NBC
The latest episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is called ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Night Out’, which mainly uses the song superpower trick for some minor notes with a few key pieces. The initial cliffhanger of Simon in Zoey’s apartment is immediately resolved, as Simon is sent off by Zoey despite her feelings. This is something that comes back later and repeats a few times, Zoey with Mo, Zoey with Simon to confirm nothing’s the matter, Zoey with her mom, and Zoey finally with Jessica. So it’s a bit of a repetitive beat.
One of the main subplots is Max becoming a viable love interest past a ‘friend’ for Zoey, partially started with his gaining some self-awareness over his inconsiderate behavior towards his ex Autumn. You hardly need ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ from Autumn to have Zoey realize how insensitive Max is being. The best part of course of that was her laugh at Autumn throwing coffee in Max’s face midsong.
After this, Mo proceeds to help Max with a makeover, although this is primarily getting him a nice outfit that fits. But then you need to get the ‘coincidental’ moment of Skylar Astin shirtless so we can get mild sexual tension. It’s a bit of cliché made a bit less at Max’s complete lack of weirdness about it. Finally, Max threatens a scooter dude and helps Zoey home at a critical moment.
So in the final moments of the episode, when Zoey and Max embrace, their faces very close, it’s the first time they seem remotely like having a rapport. Sure, Max sings and slow-sings ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ which is a pretty straightforward love song, but it’s just a thrown in point to keep it going.
On the completely silly side, Joan sings ‘TiK ToK’ by Ke$ha, another straightforward party song, and this sets up something potentially for later. Now she and subordinate Leif have a new killer app idea, potentially resolving Leif’s irrational jealousy of Zoey and her rapport with Joan. An overall simple, supplementary subplot.
NBC
The subplot with Simon’s fiancee Jessica moves lightning fast, from Jessica saying she’s not remotely jealous for some reason, to ‘overhearing’ Zoey’s confession to the literal fire on the engagement roses. It’s a bit fast, so it makes you wonder where the season and show is really planning to go from here. The Simon and Jessica admission of love seems legitimate, and now that Zoey is more pushed towards Max, what’s really next? Jessica’s singing of ‘Say My Name’ is a bit obvious, as even Mo points out.
On the homefront, Zoey’s dad had a bad fall, which certainly exacerbates everything. Now that Zoey seems to be interested in some way with Max, what’s the next tension or journey here? Although the show has been entertaining so far, I wonder sometimes about the pacing, jumping through subplots and taking it slow in other times.
But it’s still a pretty decent episode, even if it mainly seems to set up what might come next.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on NBC.
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