'How I Met Your Mother' Season 7, Episode 3 Recap - 'The Ducky Tie'

The mystery of Barney's wedding will have to wait another week, as there are more pertinent (or at least timeline-appropriate) matters to attend to. Namely, there's Ted's run-in with Victoria...and Marshall's ducky tie.

As for the latter, it all starts when Marshall sits down with his ducky tie (it's a tie with ducks on it) and gets a series of burns from Barney. That is paired with the group noticing that Lily's "pregnancy boobs" have arrived. Then there's the suggestion from Marshall to go to Shinjitsu, which Barney hates and proceeds to complain about.

That irks Marshall enough that he challenges Barney to a bet: if he can do all the tricks that the Benihana-style chef is doing, then Barney gets to touch Lily's boobs. If he can't, he has to wear Marshall's ducky tie for a year.

But then, the plot thickens! Barney had slowly conditioned Marshall to want to go to Shinjitsu, and he's been taking classes in Hoboken on how to do all the tricks. It was all a ruse so that he would get to touch Lily's boobs...fortunately, Lily is on to him, and attempts to strike a deal. That falls through, so it's down to Barney's grilling skills...but at the last moment, Lily flashes him and distracts him from the ol' shrimp in the pocket trick. Foiled again!

Oh, right, the Ted thing. Yeah...

It's a blast from the past as Ted and Victoria (yeah, season one Victoria) meet at the Architect's Ball. Ted offers to clean her dishes after the event as penance for cheating on her with Robin those six years ago while Victoria was in Germany. But the truth comes out while Ted is washing dishes and putting on the charm: Victoria is getting engaged.

But the revelations don't stop there: it turns out that her fiance, Klaus, is the guy she started dating right after Ted...and I mean right after Ted. He feels betrayed, until they start making out. Bad Ted! Bad!

Things just aren't meant to be between the two, no matter how much Ted believes in fate. Thus, the two find themselves in a familiar situation: Victoria about to leave, and Ted not wanting her to go. "I'm happy that you're happy, but dammit...what if?" he ponders. Victoria has an answer for him: it never would have worked out, but not because of Germany...because of Robin.

Ted doesn't believe Victoria when she says that the Barney/Robin/Ted thing is weird and won't work, but we're left with a bit of a cliffhanger to prepare us for the rest of the season: "It didn't work, we just didn't realize it yet."