The Naked Man (How I Met Your Mother) - Plot

Plot

Ted ponders how long it will take to recover from being left at the altar by Stella, asking for advice from Lily, Marshall, Robin and Barney. He soon finds out himself as he begins to talk to a woman he always sees at the elevators at work, Vicky. Slowly they get to know one another, until Ted blurts out that he got left at the altar. He rebounds into asking her out to a date, which she accepts.

He comes home later that day, passing by Robin talking on the phone outside. When he enters his apartment, he finds Mitch, Robin's blind date, sitting naked on the couch. After hearing from Lily that the blind date had been going badly, Ted goes back and confronts Mitch again, who tells Ted about his "move", The Naked Man, where one takes advantage of a distraction in order to shed their clothing and surprise their date with nakedness in the hope of receiving sex by means of humor, pity or sheer spontaneity. Ted tells the gang about the move's effectiveness (it supposedly works "two out of three times, guaranteed"), and they proceed to rebuff the claim, thinking Robin may end up shooting Mitch instead. Taking the notion seriously, they storm back to Ted's apartment to find a makeshift "Do not disturb" sign hanging from the doorknob and realize Robin is indeed having sex with her horrific blind date.

Convinced that The Naked Man indeed works, Barney believes it will revolutionize the one-night stand, much to the chagrin of Lily, who still believes Barney has feelings for Robin. Ted's still amazed that The Naked Man worked on Robin. Marshall calls her a slut, saying that the only reason to sleep with someone is true love (mostly because he was recently strong armed into reading The Notebook by the secretary's book club at work). Everyone disagrees, and Lily claims she can name at least 50 reasons to sleep with someone while everyone but Marshall helps. Stuck on 46, Lily resolves to finish her list as Barney tries to convince Ted to do The Naked Man with Vicky on their upcoming date while he goes out to attempt The Naked Man himself. As Barney's getting ready, he calls Ted to let him know that he's going through with it. To his surprise, Ted is too after he realized that there was no future between him and Vicky, mainly because she was incredibly rude to a waiter.

On their second date (which Mitch dubs the "Not a Slut Date"), Robin tries to start up small talk with Mitch, who tells Robin that she's out of his league. After debating which pose to display themselves in, Ted finds a volume of Pablo Neruda's poetry in Vicky's apartment and decides to put his clothes back on. When he finds out that the book isn't even hers, he busts out The Naked Man, as does Barney on his date, and Lily on Marshall.

Ted tells Lily and Marshall at the bar of his success with The Naked Man, and they tell him that it worked out for them as well. Robin, still trying to defend herself, brings Mitch with her to the bar. Marshall takes back what he said, to Robin's relief, and she lets Mitch leave. Ted thanks Mitch for the move, saying that it worked for everyone. Marshall decides to call Barney to see how it worked for him. As it turns out, Barney fails and was forced to leave her apartment naked, leaving his cell phone, which was then thrown in the toilet after the end of the call (with the "Naked Man" having worked two out of three times; Ted and Lily succeeded while Barney failed). Ted proposes a toast to his hero Mitch, The Naked Man.

Meanwhile, Barney roams the streets naked trying to get home. He comes across some cheap suits on a rack outside but is not interested in any of them, so he continues to roam naked.