Spoiler Alert

"Spoiler Alert" is the eighth episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 52nd overall. It originally aired on November 12, 2007. Plot Ted thinks that he has found the perfect girl, Cathy (Lindsay Price) and decides to take her to dinner with the gang. During the dinner, Ted can see the group's hate for Cathy and their annoyance whenever she speaks to them. At first they refuse to give a reason so as not to "spoil" her for him, but eventually Marshall tells him that she talks too much. Ted refuses to believe it, but when Robin insists that he think about the dinner, Ted realizes that Cathy did not allow the gang to answer her questions and continued speaking over them. Now that Ted knows, he cannot stand her garrulousness. The five friends then let slip each other's flaws until all are "spoiled,” and thus are more annoying to those who had previously not noticed the flaws: Lily chewing everything, even cotton candy, loudly (pointed out by Ted to Marshall); Ted overcorrecting people on minuscule things (pointed out by Lily to Robin); Robin overusing and misusing the word "literally" (pointed out by Ted); Marshall singing about whatever he is doing at the moment, or nonsense (pointed out by Robin to Lily); Barney speaking in a falsetto, using catchphrases and spacing out when his friends are talking to him (pointed out by Marshall, Robin and Ted to Barney, but ignored by Barney by his spacing out). Whenever one or more of the group has these quirks pointed out to them, the sound of glass shattering is heard, representing the shattering of their illusions about one another.