Zoey Pierson is a girl whom Ted Mosby finds pretty troublesome but attractive.

Zoey is an active protester against the issues she believes are important. She had previously chained herself to a 100-year-old redwood, stolen a police horse at an anti-war rally, set a car on fire after the Guns 'n Roses 2009 concert, and stolen a whole van of white rabbits from a beauty company. However, she became a nuisance to Ted as an activist against the destruction of The Arcadian, an old hotel in NYC which would be torn down to be replaced by the new Goliath National Bank office headquarters of Ted's design.

Ted expresses interest in her at first and finds himself in a dilemma between work and love, which is increased tenfold when Barney has a poster of Ted hanging on the façade of the Arcadian. This turns Zoey against Ted, and she puts him in her crosshairs. He tries to make ends meet by integrating the old façade in the new GNB headquarters, but when he shows her the design, he finds out that she is married. Realizing that he was doing the huge efforts for Zoey and not the Arcadian, he scraps his new design and reverts to the old ones, bringing his relationship with Zoey to a hate-basis again.

Shortly after, at the autumn spectacular at the NYC Museum of National History, Ted runs into Zoey again, and her husband, George Van Smoot, also known as The Captain. Unlike Zoey, the Captain likes Ted and invites him on his boat.

On the night before Thanksgiving, the gang (minus Ted) spot her in MacLaren's Pub. However, she spends time with them, and by the end of the night they all grow to like her.