Barney decided that he was going to pick up a lesbian as Ted took off for New Jersey, where Stella lived. His relationship commute was making him miss out on everything with his friends and with Stella. She suggested that he have his friends go visit her in New Jersey. Barney said he couldn't go because he'd thrown all his gold medallions away. A string of flashbacks showed Ted's several previous insults toward New Jersey, including a T-shirt that read, "I hate New Jersey" on the back, and heading toward the bathroom, saying, "I've got to a massive New Jersey."
Robin was getting sicker and sicker of her job but finally got to quit because she got a call saying she got the big anchor job. She made an on-air speech about emerging as an ambitious butterfly after arriving at Metro 1 as a cocoon. Ted loved the speech -- because he wrote it.
At Stella's house in New Jersey, the gang tried to find a way back to New York. Stella invited them to the basement to play Scrabble. She said the "X" tile was hard to read because it had once gone all the way through her dog. Then she suggested that she and Ted get a dog when he moves in. "Oh my God, am I moving to New Jersey," he wondered.
Barney, after a series of bad jokes, refused to drop his unreciprocated fist bump until someone bumped it back. He offered Lily up to $10,000 to fist bump him, but she refused.
Robin's "first day" at her new job turned out to be just an audition. She missed that detail while dancing around celebrating. Ted and Marshall went to the "PriceCo." big-box store for beer -- a 144-can case -- and debated the merits of suburban life, including riding lawn mowers and recliners, all with cup holders.
Robin begged for her old job back, but she had to get back to the studio from New Jersey in 30 minutes to read the 11 o'clock news.
Ted told Stella that he didn't want to move to New Jersey. He said there was no reason she and Lucy couldn't move there.
Stella said she couldn't move because her daughter Lucy goes to school in New Jersey, her friends and family are there, she owns a house there and, "as of June 1, I'm the deputy mayor."
"Yes," Ted replied, "but my apartment is close to the subway."
Stella didn't want to uproot Lucy, but Ted said it would be great for her to grow up in New York, what he called the greatest city in the world and "the intellectual and cultural hub of the planet."
She told Ted New Jersey was better than New York, because New York was full of weirdoes, which kicked off a hilarious geographical point-counterpoint.
"New York has Broadway, we win right there," Lily said. But New Jersey has Atlantic City, Stella countered.
New York has Greenwich Village, Ted said, but Stella responded with "New Jersey has the shore. Springsteen, Stella said. "Sinatra," Ted replied. "Sinatra's from Hoboken -- New Jersey," Stella said. "Yeah, but what city is he singing about?" Ted replied. "It's not 'Secaucus, Secaucus.'"
Lily told Stella she understood not being able to see herself living in New York, and said Marshall was the same way before he moved there, but now he wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But Marshall, embracing a massive jar of olives from "PriceCo," shocked the room when he shouted, "I hate New York!" He said he was too big for New York.
Marshall said he loved the "PriceCo" because it was so big and he could move around. He said all the stores in New York are tiny and he's always bumping into things. "I'm like a monster that rose out of the ocean to destroy bodegas," he said. He said all the doors in new York were built 150 years ago and they're too small for him.
Plus, he said, "It's so loud all the time. It's the city that never sleeps. But guess what? I like to sleep." He said he's been tired for eight years.
Ted tried to compromise with Stella, saying, "I get it. I guess ... we could live ... in Brooklyn."
Exasperated, she told him to live wherever he wants, and she left the room. Ted went to find Stella, but instead ran into Lucy, who couldn't fall asleep without a bedtime story, which he read her. After putting Lucy to bed, he told Stella he'd move there. "New Jersey wins," he said.
Robin, having raced from Jersey to Manhattan on Lucy's bike, got back to the newsroom in time to read the 11 o'clock news, and the top story was about a panda at the zoo getting its first tooth. "I guess you could call it a molar bear," she read off the teleprompter. Then she quit for good.
She met the gang back at the bar and told them that she also didn't get the big anchor position at the cable network, but she was offered another job. They asked her to be a foreign correspondent. "I'm moving to Japan," she said.
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