Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: Zoey Clarke and the major, epic fails
What were the major, epic fails in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Season 1, Episode 5? Catch the breakdown of Zoey’s Extraordinary Failure here.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Season 1, Episode 5, “Zoey’s Extraordinary Failure” showed a lot of characters failing. Shocking, given the title, right?
After the series’s first four episodes painted Zoey Clarke as a superhero, capable of fixing every problem in 43 minutes or less, it was refreshing to see her out of her depth. Zoey is human, and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist doesn’t pretend otherwise.
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Let’s take a look at who failed and how much. First up, we’ll take a look at Zoey’s brother, David.
David was worried about becoming the father of a son. Rather than openly communicating with his wife, David pretended to be working late on the “O’Reilly case,” a code for hanging out at O’Reilly’s Tavern.
In an argument with Zoey, David even revealed he’d talked Emily into having kids. So, he failed at both communication and letting his wife make her own reproductive decisions.
David wasn’t sure if he was manly enough to raise a son, having collected Playbills in his younger days and not hooked up until college. So, that’s a failure in staying away from rigid gender roles department. Perhaps he should have a chat with Mo, especially after Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist already delivered an amazing story about gender identity through him.
Leif also had a major, epic fail in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Season 1, Episode 5.
After receiving a negative peer review, noting his “relentless drive to win at all costs, which is more alienating than endearing,” Leif was feeling pretty down. So down, in fact, that he escaped to an isolation pod to sing R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” and wallow in self-pity.
Relatable? Sure, especially since he was used to being the best-programmer, perfect-SAT-score kind of guy.
But here’s where Leif made his major, epic fail: Rather than taking his negative review as a catalyst for change, he made it about everybody else.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Season 1, Episode 5 saw Zoey herself have one major, epic fail after another.
From the second Zoey witnessed Emily and David’s epic duet to Pink’s “Just Give Me A Reason,” she was doomed. Her gift wouldn’t let her not get involved in her brother’s marriage, but she didn’t have enough information outside of the duet.
That lack of knowledge was the perfect recipe for Zoey’s involvement to be a disaster. Zoey also failed to get Leif out of his funk, then failed at motivating him to do better—although, arguably, none of that was 100% her fault.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist has (thus far) characterized its heroine as someone who can’t help but succeed, but sometimes, too much success can become the enemy. It certainly did for Zoey. In this fifth episode, she explained her relationship with always having to be the best to Mo:
"They showered me with praise for everything that I did, which meant that I never knew how I really was because I got no negative criticism. And so I had to prove to myself that I was the best to show I was as great as they already thought I was."
Unlike fellow over-achiever Leif, Zoey had Mo to give her some good advice. More importantly, she took that advice.
The one place in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Season 1, Episode 5 where Zoey didn’t fail was in understanding Simon’s grief. (Anyone else want one of those grief kits?) Now, if only we could figure out what happened between them after the episode ended…but that’s a discussion for another time.
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Was the latest episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist a success or a failure for you? Drop us a comment to let us know, and don’t forget to watch Sundays at 9/8c on NBC!