“Girls Versus Suits”
←	HIMYM episode 5x12 (100)	→
First aired: January 11, 2010
Director: Pamela Fryman
Writer: Carter Bays Craig Thomas
Barney's Blog
Images (16)

Barney must abandon suits to sleep with a hot bartender. Ted gets closer than ever to The Mother.

Contents 1 Recap 2 Continuity 3 Gallery 4 Memorable Quotes 5 Notes and Trivia 5.1 Goofs and Errors 5.2 Allusions and Outside References 5.3 Music 5.4 Other Notes 6 Guests 7 Reception 8 References 9 External Links 10 Comments

RecapEdit

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Future Ted again expounds on the unknowable nature of destiny, and tells the kids about the time he almost met their mother . After leaving class, he intercepts a series of frat boys inviting a woman up to the roof to drink. Confiscating the alcohol, he sits down to drink the beer with Cindy, a PhD student roughly his own age to whom he can relate. He asks her out on a date and when he comes to pick her up at her apartment, it turns out Cindy has serious issues with her roommate (who Future Ted reveals to be the Mother); her dates keep falling in love with her roommate, and her roommate's strange habits annoy Cindy. Ted promises Cindy to never fall in love with her roommate - something to which future Ted says "oops" to.

During the date, Cindy explains more about the strange habits she dislikes about her roommate that Ted secretly thinks are awesome. Cindy tells how the Mother paints pictures of robots playing sports and has breakfast foods singing show tunes. Future Ted reveals the painting of robots playing volleyball is still hanging in the house and that an English muffin singing "Memories" is the most hauntingly beautiful thing he has heard to this day. Even though she complains about her roommate throughout the evening, Ted wants to continue dating Cindy.

After the date, Cindy tells Ted she can't see him again, blaming the University policy preventing students and lecturers from fraternizing, as she fears it could cost her her scholarship. At first Ted tries to rationalize her decision as being for the best, especially as the others point out that Cindy's future and Ted's job are in jeopardy. Ted is inspired to try again, and shows up at Cindy's apartment and tries to persuade her to go out with him again, unwilling to miss out on the chance of her being the right woman. She takes Ted to talk in her room as her roommate is just about to leave the shower. As he tries to convince Cindy that their paths are meant to cross, he picks out items from her room which show how much they have in common. Cindy reveals that all three objects are really connected to her roommate. Frustrated that Ted is already more compatible with her roommate, Cindy tells him to leave. Ted does not meet her roommate, although on his way out he does catch a glimpse of her foot, as she disappears into her bedroom. Ted forgets to take the yellow umbrella he brought with him, revealing how the Mother gets it back.

MacLaren's has hired a hot female bartender, Karina, and Barney seeks to add her occupation to his list of conquests. But she doesn't like men in suits, having dated insensitive Wall Street losers. Barney is forced to choose between the girl and the suits. For a while he attempts to dress casually, convincing the hot bartender she misjudged him. He even sneaks away to the bathroom to wear his suit, where he accidentally rips the back. The suit is damaged beyond repair, but his tailor transplants the buttons to save another suit and Barney cremates the remains.

Meanwhile, Lily, Marshall, and Robin argue about the bartender's hotness. Robin is jealous, and even gets behind the bar to show how the location amplifies natural beauty. Carl soon kicks her out from behind the bar. Marshall insists that the bartender is not that hot, saying that Lily is the most beautiful woman he has ever met. Lily tries to get Marshall to say that she is not as beautiful as the bartender, and eventually even implies that the bartender is hotter than Marshall, actually upsetting him a little.

With the urn of suit ashes and his real tears for his lost suit, Barney convinces the hot bartender to go home with him. In his apartment the hot bartender accidentally opens his closet full of suits and realizes he deceived her. She forces him to choose between her and his suits. She is angry as they are shown leaving the building and Barney breaks into song, professing his love of suits. He explains how he couldn't possibly choose one women over suits that give him so much. He fires a beam, magically changing everyone so that they too are wearing suits and they all join in the big song and dance number. As the song comes to an end he admits his doubts saying she is "pretty hot" and back to the moment where she gave him the ultimatum. He tells her she is more important than the suits and they will go first thing in the morning. As they fall into bed, he whispers "you guys are fine" to his suits.

ContinuityEdit

• In The Leap, Ted first reveals the woman who would become "the Mother" was in the class he walked into on his first day. In the subsequent episode, Definitions, Ted reveals it was really an economics class he mistakenly walked into. Cindy was also in that same economics class.
• Ted leaves the Yellow umbrella behind in Cindy's apartment. Future Ted explains that this is how the mother got her umbrella back after losing it in No Tomorrow.
• Ted's love of bass-playing women, referenced in Matchmaker, Milk and Little Boys, is mentioned again when he finds his future wife's bass guitar.
• Robin says that Karina is not that hot and keeps saying it throughout the episode, but when Ted asks Robin if she thinks she's the hottest girl in the bar and upset about not getting attention, she giggles and says no. This is a reference to Robin being unable to lie without laughing which is first shown in The Bracket.
• Lily once again reveals her bisexual tendencies, as she did in Best Prom Ever, Robin 101 and The Playbook.
• The list of occupations of girls that Barney has banged was first referenced in Something Borrowed.

GalleryEdit

For a listing of all images on the wiki tagged as being from this episode, see Category:Girls Versus Suits images.

Memorable QuotesEdit

Barney:

My friends, I have been with many women in my day: lawyers, teachers, poets, doctors, professional equestrians, amateur equestrians... a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker—yes, we're to the rhyming section now—a math professor, a tax assessor, a weight guesser...a puppeteer, a blackjack dealer, a stay-at-home-mom— that's a job too, guys—a circuit court jus—

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Cindy:

She's a whore.

—Cindy describes "her roommate" to Ted

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Ted:	Gentleman, I'm a faculty member and you're underage. So it's my duty to confiscate this and this and.....Hard Lemonade. You what, Boomer, you can keep that.

—Ted talking to his students

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Notes and TriviaEdit

Goofs and ErrorsEdit

• Barney claims not to have slept with a hot bartender before, however in The Platinum Rule he slept with Wendy the Waitress, who has been seen bartending on occasion but is only considered a waitress (as it says in her name). Technically, this would not be a mistake if Barney does not consider Wendy to be "hot", but considering how they were attracted to one another and slept together in The Platinum Rule, this is unlikely. Neil Patrick Harris even believed that line was "a bit of a lie" by the writers. ^[1]
• Marshall was rewarded with five slaps that he could give to Barney in Slap Bet. When Barney is being intimate with Marshal's suit Marshal redeems one of his slaps so to speak. This could be considered the 5th and final slap, but in Slap Bet Marshall explains that one must slap the other as hard as he can.
• During Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit near the end, during the dancing, Ted lags behind slightly in the dancing just after they wave to the deceased suit.
• During the beginning to Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit, the girl who walks out annoyed at Barney has straight blonde hair, but Katrina has wavy hair the scene before.
• The section of Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit where Barney sings "Picture a world where all the boys and girls are impeccably well-dressed" makes it clear that the scene was filmed on a back lot. 

Allusions and Outside ReferencesEdit

• The CD belonging to Cindy's roommate that Ted picks up when he is in Cindy's room is Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? by The Unicorns. The book he picks up next is World's End by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
• When Barney mentions the professions of the girls he had sex with, the part "...A butcher, a baker, a candlestickmaker..." refers to the popular nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub.
• Ted works for Columbia University. Cindy tells him that University policy prevents them from dating. According to Columbia University: "Consensual, romantic relationships between faculty and other employees and students and between individuals who work together are generally not considered sexual harassment and are not prohibited by University policy."^[2]
• When Barney abandons wearing suits, he wears a t-shirt that has the image of the cover of the 1924 book Die neue Wohnung by the famous architect Bruno Taut.
• The suits speaking to Barney when he is taking out a t-shirt for that night is like the Basilisk talking to Harry Potter in Parsel in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
• The scene when Barney is in the bathroom stall putting on his suit references the scene in Pulp Fiction when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) is injecting himself with heroin, underscored by the fact that both scenes use the song "Bullwinkle Part II" by The Centurions.
• The scene when Barney sings and zaps people with a suit-ray resembles Neil Patrick Harris's character in Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. The cyan color of Barney's suit-ray also matches the color of Dr. Horrible's freeze-ray.
• Ted describes the Mother's rendition of "Memories" as hauntingly beautiful. The song is "Memory" from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats.

MusicEdit

• Bullwinkle Part II - The Centurions
• Cherry Pie - Warrant
• Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit - Neil Patrick Harris

Other NotesEdit

• "Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit" was backed by seventy-five dancers^[3] and accompanied by a fifty-piece orchestra.
• International Airdates: Australia: April 22, 2010 on Channel 7; United Kingdom: August 12, 2010 on E4.
• Karina's name is never mentioned on screen, but is revealed in the cast list.
• This marks the 100th episode of the series.

GuestsEdit

• Rachel Bilson - Cindy
• Tim Gunn - Himself
• Stacy Keibler - Karina
• Joe Nieves - Carl MacLaren
• Ryan Bailey - Herb
• James Pumphrey - Frat Dude #1
• Christopher Scott - Dancer
• Heather Morris - Beth

ReceptionEdit

Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club rated the episode with a grade A, describing the 100th episode as one of the best the show has ever produced. She describes the episodes as appealing to fans in a way that doesn't exclude other viewers, noting the quality of the writing and editing, the voiceover being used to great effect, and advancing the storyline for all the characters. ^[4]
Brian Zoromski of IGN gave the episode 9.8 out of 10. ^[5]
Cindy McLennan of Television Without Pity rated the episode with a grade A. ^[6]
Nickolas Clague of The New York Times gave the episode 9.2 out of 10. ^[7]
The episode hit a season high with 9.82 million viewers and high overall ratings.

References Edit

External LinksEdit

• Girls Versus Suits at the English Wikipedia
• Girls Versus Suits at the Internet Movie Database
• Girls Versus Suits at TV.com

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