". Eventually Stella asks him to leave the room for the time being, so she can watch the movie alone. When it is over, she tells Ted and Marshall she loved it. After an ecstatic Ted leaves, Stella then confides to Marshall that she hated it. Marshall is very concerned by this because Ted really, really loves Star Wars. Stella is convinced that she can pretend to love Star Wars for the rest of her life with Ted.
Continuity
- Robin's hatred of unimportant news stories is a recurring theme since Pilot, culminating in I Heart NJ.
- Ted tells Stella that he lost his virginity in junior year of high school to Molly Mackenzie. He previously told the story of how he lost his virginity to Molly when he was 17 in First Time In New York.
- Marshall keeps the fact that Stella didn't like Star Wars from Ted until Happily Ever After. Ted also reminds Stella that she hadn't seen Star Wars until her 30s, in the flashback to him searching for Robin's locket in Sunrise.
- Marshall's difficulty dealing with unemployment comes up again in The Best Burger in New York.
- Barney having fallen in love with Robin after sleeping with her in Sandcastles in the Sand is hinted at in Miracles.
- Lily's bisexuality is hinted at when she mentions having "noticed Robin's body".
- In The Leap, Marshall admits that Lily told him about Barney being in love with Robin the day after he told Lily.
- Barney is not exaggerating when he describes his success with unintelligent bimbos. Among many, many examples, he has at least twice pretended to be an astronaut (The Bracket and The Playbook), Sean Connery (Ring Up) and Ryan Gosling (Platonish), and once a time traveler (Intervention).
Gallery
- For a listing of all images on the wiki tagged as being from this episode, see Category:Do I Know You? images.
Memorable Quotes
| Marshall: | She's never seen Star Wars? Ted, the only people in the universe who haven't seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars and that's 'cause they lived 'em, Ted. That's 'cause they lived the Star Wars! |
| Lily: | Barney, how can you be in love and still be sleeping with everything that moves? |
| Barney: | I'm sorry I don't follow you.That's like saying 'how can an ant lift twenty times its body weight, but root beer floats are still delicious?'. Are the two even related? |
| Lily: | Ask her something! |
| Barney: | (on the phone to Robin) How are you feeling today? |
| Robin: | Fine. |
| Lily: | Something personal! |
| Barney: | At what age did you first get your period? |
| Barney: | On a booty call you barely even have to talk. At 9:00PM you say, "Hey, babe, it's Barney. Are you busy tonight?" (girl answers) "Sweet, see you in a half an hour, can't wait." But the later it gets, the fewer words you need. "Barney! Busy? Sweet." And by 3:00 in the morning (Barney texts "?" random girl answers "!") |
| Lily: | A question mark? You got laid off a question mark? |
| Barney: | (giggles until Lily hits him) OW! It's not worse than your super-obvious codewords. |
| Lily: | Rhinoceros! |
| Marshall: | (with a big smile) We have to go! |
| Barney: | So, Robin tell me about your day, and not just what happened, how you felt about what happened. |
| Robin: | What? |
| Barney: | I'm not looking to problem-solve, I'm just looking to listen. |
| Robin: | (chuckles) Why are you acting like this? |
| Barney: | Like what? |
| Robin: | You're being super nice. It's freaking me out. Be gross, be inappropriate. Be Barney. |
| Barney: | Uh, I'm being Barney, and I think tonight's going to be de-- wait for it-- lightful. Delightful. |
| Robin: | Right. Hey, um, so I went to the chiropractor yesterday. That guy bent me over the table and pounded me for a good hour. |
| Barney: | Is insurance going to cover that? Sometimes they don't. |
| Robin: | That's it? Okay. Well, um, today I was at the dentist. That guy drilled me all day long.
He drilled me hard. He filled all of my cavities. Come on, man. |
| Barney: | Well, your teeth look fantastic. |
| Robin: | Who are you? |
- —Barney and Robin spent a delightful date at a restaurant, and Robin is surprised Barney is being too nice and gentle.
| Barney: | You know who is confused? Bimbos. They’re easily confused. It’s one of the thousand little things I love about them. I love their vacant, trusting stares; their sluggish, unencumbered minds; their unresolved daddy issues. I love them Lily, and they love me. Bimbos have always been there for me, through thick and thin; mostly thin. B-man don’t do thick crust, what up! |
Notes and Trivia
Goofs and Errors
- The opening crawl while Stella and Ted watch Star Wars is taken from the prequel trilogy not from A New Hope like Ted claims.
Allusions and Outside References
- The exchange between Barney and his "booty call" at 3:00 AM is the transcript of the actual telegraphic conversation between Victor Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo was on vacation when Les Misérables was published. He telegraphed the single-character message "?" to his publisher, who replied with a single "!".
- Ted's reference to Stella's eyes as "the color of the ocean after a storm" is a slightly misquoted version of a line from the 1987 film 'The Princess Bride' starring Carey Elwes and Robin Wright Penn. Buttercup (Robin Wright) describes Westley's (Cary Elwes) eyes as "like the sea after a storm".
- Ted and Stella watch Star Wars.
- Robin's story on the news about the ice cream man drivng a rolling meth lab on wheels is a reference to the show Breaking Bad.
- Lily uses the code "Chimichanga" to her and Marshall leaves the bar to have sex, the same word Deadpool usually uses and the name of a mexican food.
Music
- Waltz No. 7 in c sharp minor, Op. 64,2 - Frédéric Chopin
Other Notes
Guests
- Sarah Chalke - Stella
- Heidi Herschbach - April
- Alonza Maxwell - Bartender
- Nicole Taylor - Sexy Blonde
Reception
- Donna Bowman of The AV Club rated the episode B+. [1]
- Michelle Zoromski of IGN gave the episode 9 out of 10. [2]
- Cindy McLennan of Television Without Pity gave the episode a A+ rating. [3]
- The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 9 out of 10 stars. "Peanuts."
References
External Links
- Do I Know You? at the English Wikipedia
- Do I Know You? at the Internet Movie Database
- Do I Know You? at TV.com
← Previous episode Miracles |
Do I Know You? (all episodes) |
Next episode → The Best Burger in New York
|