And the thing is, he doesn't have to be written this way. He could have been written to be more effective, principled, engaged, and interesting, but for some bizarre reason I don't understand, Shonda repeatedly fails to do that.

And she was played by the very fine actor Kathleen Chalfant, so I expect this is not just a minor three-seconds-of-one-episode role, either.

That's basically the JD Robb books in a nutshell.

I am so ready for the spinoff sitcom about Rust and Marty's antics as roomies.

That's exactly what he looked like to me — the Green Man in the forest.

Note one of the accused by the name of Fontenot.

I was a little worried that the show was heading for the big reveal to be this sort of gothic satanic pedophile horror with Big Important Men involved and covering it up and that would be that. If you've read as many potboilers as I have, these developments are kind of obvious. But I'm very pleased that they seem to…

Also, unlike California which has a 3-day bar exam, New York's bar exam is 2 days, so Marshall's day-2 bender didn't make sense.

It just works so brilliantly not simply because it's funny and they nail the atmospherics so perfectly, but both guys give every single character a personality and a story just saying the name and the school. They are brilliant actors on top of everything else.

and often have to do it while sharing the same screen! It's really an amazing performance all around, plus FUN.

I felt exactly the same way. It seemed very contrived given what had come beforehand.

Agree 1000 times, except that at least part of boring Annie's screentime was taken up with rockabilly fuckfaces who were way more interesting than she ever is.

At the end of this episode my husband and I realized we screwed up entirely by not having a Laser tag rehearsal dinner IN CANADA!

"It's just nice to be mentioned"—my Vancouver-born husband, every time Canada comes up on HIMYM

Hm. With the (important) exception of the very lovely lighthouse proposal, everything Donna found charming and energizing about this episode I found dull and water-treading. I still think the weekend-long premise was a mistake for a season this long, at least with this much focus on hotel antics and Marshall on the…

Well Manny has an actually distinct personality that makes it much easier to write. Alex doesn't have much to work with, other than "smarter, nerdy sister."

Exactly. It;s like in Argo where having plausible business cards and other indicia of a real production company was part of the cover.

I hate the way he is always pronouncing himself Leader of the Free World.

I had the same reaction.

Wow, this might be one actually worth watching.