Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

How I Met Your Mother's 150th episode was a very entertaining one, showing how the gang reacted to Lily and Marshall moving to the suburbs of Long Island. It's been a while since HIMYM delivered a solid episode, with weaknesses outweighing the good stuff of late, but "46 Minutes" was mostly 22 minutes of solid funny.

How I Met Your Mother Creators on the Show's Future
The tone was set early with Barney, Robin and Ted lamenting the apparent loss of Marshall and Lily as they finalized their move and prepped for baby. All were distraught until Barney realized he wasn't going to have the lame married couple around anymore to quash his brilliant ideas. He was the new leader of the gang and he had a new opening title sequence to prove it! The new opening was great, with Barney replacing the familiar poses of Marshall and Lily, as well as singing a new variation of the usually wordless theme song. It was silly and self-referential and the episode sustained this tone throughout, especially with Ted, Robin and Barney's storyline.

Without Lily and Marshall, Barney convinced the gang to go to a strip club where we were once again entertained by Lily's Russian stripper doppelganger Jasmine, now known as Better Lily. Combined with Other Marshall, Barney had his new gang and we were treated with another new opening sequence, now with cold, Communist Russia theme music. Things only got better as the night escalated into an underground poker game and a robbery. Ted's drunken antics at the poker game were great, as he won all the "chippies" and gave everyone nicknames. Except for Larry: "You have too many things! You can only have one thing!"

Even Robin and Kevin worked well in this episode. Kal Penn's deliveries felt far more relaxed than previous episodes, allowing him to blend into the comedy instead of standing out. Here, HIMYM introduced "Early Relationship Chicken," where one is reluctant not to go along with something, even if they'd rather not. This was a good bit and I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up again when Ted starts dating someone new.

Lily and Marshall's storyline this week wasn't quite has fun as the rest of the gang's, but it still had its moments. Lily's dad was still staying with the couple, in his old childhood home, and he was getting on the pair's nerves. And really, he was getting on my nerves, too. I like Chris Elliot, but his character on HIMYM has always been aggressively over the top with his poor parenting and people skills. The storyline started slow with these annoyances, but then got into a groove with their suburban take on a horror film Game Master story.

Though the episode was light and silly, with it's new openings and horror movie camera work, things ended with a soft, human, How I Met Your Mother touch. Things are changing for the group, and though their booth at MacClaren's was empty, the five friends still found themselves together at the end. Just how we like them.

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