Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist – Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams

By: Madison Ruby

Zoey (Jane Levy) is having a bad dream while she sings “Nowhere to Run” by Martha and the Vandellas. In the dream Zoey is stuck in the house all alone and can’t get out. Max (Skylar Astin) wakes up next to her and she tells him she’s been having these dreams for weeks. He suggests maybe it’s fine to move back to her own apartment, but she is worried her mom, Maggie (Mary Steenburgen), isn’t ready to live alone yet. Besides, Zoey and Maggie are working on a strictly Mom-Zoey puzzle that Max isn’t allowed to touch. Maggie seems to be having a good morning though because she is going back to work and has a big presentation. Zoey goes to ask her how she would feel about moving out, but Maggie mentions she is sad this is the first presentation without Mitch (Peter Gallagher). Right before Zoey is going to ask her power shows Maggie’s true feelings as she sings “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi.

Emily (Alice Lee) and David (Andrew Leeds) are still dealing with Emily’s sister, Jenna (Jee Young Han) staying with them and also balancing their newborn Miles. Jenna suggests the baby can’t sleep because his room is so boring and she suggests that she does a photo wall in his room.

Zoey goes to work and asks Simon (John Clarence Stewart) how things are going at SPRQ Point. They are not good and Zoey has so much work to do, along with dealing with the fact that she isn’t sleeping well. Simon mentions he also had nightmares for a while after his father passed away. He suggests to Zoey that now that she is in power she can put some of her load on her team, so she assigns things to members of the fourth floor.

Maggie’s meeting went bad, as the person she met with hated everything she said and showed him. He said it lacked the Clarke spark that there was on her past projects. Maggie realizes she has no one to bounce her ideas off of so she tries with Zoey, but she doesn’t help as much. Luckily, someone else does…someone who David and Emily have been incredibly annoyed by…Jenna. Thankfully for Zoey she hears Jenna sing “One Call Away” by Charlie Puth and realizes that she wants to help Maggie. Jenna brings Maggie out of her shell a little bit, getting her loosened up and in the right headspace to work with the inspiration all around her.

Back at work Zoey talks to Simon about her and Max. She lets him know they have been hanging out a lot, but haven’t put a label on anything. She is surprised to hear Max already told him and said they were together. He isn’t bothered by this and Zoey is glad he is so okay with her basically choosing Max over him. Zoey goes back to her desk where she is falling asleep despite drinking a very large coffee. She goes back into her bad dream where she is singing again and is woken up by George (Harvey Guillén) saying he turned the snack bar into an egg bar. This later ends up backfiring, as does the team jerseys Tobin (Kapil Talwalkar) designs. They are inappropriate and say “Brogrammers” on them, not being inclusive for women on the team. Instead of helping them Zoey tells them to go fix everything on their own. Rather than doing that they put the jerseys on since they’ll never get to wear them and start to play around. George hits a ball through Zoey’s glass wall office. She gets so mad that she has an outburst at all of them, shocking them. She then sees them sing “It’s the Hard Knock Life” from Annie.

Max is frustrated because Mo (Alex Newell) seems to have stopped caring about the restaurant as he has been fighting with his boyfriend who is still on a cruise. They find a space to rent, which Mo doesn’t like and has all types of ridiculous expectations for; however, Max is scared to disappoint him by telling him no right now. He is explaining this to Zoey as he cooks them dinner when she mentions how she talked to Simon about her dreams. Even though her and Simon are friends and work together, Max is being weird about it. He says he isn’t, but in her mind a song comes that viewers don’t see on screen. Max is still very upset that Zoey can have looked inside his brain seemingly whenever she wants. He also feels what she might hear isn’t always exactly what he means. They get into an argument and he steps outside.

Maggie goes back to her meeting with fresh ideas and new designs that Jenna helped her find inside of her. She designed a beautiful and lush secret garden inspired space. The meeting goes well and the owner of the home loves the ideas. When she goes home Zoey finally tells her she wants to move back to her own apartment. Maggie is okay with this and is busy working on her new project, which Jenna is helping her on. Just as David and Emily are discussing how they want to ask Jenna to leave she asks to stay longer to work with Maggie.

Zoey is finally back at her own place and Max bakes her a cake to make up for their argument the other night. She falls asleep as he is talking and continues her nightmare, but at the end of it she opens the front door of her dark alone house and still can’t leave because another version of her was standing in her own way. She wakes up gasping for air and Max doesn’t know how to help her. She goes to work super early since she can’t sleep and finds Simon there. She says she feels bad because of these dreams but also guilty that she can’t talk to Max about them because he doesn’t understand. Later that night Max tells Zoey that Mo and his boyfriend broke up. He keeps talking and feels like Zoey isn’t even listening to him and hasn’t been at all lately. This isn’t false, as she has had a lot on her mind. Max tries to explain his feelings and she just goes to do work. She begins to hear him sing “Say Something” by A Great Big World, showing he is really frustrated and thinking of breaking up because of how she has been acting lately. She does say something, which is that she is feeling so overwhelmed she doesn’t feel right in her life right now at all. She isn’t in the headspace to be with Max or in a relationship at all in general. They decide to put things on pause between them.