Last time: Encouraged by her therapist, Zoey decided to focus on her relationship with Simon. But her plans were turned upside down when she ended up on a double date at a marathon with Rose and Max. She also was distracted helping Perry as he introduced his ex-husband Brad to Mo. And things went from bad to worse when Max revealed that he was considering moving to New York for a few months to run a Maximo’s pop-up funded by a friend of Rose’s. Zoey reacted so badly to the news that Simon later questioned if she still had feelings for Max. She denied it, explaining how her therapist had connected Max’s news to all the loss she had already experienced that year and that it was just a continuation of her grief.
Simon wasn’t convinced.
Meanwhile, Deb was worried that Maggie was gambling to fill a hole in her life but Maggie was really trying to just lose the last of the money Roger the Creep was paying her. However, she kept winning and winning. So Zoey and Deb convinced her to use some on house repairs, to save some and then to use the rest to go on a cruise with Deb. After Mo met Brad, Perry realized he still had some insecurities to deal with and it put his relationship with Mo back on the rocks. Tobin and McKenzie were betrayed when Leif submitted the winning phone design and it led to them kissing in the meditation room. And Max decided he needed time and space from Zoey, so he was going to go to New York.
I know we’re probably all still reeling from the announcement that the show has been cancelled. But there is still hope! There are platforms that may still pick it up. Make sure you let them know. Here are links to request shows to different streaming platforms:
Disney+ (Click on "Feedback")
Place your head on my beating heart/I’m thinking out loud/Maybe we found SPOILERS right where we are
We open with Zoey coming down the stairs in her parents’ house, dressed in a red suit. She pours some coffee and says that it’s a great day as her brother and mother sit at the kitchen table. Maggie’s hair seems to be longer and she talks with her children as Zoey eats her breakfast. Then Mitch comes in and it is so great to see Peter Gallagher back. He says the magazines have come in and gives one to each family member. Maggie says she can’t believe she’s a centerfold and Zoey confirms that it’s a gardening magazine. Mitch replies it is and Maggie hopes it impresses their client.
Everything freezes and we hear Zoey ask if this is too much detail. We cut to her in her therapist’s office as it rains outside. He assures her that the more detail the better. He hopes that by recounting the first time she really experienced loss, they can get to the root of her issues after all the loss she’s dealt with lately.
Zoey continues with her story and past!Zoey gets ready to for her first day at SPRQ Point. David teases her about her wardrobe but Maggie assures her she will be fine. And Mitch reveals that he packed her a lunch, just like on the first day of school. He wishes her well before she leaves for her dream job and David heads out for a trip with his girlfriend, Kersten.
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(Go Zoey!) |
Zoey arrives at SPRQ Point and it’s filled with people. It looks more like the first day at a college campus than a first day of work. Unless they did a mass hiring event and now everyone is starting on the same day. Seems like a nightmare to me in HR but everyone is different. Zoey meets Leif, who has long hair and a manbun, before she goes to get her nametag. It’s there she meets Max, who makes a comment about someone wearing a suit before realizing she’s wearing a suit. He tries to save himself but it’s too late. She takes a swipe at his more casual appearance before he gets distracted by something else.
We next see Zoey and Max sitting next to each other at orientation. Music starts to play as Danny Michael Davis makes an entrance. He performs a whole routine to “Your Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There are even backup dancers though his confetti cannons are a bust. He welcomes the “pre-hires” and everyone is confused. Danny explains that this is the final round of their hiring process and that most of them won’t make it. He wishes them luck.
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(This is so Danny Michael Davis) |
This information starts to seep into the SPRQ Point “prehires” and Zoey is dazed as her parents call. She tells them that despite going through 4 rounds of interviews and a test, she still hasn’t officially been hired yet. Yikes. This seems like a giant red flag. No wonder SPRQ Point always makes me shake my head as an HR person.
Anyway, Zoey asks them how their job is going and Mitch reveals they had to leave. Maggie was feeling a little short of breath and their doctor advised her to go to the hospital for a stress test. Zoey worries but Maggie assures her daughter that everyone is just overreacting. Zoey asks if she needs to go to the hospital but both her parents assure her that they will be fine and tell her to go get her dream job. She agrees but asks them to keep her updated. Zoey also thanks her dad for the fruit rollup he snuck into her lunch as well.
Zoey, Max, Leif and several others head up to the fourth floor. Danny Michael Davis welcomes them and tells them to enjoy the cereal bar before he gives them their final tasks. Tobin greets Leif, who is Not Happy. He says he though the job at SPRQ Point was a done deal or else he wouldn’t have quit his old job and taken a 16 month lease in San Francisco. Tobin says he thought Danny Michael Davis wasn’t going to do the final trials again after the events of the previous year but he’s confident Leif will make it. He also hopes one particular woman will make it as well.
(It’s not Zoey, btw)
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(Look at Tobin with glasses!) |
Max hits the cereal bar and is like a kid in a candy store. He explains to Zoey that since his dad is a dentist, he wasn’t allowed to have the sugary cereal so he’s going to enjoy it all. She warns him about crashing but he says he’s just going to keep eating the cereal and ride the sugar high until the very end. Zoey thinks he’s bizarre and he taunts her about her father making her lunch.
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(This brings me back to my college days) |
Danny appears on several TV screens and tells the prehires to gather around them. He then tries some coffee but complains it is too hot so he has an intern blow on it to cool it. Danny then advises the teams to pair up and they’ll complete several tasks until only one team is standing. those two will get the job. Zoey immediately tries to pair up with Leif but has to take a call. It’s David, wondering if he should cancel his plans with Kersten and go to the hospital. Zoey tells him that their dad said not to worry so he probably shouldn’t do anything just yet. David thanks her and tries to engage Kersten but it’s pretty obvious that she’s very self-absorbed and doesn’t care if it’s not about her.
Zoey finishes the call and Leif decides to pair up with Amber, who interned at Tesla but turned down a job there because she didn’t want people to say she got it just because of “Uncle Elon.” Everyone else pairs off, leaving Zoey with Max. Danny Michael Davis appears and leads them to their first test. He has set up several games, puzzles and toys that have all been assigned points. Each team has a set amount of time to go through as many of these as possible. The three teams with the highest points will go on to the next round. Max and Zoey head for theirs and Zoey decides to do the easiest things first while Max takes on a Lego Jurassic Park T-Rex set worth a lot of points, much to her chagrin.
We cut back to the therapist’s office as Zoey explains there was a method to Danny Michael’s madness. She says that it was a test of their time management skills and ability to prioritize. I still think there are better and more effective ways to do that rather than putting toys together but this all seems like a massive red flag to me as an HR person anyway. And looking at all the expenses for just doing a final round of hiring, no wonder the company is facing money issues in the current season.
Anyway, Zoey manages to put some puzzles together while Max continues with his T-Rex. Zoey worries about how far ahead the other teams are and that Max won’t finish the T-Rex before time. He tells her to relax as Danny Michael Davis calls time. She’s certain they lost before Max reveals that he managed to finish the T-Rex in time. That gives them a third place finish and they advance to the next round along with Leif and Amber as well as another team.
Tony the Intern returns with Danny Michael Davis’ coffee but now it is too cold for him. He explains that he likes to keep his heart rate just above normal and so needs a lot of caffeine to do that. This will be important later.
Everyone gets ready to leave the first task area when one person starts singing Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” to himself. Zoey interrupts him and tells him he is singing out loud. She orders him to stop it. I know she is frazzled in having to compete for her dream job after believing she was already hired while her mother is being rushed to the hospital but she should not take it out on the others. He wasn’t harming anyone by singing to himself. And she could’ve just kept walking away.
But it does foreshadow her future powers and show how they have changed her.
Danny Michael Davis tells the remaining teams that they will first enjoy lunch. Except it’s also their second task as he’s locked up their lunches in special vaults. The first two teams to get their lunch will move on to the final task (and enjoy lunch) while the other team goes home hungry.
Max and Zoey find their vault and start to figure out the puzzles. Zoey quickly figures out that the code is the Falacci sequence, which she starts to list. Her therapist stops her and tells her that maybe that is too much detail. So Zoey skips to where they open their vault to discover…another locked box inside it.
They try to figure out the next code when they remember that Danny Michael Davis told them to use all the resources in the room. They find binders from HR and open them, discovering letters underlined in the handbook. Zoey realizes they spell out “Thinking Out Loud” and Max reveals that in his research about SPRQ Point, he learned that Danny Michael is a big Ed Sheeran fan. Zoey has no clue who that is or any of his songs. Max starts singing it and she tries to get him to keep it down so that the other teams don’t figure it out. But Leif hears and starts singing as well, leading to a sing off between him and Max. Zoey just takes the numbers in the song and breaks into the second box. Leif and Amber quickly do the same, meaning they are the two teams to move on while the third team has to go – without lunch.
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(Yay, teamwork!) |
Max eats the hot dogs that Danny Michael Davis put in the box while Zoey eats the lunch Mitch packs her. He apologizes for being a jerk about her lunch. Max says he was just jealous she had a supportive family since his doesn’t support his life choices. He says his dad always seems waiting for him to fail and he’s worried that he’s going to prove him right if he doesn’t get the job at SPRQ Point. Zoey apologizes for the hurtful things she told him earlier and says that he is talented and deserves to work at SPRQ Point too. She talks about how she made a cell phone during arts and crafts in school and tried to call Steve Jobs to get a job and Max finds that sweet. They then share her fruit rollups and it seems to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Lunch ends as Danny Michael Davis reveals two work stations. He challenges the two remaining teams to use everything in those stations to come up with something SPRQ Point could use in the future. Ooh, this now gets a little challenging because even if they don’t hire the person, they may need to compensate them for their creation if the company ultimately decides to utilize it.
Before Max and Zoey could start planning, she gets a call. She steps away to answer it. Mitch is on the other end and tells Zoey that Maggie failed the stress test. He says they are prepping her for surgery to reopen an artery. Zoey asks if her mother is going to be okay and he just promises to keep her updated.
Clearly upset, Zoey tries to push past it to focus on the project. Max, though, convinces her that she needs to go be with her family. She agrees and says she’s going to tell Danny Michael she’s withdrawing. But Max stops her, saying that Danny never said they had to stay in the building to complete the challenge. He offers to stay there while she works remotely and she agrees, thanking him.
Zoey gathers her things and heads out to catch a car. She gets in and her driver ends up being Mo! Mo offers to play music and says he has quite the playlist of songs he is able to sing along to. Zoey doesn’t care and just asks Mo to get going, so he picks “Shut Up and Drive.” He sings along while Zoey tries to have a call with Max. They decide to write a program so the smart watch can track heart rates and then communicate with the coffee machine to make sure it makes the right amount of coffee for Danny Michael Davis. They start working on it as Zoey asks Mo to stop singing. Mo is less than pleased and so starts talking about how he’s about to start a job as a super of an apartment building. Zoey just prays the trip ends soon.
She and David get to the hospital, meeting up with their father. Zoey also gets a chance to watch her father interact with her mother before she heads into surgery. Maggie tells Mitch that if the worst happens and she doesn’t make it out of surgery, she wants him to move on and find another love. He doesn’t think he would be able to and doesn’t really make the promise, certain he’s not going to lose her.
At her session, Zoey talks about how the realization that she could lose her mother really shook her and she really faced a significant loss that would affect not only her life but the life of her family.
Back at SPRQ Point, time runs out and Danny Michael comes to see what the teams have created. Leif and Amber have created a board of different color lightbulbs that read how SPRQ Point’s stocks are doing. Danny Michael is impressed until it shows the stocks going down and he makes them turn it off. He moves to Max and asks where Zoey is. Max holds up his phone and Zoey explains that she had a family emergency but she’s still very excited to be there. But he can’t hear her so she has to yell it in the middle of the hospital waiting room.
Awkward.
She and Max show off their app and have Danny Michael Davis put on the watch. It detects his heartbeat and he then hears a coffeemaker start. He looks over as it pours coffee into a mug and the platform detaches, rolling over to him. He picks it up and finds it is perfect. He looks up at Tony and says that Max and Zoey may have just made his job obsolete. As Tony processes this, Danny Michael Davis says he needs to go think over his decision. Max and Zoey celebrate and then she gets to go wait for her mother to come out of surgery.
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(Coffee time!) |
David excuses himself to get some food from the cafeteria. Kersten asks for nachos and gives him specific instructions, as if he isn’t the one worried sick about his mother. He wanders through the hospital before running into Emily. We learn they dated but broke up because he had been her TA. She asks what he’s doing now and he reveals he works as a public defender. Emily finds that admirable and she says she’s sold her soul but he believes she is taking corporate America by storm. It’s clear they have a connection and she tells him that she hopes his mother pulls through her surgery. She also orders to help him with anything he needs, which is such a stark contrast to Kersten and David realizes it. She invites him to catch up later but he doesn’t know how to respond, so he just excuses himself.
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(Aww, look how cute they are!) |
Mitch and Zoey sit together when Max shows up with confetti in his hair. Zoey notes it and he explains that Danny finally got his confetti cannons working. She introduces him to her father before Max reveals that she got the job. Zoey and Mitch exchange high fives before Zoey realizes that he said “she” instead of “we.” Max explains that Danny decided to hire Zoey and Leif, so he and Amber had to go. Zoey feels bad but Max assures her that he’ll be fine. They share a hug and Max gives his best wishes to Maggie before heading out. Mitch says he likes Max.
A doctor comes out and tells Mitch that Maggie made it through surgery and is in recovery. The family can go see her. Zoey and David eagerly get ready to follow him. Kersten picks up her nachos but David suggests she stay out there. She doesn’t fight it and sits back down to enjoy her snack.
Maggie is groggy and has no filter, saying she’s glad that Kersten is in the waiting room. She tells David that she doesn’t really like her, saying that she once heard Kersten on the phone with her mother and she was really mean. Maggie wonders who is that mean to their mother. David says he likes his mother like this. He and Zoey tell Maggie they are glad she made it through surgery and then leave Mitch to have some time with her. Zoey pauses at the door, watching as Mitch sings “Dream a Little Dream of Me” to Maggie, the same song she would later hear her mother sing to Mitch before he passes.
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(Goals) |
Zoey ends her story, explaining that her mother has been on statins and is really doing well. The therapist then asks how Max ended up working at SPRQ Point and Zoey says Tony, Danny’s intern, left and a position opened up so Danny hired Max. The therapist then notes that the story also heavily featured Max and notes that it was just as much a story of love as it was a story of loss, which really makes Zoey think.
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(Zoey's very patient therapist) |
Zoey calls home and speaks with her mother, who is on her bike. Zoey asks Maggie if she’s been taking her statins and Maggie assures her daughter she has. That Mitch used to monitor it so much it’s now second nature for her. Zoey is glad to hear that and tells her mother she loves her.
She returns home and finds Max leaving Mo’s. He explains they were just finalizing some things for while he was away in New York. Zoey wishes him well and then mentions the project they made their first day at SPRQ Point. She asks if he knows what happened to it and he says he doesn’t. They have an awkward moment before parting ways.
At Max’s apartment, he opens his closet and pulls out their coffee mug rover from the back. He then flashes back to that first day at SPRQ Point. Danny Michael Davis announces that Max and Leif got the jobs as the confetti cannons go off. Amber is pissed and leaves as Tobin tries to hit on her. Max approaches Danny Michael Davis and begs him to give Zoey the job instead, explaining that she was at the hospital because her mother had surgery – which does seem to touch Danny Michael Davis. After some other reasons from Max, Danny agrees to change his mind and orders the confetti cannons to be reloaded so he can make the announcement again.
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(TA DA!) |
We return to the present where Rose calls out for Max. She looks at the coffee rover and asks what it is. He just says it’s something from the past and places it back in the closet. Max climbs into bed with her as she goes over their travel arrangements to New York.
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(We all know why he kept it) |
We end on a shot of the rain pelting Max’s window.
This was a really interesting episode and I liked how it flashed back to a pivotal day in Zoey’s life. It really showed us how far Zoey’s come since then and how she’s changed. And I think it really does confirm that Max and Zoey are the endgame.
Sorry, Simon.
I’m not sure if this contradicts what happened early in the first season when Zoey read her first impressions of her coworkers from the journal entry she wrote after her first day at SPRQ Point. I don’t know if she would’ve been so focused on her colleagues after her mother’s heart surgery. Or if she had enough contact with Tobin to write such a passage about him. Or that she wouldn’t mention that Max didn’t start at the same time as her. It’s still plausible but I do think there is a couple continuity errors there.
(It’s also been a while since I saw Zoey’s Extraordinary Glitch, but my recollection was that it was portrayed as if that was the first time Zoey met Danny Michael Davis. Now he had been a major part of her first day, so she would have an idea of what type of person and boss he was. So possibly another continuity error).
Okay, continuity errors out of the way, let’s discuss the rest of the episode.
It was nice to see Peter Gallagher again and that he was playing Mitch before the disease took hold of him. It would be nice if we could get some more glimpses of this Mitch and how he interacted with his family while he still could.
I also liked the glimpse at Emily and David before they were married, before they were even dating. I can’t remember if it ever came up before that David was Emily’s TA but that was intriguing. Their connection was clear and Emily definitely was a contrast to Kersten, who I absolutely loved to hate.
Leif in a manbun and Tobin in glasses were funny to see. But they were still themselves. I am intrigued that Leif almost paired up with Zoey and that they did get along at first. But I feel this does explain their dynamic – they are still constantly competing with each other as if the first day is never really over.
It was also nice to see how Zoey and Max’s relationship started. It may have gotten off to a bumpy start but their connection was obvious. And I wonder if Zoey will ever learn that Max gave up the job at SPRQ Point for her.
And it was interesting that Mo was Zoey’s driver that day. I wonder if that’s how she found her apartment or if they recognized each other when she did rent her apartment.
So now we’re at the finale. Will Zoey be able to say goodbye to Max? Will he go to New York to find happiness with Rose? Or will something happen that will bring Zoey and Max back together?
You all likely know but I will find out next time!
Next time: Zoey prepares to say goodbye to Max.
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