
A father recounts to his children - through a series of flashbacks - the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.

When Ted's best friend Marshall proposes to his girlfriend, Lily, Ted realizes he'd better get a move on if he hopes to find true love. Ted soon meets Robin in a neighborhood bar, immediately becomes smitten and scores a first date. But when Ted can hardly wait to see her again, his eagerness threatens to scare her away.

In a desperate attempt for a second date, Ted invites Robin to a party he is throwing. However, she doesn't show up and he keeps throwing parties in the hopes she will finally arrive.

Ted agrees to let Barney spice up his love life, and ends up on a crazy adventure of flying to Philadelphia, encountering the law and visiting the Liberty Bell.

Ted's outlook on his continuing search for love is altered when he rediscovers a shirt that has not seen daylight in years. Meanwhile, Barney amuses himself by coaxing Robin into sacrificing her job by saying completely outlandish things on air live for a cash reward.

Ted and Barney start checking out the club scene with their friend Robin, whereas Lily and Marshall try to participate in some more "grown-up" activities, as they draw slowly nearer to their wedding.

Ted makes his yearly pilgrimage to the rooftop Halloween party in search of a girl dressed as a pumpkin who he met years ago. Meanwhile, Robin is dumped after driving her new boyfriend away with her independent ways.

When a matchmaker with a 100% success rate turns Ted away because he is not compatible with any of the available women in her database, he is still determined that he is going to find his match. After getting information from the matchmaker's computer, Ted pays a visit to a very cute, but taken, dermatologist in an effort to prove the prediction wrong that there are no women out there for him. Meanwhile, Marshall and Lily are obsessed with ridding their apartment of a critter.

As Lily becomes more of a permanent fixture in the apartment, Ted feels like he is being edged out of the mix by his engaged roomies. Petrified of being left alone and homeless, Ted tells Marshall that when he and Lily are married, he wants the apartment. The problem is that Marshall wants to keep the place too, so they settle it like real "grown-ups" -- launching into a sword fight that leaves one man down for the count.

Ted and Robin are surprised to run into Barney when they volunteer at a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving. Lily is on the brink of freaking out when she goes to Thanksgiving dinner at her future in-laws house.

After being forced into knocking back 5 shots, so he will stop thinking, Ted goes on a partying rampage. The next morning he wakes up with a woman in his bed, but he does not know who it is. So he turns to his friends to try and piece the night together and work out who the woman is in his bed.
Created by: Carter Bays, Craig Thomas
Available on: CBS