The Rehearsal Dinner was a great, refreshing episode of How I Met Your Mother. After the last two abysmal episodes, my hope for this show was pretty much gone. Luckily, this episode delivered. So far, this season has had two great episodes, two good episodes, two decent episodes, and six god awful episodes. The Rehearsal Dinner was very funny for once, and at times even hilarious. Barney's plan was genius, and I never saw it coming. This was really the only episode all year where I feel like all 5 main actors were on top of their game. Lily has had some truly horrible dialogue this season (not her fault, largely because Alyson Hanigan's chemistry with Jason Siegel is simply non existent this year due to Marshall being away. However, I liked her in this episode. This episode felt more like an older episode of HIMYM, very much like Platonish did.
Ted falling on the ice, while predictable, was a classic moment. Probably the best laugh the show's given me all season. So overall, this was a very good episode. It wasn't quite up to the standards of Platonish, but it was easily the funniest episode of the season. With Season 9 half way over, I really hope Monday night was a sign of what's to come. They've already bastardized the show, but they may be able to salvage the remains if they deliver a quality second half of episodes.