How I Met Your Father: HIMYM’s Apartment Swords Easter Egg Explained

How I Met Your Father episode 1 ends in a familiar place with two swords on the wall, which is an amazing Easter egg to the apartment’s How I Met Your Mother owners. Even before the series premiered, How I Met Your Father revealed that its first season would feature numerous callbacks, connections, and Easter eggs to the original series. While it’s unclear if HIMYM character cameos in How I Met Your Father will occur, episode 1 ending with Jesse and Sid living in Ted and Marshall’s old apartment with swords on the wall is the perfect first crossover.

After introducing How I Met Your Father’s cast and characters through a series of misadventures in one night, the first episode ends in a location more familiar to HIMYM‘s audience than MacLaren’s Pub. As Sid and Jesse bring the gang back to their apartment, the 4C number immediately indicated that they would be stepping into Marshall and Ted’s beloved apartment above MacLaren’s. Jesse and Sid explain that they got the apartment for a steal because an “old couple” (Marshall and Lily) put it up on the Wesleyan alumni site. Implying that Sid and Jesse went to the same university as Lily, Marshall, and Ted (albeit years later) and even got them to leave Marshall and Ted’s decorative swords on the wall was a great way to start off How I Met Your Father’s in-universe connections.

Even disregarding How I Met Your Father reusing the old apartment, the fact that Marshall and Lily agreed to leave Sid and Jesse the old swords is a perfectly nostalgic set-piece Easter egg. Ted and Marshall’s swords became significant plot pieces throughout HIMYM’s series, first getting special attention in season 1 episode 8, “The Duel,” where Ted and Marshall have a sword fight to decide who gets to keep the apartment. Lily walked in during the fight and ended up getting stabbed in the shoulder, which wouldn’t be the last injury from HIMYM’s swords. How I Met Your Mother’s season 9 episode “Last Time in New York,” featured flashbacks showing that Ted and Marshall had a sword fight on April 26 that ended by destroying Lily’s rehearsal dinner dress for Barney and Robin’s wedding. It was also revealed in this episode that Lily and Robin had a sword fight that same day, ending in Ted’s $600 Glen McKenna scotch bottle being smashed.

Throughout How I Met Your Mother’s nine seasons, the swords hardly ever left The Apartment, which makes sense for them to remain as decoration for the new tenants in How I Met Your Father. One exception was in HIMYM season 2 when Ted and Robin decided to move in together; Marshall gave Ted one sword while he kept the other, but this was reversed when Ted moved back in that night. Otherwise, the swords could typically be seen as decoration in Ted and Marshall’s apart hunt above the piano. In How I Met Your Father, Sid and Jesse have moved the swords above the fireplace, seemingly replacing the old clock that was always set to 4:20.

The latest in HIMYM’s future timeline that the swords were possibly seen was in season 8 episode 9’s flash-forward to when Penny was a baby (around 2017), where two swords are visible as decoration on the wall of Ted’s home. If Sid and Jesse took over Marshall and Lily’s apartment after they moved out in 2016, this wouldn’t make too much sense for them to have them in 2022, so it’s possible they moved in later than that and Ted gave the swords back once Luke and Penny got a bit older. If How I Met Your Father copies How I Met Your Mother‘s tradition, viewers are apt to see a good old-fashioned destructive sword fight from Jesse and Sid.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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