Three stories, each of them with their merits and faults, but more of the latter than the former, which makes this one squarely below average, maybe even dipping into "meh" territory.
The problem with the Ted story is the same problem there's been for his story this whole season -- I just don't buy that he's that hung up on Robin. It doesn't really match up with what we've seen of their relationship, and so the longer he's still stuck on her, the more Ted's plots feel strained. There was some humor to be wrung from the rube goldberg like mental gymnastics he performed to connect his dates to Robin, but for the most part, him picturing her when he saw his dates fell kind of flat. The idea that he was matched up with someone else who needed a "palette cleanser" had a bit of juice to it, but then the episode reverted back to the same shtick. That said, the crux of the story, where Ted hallucinates a version of Robin who implores him to be there for her as a friend and to accept the reverse, is a very well-written scene, and it hits the right notes about the core of the Ted-Robin relationship post-Season 2.
Barney's story is similar. There's something to the idea of Barney trying to be cool, but actually being able to handle the fact that Quinn is a stripper. But his goofy ways of trying to make her quit her job, and the skeevy guys they run into on the street that bring him to that point, are pretty broad. In the same way, Quinn's ironic criticism of bankers as whores was a bit too on the nose. On the other hand, Quinn standing up for herself, noting not only that she likes her job and is good at it, but that accepting Barney's offer would mean that he owns her, and she's too independent for that, is a nice touch and at least acknowledges that Barney is, at a minimum, going about this in exactly the wrong way.
Marshall's story is probably the worst of the three. The idea that Marshall would be overzealous about the baby while Lily is a bit more chill is believable and even neat in the way it flips traditional sitcom gender roles about this sort of thing, but they take it too far with Marshall and it veers into unlikable territory for the character. Hoodwinking him to Atlantic City so Lily can have a break is a nice idea, but it coinciding with her going into labor is something of a cheesy sitcom cliche.
Overall, the episode's trying to do some interesting stuff, but the execution is lacking and the humor isn't quite there.
Shout by dgwVIP 9BlockedParent2022-04-19T21:58:27Z
PSA for Amazon Prime Video users: This episode is truncated by approximately 45 seconds. Watch it on Hulu instead, if you can.