Loved It
I thought this was a great combination of everything I love about HIMYM. Clever narrative structure, running jokes, and emotional weight all flowing from solid characterization.

@Rough Trade - That's all well and good, but demonstrate how much they dislike him in a funny way. This is a comedy, they should be trying to make me laugh, and that whole story was terribly unfunny. You can have them picking on another character because they don't like him, they've done it with Dwight and Jim for…

That's a very generous B-
I've been enjoying this show's recent run of episodes. I think it's been really strong since the Christmas episode. This one, though, just didn't work for me, for most of the reasons mentioned in the review.

Good, not great
For me, this episode was a slight misstep after a great Christmas special and a strong return episode last week. Not a terrible episode by any stretch though, and any show that starts off with that cold open can't be all bad.