HIMYM 7x14: 46 Minutes

Original Air Date: 16 January 2012

Storyline: Lily and Marshall officially move to the suburbs and realize that Lily's bossy father refuses to move out of their house. Meanwhile, the gang adjusts to them moving by appointing a new gang leader.Trivia: This episode has a special intro with lyrics and pictures reflecting Barney's perceived taking over the group.Best quote:  

Barney: Stop pining over Marshall and Lily! Have some self respect. Now put this fiver in your mouth so that stripper with the lazy eye can vacuum it up with...Ted: Barney! I'm allowed to miss them alright? They're my two best friends. 
Barney: I'm your two best friends!

The "legen... wait for it... dary": Tonight is going to be legen... Wait, are we sure it's a good idea to go to a strip club? Shut up, Lily! I'm in charge now... dary!

The Review: Though slightly better than last week's idiocy of an episode, "46 Minutes" was still in a galaxy far, far away from what this show has been like in the beginning. I'm finding it strange now that once upon a time I used to laugh my heart out for the entire half hour, as now I barely smile from time to time whenever there's something remotely sounding like a joke.

I will start with the good parts of this week's installment, though, because I don't want to have you in a foul mood just yet. After a long, long time of complaining about the death of all things that made Barney Barney, "46 Minutes" marked his return to origins. While character evolution is more than expected and welcomed during the course of a TV show, you can't simply transform one from one day to another and call that growing up. It takes years for someone like Barney to change even a little bit and his Nora persona wasn't even remotely believable. So you can imagine my merriment when the "legen... wait for it... dary" returned (after what seemed like centuries), along with one of his most famous spare time ideas - going to a strip club. 
The return of stripper Lily marked another classic arc of this show, one that reminded me of a better time, when the soap opera drama was left somewhat aside and comedy was where the focus was. But the best, funniest moment of the week was probably the opening credits, modified to incorporate Barney's new status as the gang leader (which sounds a bit like a mafia thing), as well as the intermission showing the two new additions to their little group - stripper Lily and her scary Russian boyfriend.
But, you will say, those are just details. What about the actual plot? Well, we had two stories, each more annoying than the other. Wait, there were actually three, but unfortunately the Robin/Kevin pair is so invisible that all I can remember is that real couples over 16 years old don't act like they do in the first months.
As for the main arcs, if I can call them that, the first was focused on Marshall and Lily trying to get acquainted with their new house and with the fact that Mickey Aldrin had decided that being a grandpa meant invading their personal space and telling them how to live their lives. The second one saw Ted, Barney and Robin going through a rough patch and feeling abandoned by their friends, who decided to move to Long Island, a plot that felt oddly similar to when Ted was marrying Stella and moving to New Jersey, except for all the New Jersey hatred. So nothing original or funny about either of those - though I always seem to crack a smile when Marshall gets scared of random things normal people have outgrown well before 12 years old.