NBC
The most recent episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is called ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Mystery’, and it utilizes the very stupid concept of the ‘psychic medium’ to explore a different way to get into the ‘Zoey solves a problem’ storyline. At this point in the show’s run it seems clear that Zoey’s powers are supernatural in some way and not simply (as was initially mentioned in the first episode and then ignored entirely) a set of hallucinations due to a deterioration of Zoey’s mind.
The reason I say that is that the show has already implied that the heart song capability has revealed things Zoey has no way of knowing. Fine, that puts the genre into ‘magical realism’ which is a tried and true television concept, but the problem with including the potentially scammy medium lady is that those people are scamming folks in real life. I’d have much less of a problem if it was someone that wasn’t charging people for ‘talking to the spirits’ but another accidental powers person.
It also didn’t really seem to serve anything other than another talking point and a reveal that didn’t have to be supernatural, that ‘M’ was really implying ‘Emily’, since Emily literally asks if she’ll ever be happy again in the first act of the episode. I think the entire medium plot could have been cut and allowed Zoey more agency to figure it out herself, but the actual mystery was pretty fun.
The conceit of the episode was that Zoey begins hearing incongruous songs from folks, eventually realizing that things are switching in her head. If anything was implying something supernatural, it’d be her ability to somehow perceive that Perry’s son wanted a stuffed fox. Zoey initially thinks the switched song that Simon sings is from Perry (stupid Internet viral song ‘The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)’ by Ylvis, but the actual singer is Perry’s son, who sings (very well for a child singer) ‘Must Be Love on the Brain’ by Rihanna.
So we have the son playing with his fox and Simon enraptured with Zoey, which tracks as we start the episode as the two have apparently already been together for weeks (it was a bit jarring but I picked up on it quickly enough). Another obvious switch was Maggie and the programmers (still boring, now with an even stupider subplot about ‘microphone’ versus ‘megaphone’ design), as the competing teams sing paean to loneliness ‘One’ by Harry Nilsson while Maggie sings the classic competitive song ‘Anything You Can Do’ from the Annie Get Your Gun musical.
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The next easy switch to figure out was Max’s new lady Rose singing ‘IDGAF’ by Dua Lipa (self-explanatory from the title) which is actually what Mo is thinking when singing Blake Shelton’s ‘The More I Drink’. The one was easy to predict since Max mentions that Rose likes Blake Shelton, so the idea that she was a recovering alcoholic made sense — it was a quick resolution, but useful to lead up to the truly affecting reveal.
Max starts the mystery by singing the heart wrenching song ‘Anyone’ by Demi Levato, also singing in a sad, affecting way — but he does really seem to be in a good place with Rose. So the final reveal, when Emily first sings ‘Rosanna’ by Toto, it’s a good trick. And then as Zoey explicitly offers her verbal and emotional support, Emily sings a reprise of ‘Anyone’ in such a deeply sad and moving way, it moved me to tears for the first time since the first season finale.
It’s finally a truly impactful storyline to focus on, and I’ve already said for a while that we need more Alice Lee’s Emily, and she pulls off the heartbroken song impeccably. As for why, I don’t know — it could be a postpartum depression thing or something wrong with David, but either way I’m more than happy to get a deeper dive in Emily’s character. Yes, the show still can’t help having some of those stupid elements, but this episode legitimately worked.
What did you think of this episode? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist airs Sundays at 9:00 PM on NBC.
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