Ted decides to give Barney's nonstop partying lifestyle ideas a chance on St. Patrick's day, while Marshall and Robin struggle with telling Lily about a major problem with their new apartment.
This episode provides examples of:
- Arc Symbol: This episode marks the first official appearance of the mother's yellow umbrella.
- Chekhov's Gun: Ted's phone butt-dialing Marshall comes back to play when Marshall shows Ted the eighteen voicemails, chronicling Ted's entire foray into jerkassedness.
- Description Cut: While Ted and Barney are enjoying ill-gotten champagne and caviar at the club, Barney asks "I wonder what the grown-ups are doing right now." Cut to Marshall, Lily, and Robin, who decided to spend the night moving the couple into their new apartment, playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.
- Dutch Angle: Invoked. Some shots inside the apartment are tilted to create the illusion of its crookedness. This also happens when Marshall reviews Ted's shitty behavior at the bar.
- Karma Houdini: Ted realizes partway through the night that, for some reason, every time he acts like a jerk, the universe is rewarding him. Even though he gets punched out, he never really gets a full comeuppance for all the terrible things he does.
- Once More, with Clarity: Through the mechanic of Ted's constant butt-dials and with Marshall calling him out, Ted's behavior is seen not as awesome, but incredibly shitty.
- Noble Confederate Soldier: Discussed. Marshall and Robin lie to Lily that her and Marshall's new apartment has the ghost of a Confederate general living in it to try to cover up the fact the floor is crooked. Lily is not pleased to hear this, pointing out being a Confederate ghost means he fought against the United States and is probably racist. Marshall then claims the ghost loves people of all races and was simply fighting for states' rights.
- Pocket Dial: Ted keeps pocket-dialling his friend Marshall when he's drunk at Saint Patrick's Day party. Marshall's phone actually records scraps of Ted's evening, and those scraps speak badly about Ted as a person. For example, he was making out with a married woman or drank champagne, exploiting somebody else's bill. Marshall feels very uneasy and anxious about Ted's character and thinks Ted has not been himself lately.
- Sherlock Scan: Barney is able to (or at least believes he is able to) deduce the area code of a woman and the fact that she doesn't have any children.Barney: So she's married. It's not like she has kids.Ted: How do you know?Barney: [exasperated] Wrists! It's like you don't even listen to me.
- Shout-Out: Barney's green suit gets many wisecracks from his friends, including The Riddler and Peter Pan.
- Barney convinces Ted to go clubbing with him by saying that he's had a premonition of the world ending, calling the night Bro-pocalypse Now and Bro-mageddon.
- Upon pointing out that the apartment is crooked, Robin says "It's like the last twenty minutes of Titanic in here."
- When Ted, Marshall and Lily tell Barney that they're not going out for St. Patrick's Day, he says, "That's so not Raven!"
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Ted acts worse and worse as the night goes on. It takes Marshall reviewing his behavior the next morning for him to realize what an ass he was being.
- Unreliable Narrator: As Ted first tells the story, he's just casually deciding to do morally questionable (and occasionally illegal) things to have fun. Marshall reveals that he was really being a drunken, uncouth loudmouth all night.
