The gang celebrates Thanksgiving with an old college friend with a bad luck streak. However, Thanksgiving at all of their residences goes awry.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Jorge Garcia played a cameo role. At one point someone asks for random numbers and he immediately shouts "4,8,15,16,23,42!" the Arc Numbers from Lost. His character is also cursed with being unlucky (as was his Lost character), and compares said curse with being on an island for eternity.
- Berserk Button: What made Zoey finally snap at Ted and throw out the gang from her house was Ted calling her Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother.
- Beyond the Impossible: Ted tries to invoke this by inventing the turturkeykey, a turkey stuffed with another smaller turkey. It doesn't work.
- Butt-Monkey: The entire episode is dedicated to show how life sucks being The Blitz.
- Call-Back: Blink and you'll miss it, but Marshall closes his eyes during the group photo. Marshall always looks bad in photos.
- Catchphrase: "Oh man!"
- Curse: The curse of the Blitz afflicts whoever leaves their friend group before the night is over. The curse will cause awesome things to only happen after the Blitz leaves the room. The curse is passed when another member of the group leaves early.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Zoey.
- Heads, Tails, Edge: Steve wants to test a theory about the curse's range of influence, so when Barney leaves the room, he flips a coin. It lands on its edge, and falls over when Barney returns.
- Hypocrite: Ted declares that he doesn't believe in the curse of "the Blitz", but teases both Steve and others for being affected by the curse.
- Lethal Chef: Ted's turturkeykey turns out horrible, likely because at least one of the turkeys is undercooked.
- Noodle Incident: Most of what happened the night before Thanksgiving.
- Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: Whenever the Blitz leaves the rest of the group, something legendary happens in their absence.
- See Noodle Incident above.
- On their way to Zoey's the gang (minus Barney) takes a wrong turn and ends up in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.
- Once More, with Clarity: Ted puts together a bunch of clues to realize that Zoey thought she'd be spending Thanksgiving with her husband and his daughter, but got iced out at the last minute.
- Parent with New Paramour: Zoey isn't The Captain's first wife, and won't be his last, and apparently his daughter doesn't like the new women in his life.
- Remember the New Guy?: Steve "The Blitz" is the character of the week, but the gang treated him like he was often around since college.
- Running Gag: "The Gentleman!"
- Scenery Censor: When Zoey takes off her top, she does so while walking behind a modern art sculpture and a model ship.
- Shout-Out: In the parade, Ted says someone handed him a microphone and he sang "Twist and Shout", an obvious reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ted even calls himself "the Bueller", before Marshall quotes one of Ferris's most famous lines, which Ted follows up on by imitating the movie's well-known musical cue.Marshall: Life moves pretty fast, Barney. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.Ted: Chicka, chicka!
- Tastes Like Feet: Ted's "TuTurkeyKey", which was a turkey stuffed with a smaller turkey.Future!Ted: It tasted wrong.
- Thanksgiving Episode: Was the title a bit of a clue?
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Two people who can't stand each other are trying to celebrate Thanksgiving, and spend more time together than they'd like. Toward the end of the episode, Ted puts together a number of seemingly innocent things that Zoey had said to conclude that she was spending Thanksgiving alone because her stepdaughter wanted nothing to do with her, similar to the way Steve Martin figured out John Candy's secret in that movie.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The episode features Steve finally getting rid of "The Blitz" curse... only to regain it at the end of the episode.
