6.5/10. This one gets points for the realness of the interaction between Ted and Stella. Ted asking his former fiancee if she's appealing to the romantic part of him, and telling her that it's not there anymore, that it's not attached to anything because of her was real and harsh and human and deserved. And at the same time, while there's no excuse for what Stella did, there's an equal amount of humanity and sympathy in Stella's explanation for why she did what she did. The two have always had good chemistry, dramatic and romantic, and that buoys this episode, right down to the cheesy life-lesson joke that Stella tells Ted in the end.
But the rest of the episode is pretty underwhelming. Tony was never really developed enough to explain why he would pull Stella away from Ted or give him real motivations here, and that continues in this episode. He's a pretty broad character for a pretty dramatic storyline, and it doesn't really work. There's a few laughs to be had in his attempts to make it up to Ted (Robin and Marshall's reactions to the murder house, or the jokes about how fat the check is), but also a lot of cheese (the actual murder house guy, the neighbor misunderstanding Ted and Stella's conversation).
And Barney's B-story about trying to get out of a ticket was pretty half-baked. It was nice that they tried to make it dovetail with the main theme of the episode somehow, but the entire premise was fairly broad, and didn't lead to a lot of laughs.
So overall, there's some good emotional material at the core of the episode, but puzzling character motivation and less-than-stellar comedy, which makes this a lesser light.
Sarah Chalke really is a great comedienne.
Shout by LineageBlockedParent2019-06-16T22:15:24Z
Ends up causing Tony to break up with Stella only to comply with Stella's request of talking Tony back into being together with her. Classic Schmosby.