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The pilot of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was great, and I did not really expect the next episode to live up to that unreasonably high bar. Still, a few things advanced and Jane Levy continues to be utterly enthralling to watch. The episode started with Jane Levy actually singing and dancing as though she was stuck in one of her one magical realism visions. Naturally this helps soothe the naysayers that may have debated her singing ability against a cast of singers.
The song here was ‘I’ve Got the Music in Me’, which is pretty obvious as a direct comment on her situation, but it’s also connected to the shock of the piano plus instruments crushing her at the end of the song. Considering this all started when Zoey scanned her brain for possible issues, this could also reflect her fear that the music ‘in her’ is a prelude to dying, or worse, like her father.
It’s a good way to start back, with her friend Mo also doing the classic magical realism angle of ‘let’s experiment here’ as the one friend who knows the secret, always a necessity for magical realism tales. Things are different back in the office, where Zoey struggles under her new team leader responsibilities (#relatable) but feels disconnected from Max after he sings ‘Sucker’ from the Jonas Brothers in another ‘heart song’.
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Max continues out loud to act as though there’s nothing romantic in his mind at all, which seems false considering we already have evidence that Zoey’s ‘power’ is legit. So Zoey instead connects more with her office crush Simon, and after a classic minor key version of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’ at the local coffee place led by Autumn the barista (Stephanie Styles), she decides to take Max off the board with another staple of the genre, the platonic (or is he?) friend setup.
But Max won my heart when he correctly used the programming term Djikstra’s algorithm in a real sentence on TV. He’s a bit simplistic as a character right now, unlike Simon with his complicated backstory, but I suppose we’ll see how it goes. Obviously Zoey figures out boundaries and gets better results from her team of dudes, because the only thing that these dudes like more than boasting is hearing sincere compliments.
It’s a good strategy (for now).
On the family side, Zoey’s dad uses a buzzer to communicate yes or no answers, in a follow up from the last episode that he still has the capacity to comprehend speech. The song ‘Moondance’ by Van Morrison essentially expresses by her dad’s desire to reconnect romantically with his wife — the singing by him is now expected so it doesn’t have the emotional punch of the first episode.
Now it’s a bit more ‘song problem of the week’, but there’s also growth and slide back on Zoey’s character, so it’s not entirely repetitive. There weren’t any deep emotional moments for my part, but it remains a fun show, and I still like the numbers. I’ll keep following Jane Levy in this show as long as I can.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on NBC.
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