The gang attends a national history party and Ted is introduced to Zoey's husband, The Captain, while Robin and Barney excessively break the museum rules.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: The Captain agrees that Ted's invented moniker is awesome and doesn't bat an eye, just goes with it.
- Asshole Victim: The Captain sings some of the songs from Guys and Dolls, then asks Marshall's boss Arthur to do his part from the play.Arthur: [Beat] Please take your seats everybody, the show will start in a few minutes. [walking away, under his breath] Pretentious douche.
- Awesome Mc Cool Name: The Captain boasts that a real man can give himself a title and a name.Ted: In that case, I'm Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The museum security guard unknowingly does this when he's with Robin and Barney in his office:Guard: Not just someone. A six-year-old. Oh, yeah, that story is legend- (his phone starts ringing) Hold on. (silences it) -dary.
- Call-Back: The van Smoot family returns, this time in the person of The Captain, George van Smoot. They previously showed up as the dream venue for Marshall's and Lily's wedding (the van Smoot House) and as the host of the of the really snooty party they went to in "Robots vs Wrestlers".
- Cassandra Truth: No one believes Barney's claim that he knocked down the giant blue whale in the museum when he was six years old. The museum security guard later confirms every detail of the story is true.
- Chekhov's Lecture: Ted makes a big show of how the acoustics in the museum work. At the end, it allows Zoey to hear Ted's entire conversation with The Captain.
- Competition Freak: Barney and Robin get into a contest to see who can most aggressively touch the most aggressive.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: To keep secret the identity of Zoey's husband, when you read her name on the letter to the editor she wrote, you can see she kept her last name, Pierson.
- Heel Realization: Zoey hears Ted defend her to her husband, The Captain, after the latter dismisses her Soapbox Sadie work as just nonsense that keeps her out of trouble. She's on the edge of tears, this time for real.
- I Hate Past Me: Inverted. Lily laments that Marshall couldn't keep his optimistic self from college, especially after he reveals that he took GNB's offer to extend his contract one more year. After an imaginary talk to college!Marshall about how Marshall won't ever change his love for her, college!Marshall is shown to have envy of his future self's prowess in bed.
- Manipulative Bastard: Zoey pretends to be miserable in her marriage, fakes crying in order to trick Ted into saying something bad about the project and record it.
- Mood Whiplash: Robin and Barney get pulled into security for their antics. They're still drunk and having fun, until Barney finds out that his Uncle Jerry was actually his father.
- Nice Guy: He's pretentious and outrageous, but The Captain takes Ted's gentle ribbing in stride and the two strike up a friendship.
- Odd Couple: While Zoey is a Soapbox Sadie, manipulative, and hates boats, she is married to The Captain, who is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, more reasonable than her, and really loves boats.
- Odd Friendship: Ted and The Captain strike up a nice friendship. Ted's a pretentious douche, sure, but he's a much more down to earth working class guy and The Captain is Old Money, who wears sailing attire everywhere and calls himself The Captain.
- Shout-Out: When Ted sarcastically asks if Zoey's threat ("You're going down!") means "Where? Down to the Country Club? I'm half-Jewish, will that be a problem?"
- Take That!: When Lily talks to the college!Marshall and wishes she could have his optimism back, he replies that he's extinct, like Alice in Chains. Lily then mentions they actually reunited and did some touring. When college!Marshall asks if they're still as good as before, Lily replies noncommittally.
- Troll: The Captain towards Arthur Hobbs, when he tells him to do his "part" from their college production of Guys and Dolls after singing three songs. Arthur shamefacedly complies and says "Okay, everyone, take your seats."
- Unreadably Fast Text: If you freeze the image on Ted's split-second Imagine Spot of a newspaper headline revealing he doesn't like GNB, you can read a good chunk of the article. Among other things, Barney called the newspaper to comment despite not being asked for an interview.
- Wealthy Philanthropist: We meet The Captain at a benefit he's throwing for the Natural History Museum.
- Wham Line: The security guard revealing that Barney's "Uncle Jerry" is actually his father.Guard: (reading) “Suspect was reprimanded and returned to the custody of his father, Jerome Whitaker.”
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Zoe breaks down crying and Ted badmouths GNB to make her feel better. She was faking and got the whole thing on tape.
