Why How I Met Your Mother Writers Decided to Make Ted the ‘Villain’ in the Fourth-Ever Episode

How I Met Your Mother’s main character, Ted Mosby, could sometimes be a jerk — and that was on purpose.

On the April 14 episode of the How We Made Your Mother podcast, hosts Josh Radnor (who played Ted) and Craig Thomas (who co-created the series) talked about season 1, episode 4, titled “Return of the Shirt,” alongside producer Kourtney Kang, who wrote the episode. 

The trio discussed how even though the early episodes of HIMYM painted Ted as a romantic hero, hopelessly in love with Robin (Cobie Smulders), in episode 4, they wanted to shake things up and make Ted the “villain.”

“[The writers] got really excited about the idea of flipping the switch and putting you in the position where your character, someone wanted you, and you were the one that had to break their heart,” Kang said. “It helped to build up the Ted character. He’s this romantic guy who desperately wants to fall in love and wants the great girl, but also, he’s a character who women want and who women want to fall in love with, but it’s not that easy. It has to be someone great.”

“Ted’s not just a guy who pines after girls,” Kang said, and the show wanted to demonstrate his “history.” 

Thomas, 49, said they thought, “Let’s scuff Ted up a little in this one. Let’s make Ted in the wrong. He can’t just be this guy who gives great speeches and says all the right things and just the stars aren’t aligned, but he’s always gonna be in the right. Ted f—– up in this one.”

In the episode, Ted rediscovers a shirt he bought years ago and never liked. He realizes he does like it now, and starts wearing it. It makes him wonder what other things he left behind in his past, and he decides to reconnect with his ex Natalie (Anne Dudek), whom he dumped over the phone in an answering machine message on her birthday. 

When Natalie eventually caves and decides to date him again, he realizes he was right to drop her the first time and breaks up with her again — also on her birthday. She retaliates by beating him up. 

“With most Ted screwups, he has visible bruises and injuries to show for it,” Radnor, 50, said. “I think this is the first time, like, Ted shows up black and blue, but not the last.”

Later in the episode, Radnor reflected on the importance of “scuffing up Ted as someone who both desires and is desired, and also gets his heart broken and breaks hearts.”

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“If you’re in the dating game long enough, you’re going to play all the roles,” he said. “So it’s not quite honest to just say this is a guy who always gets his heart broken, or this is a guy who’s always leaving … If you’re out there long enough, you do end up being a hero and a villain depending on the night.”

Kang added, “I like that in this episode,, Ted has real flaws. He’s not just this shining knight in shining armor.”