The Bracket (31 Mar. 2008)

One of Barney's exes is sabotaging his love life, but he doesn't know who. So he makes a NCAA Basketball Tournament-style bracket to figure out which women he wronged the worst.

Director:

Pamela Fryman

Writers:

Carter Bays (creator), Craig Thomas (creator),

Stars:

Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Josh Radnor	...	Ted Mosby
Jason Segel	...	Marshall Eriksen
Cobie Smulders	...	Robin Scherbatsky
Neil Patrick Harris	...	Barney Stinson
Alyson Hannigan	...	Lily Aldrin
April Bowlby	...	Meg
Dawn Olivieri	...	Anna
Maite Schwartz	...	Holly
Chris Tallman	...	Mark
Ken Barnett	...	Colton Dunn
Brendan Patrick Connor	...	Janitor
Yvonne Delarosa	...	Charna (as Yvonne de la Rosa)
Hallie Lambert	...	Kate
Tess Parker	...	Mysterious Woman (as Tess Alexandra Parker)
Katie Savoy	...	Karen

Storyline

Of late, Barney has been trying to pick up women as usual, and as usual things are initially going well with his scam pick-ups, but after he steps away for a few second he returns for the woman to give him a harsh slap across the face. He finds out what's going on when seen with Barney, Lily is approached by a woman telling her that Barney is a lying cheat that will say and do whatever just to get into her pants. As the woman Lily describes could be a number of the women that Barney has slept with through lies and deceit, Barney has to figure out who she is. To narrow the list down, Barney is inspired by Ted and Marshall's love of NCAA basketball and decides to have his own version of March Madness, with the top sixty-four prospects pairing off in individual matches - with the gang deciding which girl is the winner in each pairing - until the final girl is determined. But they are only able to narrow things down to the final four. As only Lily knows what the girl looks like, she ...

---

Genres:

Comedy | Romance

---

Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 March 2008 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

20th Century Fox Television, Bays Thomas Productions

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the restaurants shown in the background when Barney and Lily are on the street is Nolita, the setting for Kitchen Confidential.

---

Goofs

Barney reveals that one of his "crimes", that he committed to one of the women of his past, was stealing her car and driving away from their camp in the woods, leaving her there alone. In an earlier episode "Arrivederci, Fiero" (s2e17) it is revealed that Barney can't drive a car and is, in fact, very afraid of the idea.

---

Quotes

Barney Stinson: There are four kinds of women who go to the hardware store by themselves.
Robin Scherbatsky: Of course there are.
Barney Stinson: Single, recently single, recently divorced, lesbian who will let me watch.
Lily Aldrin: You can not be more evil.
Barney Stinson: Sorry, five. Recently widowed.

---

Connections

Spoofs Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989)

---

Soundtracks

"Hey Beautiful"
Written by The Solids
Performed by The Solids

User Reviews

Why this show is so IMDb-censoring awesome.

If you pause at a certain moment when Barney's going through pictures in his head, for a split-second there's a picture of Madeleine Albright among the others (referring to a joke from a previous episode).

The fact that this series never forgets anyone or anything, that everything (well, everyone goofs) is so meticulously planned. Wow. SIMPLY AMAZING!

If you pause at a certain moment when Barney's going through pictures in his head, for a split-second there's a picture of Madeleine Albright among the others (referring to a joke from a previous episode).

The fact that this series never forgets anyone or anything, that everything (well, everyone goofs) is so meticulously planned. Wow. SIMPLY AMAZING!

(Oops, did I just double that? My bad...)