Ring Up!

Did You Know?

• The episode features the song "Hey, Beautiful" by The Solids.
• Cobie Smulders performs the song "On the House" in this episode.
• Richard Wagner's "Treulich geführt" (Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin) is used in the episode.
• Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors contribute the song "What Would I Do Without You".

Plot

Ted’s new girlfriend sells leather cuffs and is just under twenty-one; she talked him into buying one, so the group never gets to meet her at MacLaren’s. He’s drawn to her looks but can’t bridge the age gap. When he’s ready to break up, Barney—now engaged to Robin—urges him to keep trying, living through Ted’s single life. Ted changes his mind again after learning she has a strong fetish for older men, mistaking his thirties for senior citizenship, but he caves when he discovers she loves Star Wars. After they sleep together, Barney finds out she’s actually his half-sister, Carly, and explodes at the betrayal. Barney then tries to marry Ted and Carly, calling one-night stands “cheap, meaningless and disgusting.” Both men realize Barney has finally kicked his detox from casual hookups. Though relieved, Barney insists Ted and Carly never sleep together again.

Meanwhile, Robin struggles with engagement life. As a single, attractive woman, she used to get freebies—like a beer at MacLaren’s—but her ring now costs her those perks. Marshall and Lily tell her that when she looks at the man she loves, everyone else fades away. Later, Robin feels that power when she gazes at Barney and solves her problem by asking him to buy her a drink.

Marshall starts wearing Ted’s leather cuff because it turns Lily on, even as his wrist swells and starts to stink. Eventually, Lily admits he doesn’t need the cuff to excite her. Later, Lily gets a pair of elastic waist jeans delivered by mistake, and Marshall finds them a huge turn-on.

Critical reception

Donna Bowman of the A.V. Club gave the episode a C+. She wrote that the episode treated Barney's long history as a character defined by his womanizing as either a source for lazy jokes or as a story problem to be gotten past quickly and sloppily. She also objected to how Carly is shoehorned into the recovery-from-sex-addiction business, calling it far less than what that character arc deserves. Max Nicholson of IGN gave the episode a score of 4.9/10 (Bad), commenting that no single story arc pulled through as particularly engaging or eventful and that there were seldom any laughs.

He called the episode one of the bigger duds this season and said it lacked originality, wit and humor, though there was plenty of sleaze. Angel Cohn of Television Without Pity gave the episode a B, qualifying the grade as a result of grading on the curve of this season. Cohn described the episode as not terrible and not total torture, and grudgingly tolerated the cutesy "could I love you more" stuff between Barney and Robin since it made them seem like a real couple who we want to occasionally punch.