NBC
The story of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist started with a melodramatic setup and a ‘fix of the week’ conceit, although eventually it moved to be more along the lines of Zoey + gang theoretically moving forward through their lives. The latest episode was called ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Outburst’, calling attention to her angry, complicated shouting at Simon, but it’s overall an episode about people and their selfishness.
The start of the episode blends in Max heading up to the fabled sixth floor singing ‘Here I Go Again’ by Whitesnake with Simon singing the same thing coming down. So it’s effectively paralleling their attempts at moving forward in life, with Max in his career and Simon in his post-fiance and mourning life. Then we get the first of several terrible speeches in the episode, at first Max giving a pallid, cloying ‘I’m your manager but you guys are the real heroes’ intro.
The episode implies it’s great, but it really is not, and Max has continued to become less and less likable. Later, after the fight/dance battle between the floors to ‘The Boy is Mine’ by Brandy & Monica (there’s a throwback for you), Max says he’s loyal to his new people because nobody ‘fought for him to stay’. With a scathing glance at Zoey.
I don’t know what the show is trying to convey here, but to me that is pure drivel. As I said in that episode where he left, he was putting her in an impossible position by asking her what he should do about the opportunity. So now he’s mad she wanted him to stick around and not take such a great job prospect? At least it reflects the episode’s theme of selfishness, but Max does not grow past it.
In contrast, Leif puts himself out as vulnerable to Joan after Zoey hears him singing ‘Let’s Stay Together’ by Al Green (pretty romantically), and Joan shuts him down. That’s fair enough, because it was foolish for them to have been hooking up in the first place, but then Joan gives one of her apparently ‘patented’ talks where she cuts everyone down. So honestly, it’s no real surprise that Leif wants to abandon her project because she clearly doesn’t respect her team.
NBC
The other storyline was Simon and Zoey nearly hooking up, but the first is derailed after they get into a shouting match about their own selfishness — Zoey nearly says something unpardonable about his grief being ‘boring’ like it’s a TV storyline, but they are able to reconcile later to understand how it’s all tied in to their grief. That sort of empathy and understanding is a pretty stark contrast to the nonsense we see elsewhere in the show’s world.
The final song of ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran as Zoey’s parents dance at their anniversary dinner is sweet, but it’s also a reminder that this will likely be their last one. It’s odd because the episode feels tone deaf when it comes to Max, or maybe it’s better described as ‘mixed’. Max was a calm, cheery presence for most of the season, but he’s shown a jealous, angry side and I can’t figure out if the show is actually on his side or not.
That’s really the sort of clarity I’ll need to see when the season completes, because otherwise I feel that the characters are mostly being treated well enough. It’s not as hard hitting an episode or fun as others, but it did feel like it had a good thematic throughline, and I appreciate that even when it doesn’t always pay off.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on NBC.
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