How I Met Your Mother
Definitions
TV Flash files “Definitions” as a desk essential hour — How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) on CBS, season 5, episode 1, aired 2009-09-21, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E01: listed hour 89 of 208 in the How I Met Your Mother guide, first listed hour of season 5. It aired 2009-09-21 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Leap” (S04E24). Next is “Double Date” (S05E02).
Essential hour: “Definitions”. Definitions relaunches year five by treating relationship vocabulary as plot: the long mother-search still wearing sitcom clothes.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
When the gang finds out that Barney and Robin are hesitant to define their relationship, Lily forces them to confront their biggest fear...becoming boyfriend/girlfriend. Meanwhile, Ted is anxious about teaching his first lecture at Columbia.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Definitions sit in the How I Met Your Mother guide?
S05E01 is listed hour 89 of 208 — first listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 1.
When did How I Met Your Mother S05E01 air?
Definitions aired 2009-09-21 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Can I treat HIMYM as standalone episodes?
You will miss the point. It is a mythology sitcom: flashbacks, callbacks, slap-bet lore, and a long setup about meeting the mother.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Ted Mosby tells his kids the sprawling story of meeting their mother — slap bets, yellow umbrellas, Barney as catchphrase engine. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas built mythology inside a CBS multi-cam. Binge for the callbacks; the finale remains a group-chat civil war.
The first silhouette is a yellow umbrella, not a punchline. Ted Mosby tells his kids the sprawling story of meeting their mother — slap bets, bar-booth geometry, unreliable memory as a lighting choice. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas's CBS series premiered September 19, 2005, and ran nine seasons through 2014, framed as future Ted (Bob Saget's voice) narrating to his children. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan hold the booth; Harris's Barney is the catchphrase engine in a…
Filed against
- Josh Radnor as Ted Mosby
Josh Radnor’s Ted Mosby told How I Met Your Mother as a sprawling architecture — slap bets, yellow umbrellas, Barney as catchphrase engine, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas mythology inside a CBS multi-cam. Binge for the callbacks; the finale…
- Jason Segel as Marshall Eriksen
Jason Segel’s Nick Andopolis made Freaks and Geeks’ 1990s catalog high school feel like a mixtape with a pulse — the burnout drummer, authenticity over punch-up. How I Met Your Mother and Shrinking stretched the same ache into multi-cam…
- Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky
Cobie Smulders played Robin Scherbatsky on How I Met Your Mother — Ted Mosby telling his kids a sprawling meet-cute, slap bets, yellow umbrellas, Barney as catchphrase engine. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas built mythology inside a CBS…
- Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson
Neil Patrick Harris arrived fully formed as Doogie Howser, the teenage doctor journaling cases on a glowing computer, then minted Barney as How I Met Your Mother’s catchphrase engine — slap bets, yellow umbrellas, a finale still in…
- Alyson Hannigan as Lily Aldrin
Alyson Hannigan’s Willow Rosenberg grew from Hellmouth nerd to magical powerhouse on Buffy the Vampire Slayer — found family, online fandom fuel, and a dark arc that still sparks discourse. How I Met Your Mother later minted sitcom…
- Cristin Milioti as The Mother
Cristin Milioti’s Mother made How I Met Your Mother a yellow-umbrella civil war — 2000s catalog CBS mythology, the face the kids were waiting for, then The Penguin stretching the same voltage into Gotham crime mud. TV Flash files her as…