Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams Spoiler Review: Definitely a B-Side Episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

While there wasn’t anything egregious about this episode, Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams is the weakest installment of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.”

The strength of the episode is Zoey’s grief in response to her Dad’s death. All of the Zoey-Max and Zoey-Simon interactions throughout the episode are great. Unfortunately, all of the other story elements of the episode fell flat. The musical scenes are great, with the highlight being a dream sequence featuring Jane Levy’s fantastic voice.

A subplot featuring Jenna (Emma’s sister) helping Maggie with a landscape architect project could work out fine. However, David and Emma’s annoyance at everything she does is grating. Zoey’s main dilemma revolves around her lack of sleep and how her stress is affecting those around her. The scenes between Zoey and Maggie are pretty good, but there just aren’t enough of them.

The workplace drama part of the episode didn’t work outside of Simon’s (for the most part) outstanding advice. Due to Zoey’s lack of sleep, she takes Simon’s advice to reduce stress by unloading some of her responsibilities are her employees. They predictably don’t react well to this change in approach.

Mo having really only one major scene in an episode dealing with Zoey’s dreams, simply isn’t enough. The episode’s theme and ending would have worked better if Zoey’s Extraordinary Dream was episode two instead of episode three.

With most of the major non-spoiler details out of the way, here’s a more in-depth look at the songs, workplace antics and family drama of Zoey’s Extraordinary Dream.

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The Songs in Zoey’s Extraordinary Dream

There are four heart-songs and one musical dream sequence spread throughout Zoey’s Extraordinary Dream. Skylar Astin and Levy’s musical numbers are the highlights of the episode.

“Nowhere to Run” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Throughout the episode, Zoey is having a difficult time sleeping and when she does sleep, she has a recurring dream. In the dream, she’s unable to leave the house. Mandy Moore’s choreography and Levy’s vocals are tremendous.

“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi

Maggie takes on this sad heart-song. Max and Zoey are discussing whether Zoey’s dreams are encouraging her to move back into her apartment. Zoey’s worried that it’s too soon and those qualms are confirmed in this song. Mary Steenburgen’s rendition perfectly captures the song’s message of pouring your heart and soul into one individual, then when that person is gone, fearing you will never get past this dark hole.

“One Call Away” by Charlie Puth

After Zoey unsuccessfully tries to help Maggie with her landscape architecture client, Jenna (Emma’s sister) launches into a heart-song. In Jenna’s heart-song, she pleads to let her help with Maggie’s project. Zoey catching the drift, but exhausted awkwardly passes the buck onto Jenna. Jee Young Han’s vocals and dance moves were great, but I really liked her and Levy’s facial expressions during the musical number.

“It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from Annie

SPRQPoint employees belt out this classic musical number in response to Zoey’s change in management style. I’ve been expecting this song for a while on this show and the choreography was definitely on point. Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel like this song would have fit in better last season under Joan’s leadership rather than Zoey’s.

“Say Something” by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera

Max’s heart-song is the most, ahem, heartbreaking of episode. Throughout Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams, Zoey’s trouble sleeping and inability to express her problems to Max is a constant theme. Zoey’s disinterest in what Max is talking about is a breaking point that leads into this heart-song. In the song, Max earnestly asks Zoey to communicate, but his message falls on deaf ears. The episode ends with Zoey and Max breaking up.

No Rest for Zoey

Zoey’s lack of sleep is clearly due to the increased stress at SPRQPoint and guilt over her Dad’s death.

Outside of Zoey’s scenes opposite Simon, the SPRQPoint setting just isn’t working. Simon’s advice on how to handle the stress is good. Zoey’s application of his approach is terrible.

Last season, the best SPRQPoint storylines involved learning how these employees tick outside of working for a tech company. Joan’s marriage, Leif’s performance review and exploring the Leif-Tobin dynamic were the most successful arcs last season. So far in this season, the only character that has an arc is Simon as the new company spokesperson. In the last episode, Zoey hired some women, which is great. However, none of them are given much to do this episode. As talented as Harvey Guillén is, his character just isn’t working.

The potential dynamic between Maggie and Jenna could be fun. However, it’s a little tough to connect with Jenna when her own sister and brother-in-law want nothing to do with her. The scene between Steenburgen and Levy where Zoey talks to Maggie about moving out of the house is an outstanding reminder of what “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” is capable of delivering on an emotional level.

You could tell Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams was building to the breakup of Zoey and Max. I don’t know whether the breakup was too soon or Zoey should have let both Simon and Max off the hook. The latter would have been the most novel decision. Having Zoey come out and say she cares for both of them but isn’t ready to leap into a relationship would have been the best solution.

Final Thoughts on Zoey’s Extraordinary Dreams

There’s clearly no replacing Peter Gallagher’s presence on this show. There’s simply something lacking when it comes to the emotional elements of the show anytime the focus shifts from Zoey-Max, Zoey-Simon or the one Zoey-Maggie scene. The SPRQPoint storyline isn’t very interesting, Jenna needs a friend or someone other than Maggie to provide a counterargument to David and Emma’s perspective and the breakup ends the episode on a sour note.

What did you think of the episode?