Recap / How I Met Your Mother S 9 E 07 No Questions Asked

Air Date: October 28, 2013

When Daphne sends a troubling text message to Lily, Marshall enlists the gang’s help to remove the message while enforcing the “No Questions Asked” rule.

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The episode provides examples of:

• All Women Are Lustful: When Lily went to complain about the room service charged to her account, this exchange happens...
  Clerk: So you're saying you didn't order Room Service and you didn't order "Prison Sluts 9"?
  Lily: I am saying... I did not order Room Service...
• Blatant Lies: The night clerk gives a series of this, giving all the failures in Room 13 to "The Ghost of the Hooker".
  Lily: Sounds like you're using Captain Dirdoff as an excuse for a crappy room.
  Clerk: I beg you pardon. I did not get to be 40 year old night clerk with making excuses. Now, if there's anything wrong with the room that isn't ghost-related , I'm more than happy to address it.
  Lily: The Wi-Fi doesn't work.
  Clerk: Ghost interferes with electronic devices.
  Lily: The shower is leaking.
  Clerk: Dirdoff likes the sound of dripping. It reminds him of his bleeding victims.
  Lily: And the door won't lock.
  Clerk: Captain Dirdoff doesn't want to... you know, been locked out of his room.
  Lily: Why would a locked door keep a ghost out? Can't he just walk through the walls?
  Clerk: Maybe he's afraid of rats.
  Lily: There're rats in the walls?!
  Clerk: (Beat) No.
• Broken Aesop:
  Robin: Let's work together to prove we believe in marriage by helping Marshall hide something from his wife.
• Complexity Addiction: Ted, Barney, and Robin all come up with difficult methods to sneak into Lily's room before Marshall can tell them they can just open the door because the lock's broken. Similarly, Ted has Lily destroy her own phone, rather than handing to him so he can delete the text.
• Continuity Snarl: Marshall claims that he's never asked Lily to do something no questions asked, but back in "The Scorpion and the Toad", he asked her to bust Barney's attempt to score with twins, no questions asked. Though it could be that he is referring to since they were married, as that was the time in which they had broken up.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Had Ted simply cashed in his "no questions asked" with Lily to let him see her phone for a minute, they could have avoided all the shenanigans that ensued, up to and including the destruction of Lily's phone.
• Cutting the Knot: After Barney and Robin devise another overly complex plan to get Lily's phone, Ted comes in and reveals that he cashed in a "no questions asked" Lily had with him to get her to smash her phone.
• Don't Ask: The recurring element of the episode. We see that the gang have been requesting help to the others without having to explain the details on
• Gun Nut: Lampshaded about Robin.
  Ted: Why do you have a gun? Why do you always have a gun??
• Halloween Episode: Although chronologically the episode happens in the days prior the Wedding, the episode aired two days before Halloween, and the main setting is "The Legend of The Farhampton's Ghost", which is brought up many times during the episode: Marshall specifically requested the room knowing this, the gang is constantly paranoid about the ghost (doesn't help that all this happens during a thunderstorm) and the Clerk uses it as an excuse to cover up all the malfunctions in the room.
• Noodle Incident: The "No Questions Asked" that the gang owes Marshall. While some are explained during the episode (Ted's "Mailbox Incident", Barney's two NQA, and all Marshall's screw ups are explained to Lily), Lily and Robin's are still not detailed on why they happened in the first place.
• Stylistic Suck: The show that featured the Farhampton Inn "True and Real Ghost Stories of the Supernatural" makes a "dramatic" recreation of Captain Dirdoff's legend, with the crew clearly editing the testimonies from the hotel staff, and there are fake special effects where the producers can be seen in a corner. The poor quality production shows that the show and the ghost are fake, but Marshall still believes in the haunting.
• Tranquil Fury: Lily has a chillingly calm reaction to Marshall telling her he took the offer to become a judge without telling her when they had plans to live in Rome.
  Lily: "I don't believe in ghosts, and I'm not sure anyone died in our room, but someone's going to."
• You Owe Me: Ted, Barney and Robin owe a "no questions asked" to Marshall. So does Lily to Ted.