Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: HELP!

As promised, here is the very episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. Let’s see how all this zany feels fest started…

Play that funky music, SPOILERS!


We are introduced to Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a coder at an internet tech company called SPRQ (pronounced Spark) Point). She works with fellow coders Tobin (Kapil Talwalkar), Leif (Michael Thomas Grant) and Max (Skylar Astin), who is her best friend at the company. They all work for Joan (Lauren Graham), who is making them compete against each other to be the coding manager. Zoey goes into her interview with Joan and pretty much bombs it.

(Meet Zoey)

She lives in an apartment building in San Francisco and has a neighbor, Mo (Alex Newell), who insists on blasting music every morning. It has led to some friction between the two of them.

Zoey’s family lives in San Francisco as well. Her father, Mitch (Peter Gallagher), has a degenerative disease that has robbed him of most of his mobility – including his ability to talk. Her mother, Maggie (Mary Steenburgen), is his primary caregiver though Zoey and her brother David (Andrew Leeds) often stop by to spend time with them. Zoey tries to advocate for them to let her father do more but both Maggie and David are very protective of him. And since he can’t communicate, they don’t know how much Mitch is really comprehending.


After those quick introductions – a necessary evil for pilots – we then start to really kick the plot into gear. Zoey confides in her mother that she’s been having bad headaches with some vision issues. As someone who suffers from migraines, that’s probably what she has. But she’s worried and Maggie delivers some rather clunky exposition about how Mitch’s disease began and that Zoey probably is worried she has it too. She encourages her daughter to get an MRI even though Zoey hates them.

(Getting some motherly advice)

So Zoey climbs into the MRI and the tech offers to play music for her. Earlier we saw she prefers to listen to podcasts so she let him play whatever he wanted. It’s not the most uplifting song and he ignores her requests for changing the music. (When I got an MRI of my wrist, they gave me headphones and a chance to change the radio station. I settled on a Top 40 station). Just as she’s starting to get a little comfortable, an earthquake hits and everything shakes. Something happens with the computer and all the music the tech had loaded up on it seems to be transmitted to Zoey’s brain.


Zoey leaves and calls her mother, checking in after the earthquake. Maggie assures her that they are fine and that the house only shook. She thinks Mitch thought he was on a roller coaster. As Zoey walks, she starts to hear someone singing “All By Myself” and she realizes it’s coming from the woman next to her. But the woman insists she’s not singing before walking away from a confused Zoey. Zoey tells her mother that she feels weird after the MRI appointment and Maggie encourages her to take the rest of the day off and to just go home to get some rest. Zoey decides to do just that.

As she walks on, she hears more people singing, including some women singing “Whatta Man” as a cute man walks by. Then everyone on the street starts singing “Help!” by the Beatles and Zoey can’t escape it. She even runs along the hills of San Francisco with all these people following her, begging for help via song. When it ends, everyone goes on their way as if it never happens and Zoey is left even more confused than ever.

(HELP!)

She returns home when she hears Mo singing. Zoey storm across the hall and is somewhat relieved to find Mo is actually singing. Unable to help herself, she tells Mo what just happened. Mo is confused – not only by the predicament but by the fact Zoey is confiding in them because they aren’t friends. But they agree to help her out.


(I don’t know if they’ve established Mo’s preferred pronouns so I’m going to use they/them to be safe).


When Zoey returns to work, there is a major problem. The fitness app on the smart watch they are about to launch is giving inaccurate blood pressure readings. Joan tells them to find out what’s going on, no matter how late they have to stay.

(Lauren Graham is not happy)

As Zoey and her colleagues work to find the error, she hears someone singing. She follows it and finds one of the new managers, Simon (John Clarence Stewart), singing to a picture in his office. He is singing “Mad World,” so you know he’s not in a good frame of mind, which Mo confirms to Zoey when she confides in them at their DJ gig later that night. Zoey is surprised as Simon looks so successful and happy. Mo points out songs reveal our true selves and that Zoey needs to get to know her colleague better to find out what’s bothering him.

(Oh, yeah. He's definitely going through some things)

The opportunity reveals itself the next day at the company’s cereal bar. Zoey awkwardly approaches Simon and asks him if there’s anything on his mind. She then talks about her father and that intrigues him. He asks her if she wants to get something other than cereal and they head out for a brief break.


Simon introduces Zoey to cheesequakes and they eat them by the waterfront. He shows her the picture he was holding the night before and says that it’s him with his father. Simon explains that his father committed suicide the year before and he’s still dealing with all the emotions that caused. He says he hasn’t told anyone about them and Zoey encourages him to do that. Simon thanks her and says that she must be a mind reader because she told him exactly what he needed to hear.

(I see a connection forming)

That night, Zoey poses a question to her mother – if she could hear people’s inner most thoughts, would it be wrong to use the information she learned to create a relationship with them? Maggie doesn’t have an answer but she knows she would love to be able to read her husband’s mind so she could know what he needed. Then she would be able to help him better, which gives Zoey something to think about.

(Maggie wishes she could read Mitch's mind)

At work the next day, Joan pulls Zoey aside and tells her that it doesn’t look like she wants the manager’s position when she leaves work in the middle of a crisis. When Zoey heads back to her desk, Leif and Tobin confront her to see if Joan gave her any special information about the bug. Tobin makes statements that sound like he’s trying to support Women’s Empowerment but are really misogynistic. Leif thankfully calls him out on them. He then tries to offer encouragement to Zoey but she hears him singing “All I Do is Win” instead.


Zoey gets some cheesequakes, hoping to share one with Simon, who shows up. However, a woman says she hopes Zoey is talking Simon out of eating one and says he’s so obsessed, he wants them to be the dessert at their wedding. Zoey is stunned and Simon introduces the woman as his fiancee, Jessica (India de Beaufort). Jessica invites Zoey to join them for dinner but she makes up an excuse and leaves. Jessica thinks she’s really nice while poor Zoey is heartbroken.

(Meet Jessica)

She heads home and tells her father everything, including her ability to hear people’s songs. Zoey says she feels horrible and doesn’t know what to do. Mitch then sings “True Colors” to her and dances with her, lifting her spirits. She tells her brother and mother that they should take Mitch out sailing since he liked it so much.

(WHAM! Feels)

Zoey returns to work the next day and runs into Simon again. He tells her that he had a great talk with Jessica the night before and told her everything that was bothering him. He says it was great to finally get it out in the open and that she was sympathetic but he doesn’t think she understands. She hasn’t really experienced loss like he has and he feels like that prevents them from properly communicating with each other. That gives Zoey a revelation and she hurries away.

She returns to her group and says that the app and the watch aren’t communicating with each other. So the app is just reading the baseline they had programmed into it. Zoey tells each person what they need to do to fix it and Joan asks her to come into her office. She is impressed by how Zoey found the problem, figured out the fix and managed her team to do it. So she asks Zoey again why she would be a good manager and Zoey nails her answer.


The episode ends with a few little scenes. We see the Clarke family go sailing and Mitch holds Maggie’s hand, enjoying being on the water with his family. Zoey wakes up to Mo singing but she enjoys it now. And she enters SPRQ Point, greeting Simon and getting a smile from Joan. Tobin and Leif try to convince her that they are happy she’s been promoted to the manager position.


Zoey then sits down with Max and is about to tell him about her powers when he starts singing. And he’s singing “I Think I Love You,” which gives Zoey a whole new problem to worry about.

(Max thinks he loves Zoey)

(And say hello to my new favorite reaction gif)

So that was the start of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. It’s a fun idea with some great characters so far. Zoey is a rather likeable protagonist and it’s easy to root for her. I’m also glad she’s in a STEM field too. While I tend to focus more on the arts, I know how important it is to encourage girls to pursue careers in the science. And if you think about it, this is more of a STEAM program – the “A” stands for the Arts because honestly, the Arts are not much different from the others.

Though it suffered from some clunky exposition, it’s easily forgiven as it’s a pilot. It has to get a lot of information out to set up the series as a whole. So I think it did a good job of that – Zoey can now hear people’s innermost thoughts expressed as songs and she now has to figure out what to do with that knowledge.

I’m not sure about the love triangle but so far Jane Levy has chemistry with both Skylar Astin and John Clarence Stewart, so that’s a good foundation. We’ll see how this triangle (or is it a square due to Jessica?) plays out.

Next time: Zoey struggles as a new manager and tries to make some sense of her powers.