Grown-ish recap: Sophomore year begins

New wig. New clothes. New Zoey. Freeform’s grown-ish is back for Season 2 aka sophomore year.

School is back in session and the one-hour premiere of grown-ish kicks off with “Better.” In the episode, Zoey (Yara Shahidi), now living in an apartment with Anna (Francia Raisa) and Nomi (Emily Arlook), is determined to make her second year at Cal U way better than the last. No more Adderal, bad decisions, or love triangles.

When we last saw Zoey at the end of Season 1, she was forced to choose between three potential beaus: the fashionable Luca (Luka Sabbat), activist Aaron (Trevor Jackson), and star basketball player Cash (Da’Vinchi.) In a move that definitely still has Twitter divided, Zoey chose Luca, and viewers now see that the two spent the summer in a long-distance relationship as Luca was in Paris.

More from Teen Dramas

• When do new episodes of Harlan Coben’s Shelter come out on Prime Video?
• Is Heartstopper canceled? (Will there be a season 3?)
• When do new episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty come out on Prime Video?
• 3 School Spirits characters who definitely won’t be back in season 2
• School Spirits season 2: Everything to know about the second season

Zoey spends the better part of the episode saying sweet nothings and dreaming of the moment when Luca is on domestic soil and they’re reunited at last. The arrival of Aaron at the girls’ apartment cleanup kickback – oh yeah, because that apartment the trio moved into is an absolute dump – sinks Zoey’s mission.

Junior and newly minted resident advisor Aaron is still obviously heartbroken over Zoey, as evidenced in his constant wincing every time she says Luca’s name. He informs her that he saw Luca earlier on campus, meaning he didn’t call her as soon as he arrived.

For most girlfriends, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. The guy’s probably jet-lagged, right? But for hilariously high-strung Zoey, the world quickly comes crumbling down. Her friends try to help her brush off the feeling of being slighted, but the damage seems to be done. Only 30 minutes into a new season and viewers like me begin to wonder if Zoey made the right choice choosing Luca after all.

This question lingers over the second episode titled “Nothing Was The Same,” when Zoey realizes that nobody on campus thinks of her and Luca as #RelationshipGoals. Yeah, not even her friends. On the flipside, they do see her friends Jazz (Chloe Bailey) and Doug (Diggy Simmons) as goals making Zoey incredibly envious.

Many cringe-worthy moments follow as she awkwardly tries to raise her relationship profile by pulling Luca into weird selfie poses during Aaron’s community movie night and constantly whining about their lack of cute PDA. Luca is completely over it and storms off after Zoey releases her frustrations. Insert Aaron, who once again proves that he is most definitely endgame.

Aaron comforts Zoey as she vents about things feeling off with Luca even after a blissful summer. She opens up to Aaron so well, you kind of start to wonder how she doesn’t see that he’s the perfect guy for her. Alas, I guess it’s too soon for the show to break up a relationship, so Zoey takes Aaron’s advice to chill and let things progress naturally and sets off to find Luca.

They make up through a series of cheesy-but-cute Snapchat messages and Zoey seems to finally be content with being her own #goals. Well, at least for now because something tells me that we haven’t seen the last of Aaron or their killer chemistry.

Watch new episodes of grown-ish  Wednesday nights at 8/7c Freeform.