Sunday’s episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist was no exception to the brilliance of a highly emotional storyline with light-hearted humor and song blended in. We meet new friends, find out who really has your back, and that family is everything. Read on to find out everything that happened this week!
We open this week with Zoey, Maggie, and David preparing themselves to go into a funeral home to set up the plan for Mitch. Maggie tells the kids they are being over-dramatic, but they point out that she is nothing but dollar signs at a time like this and only want to prey on her vulnerability. Keeping small talk to the minimum, Maggie rushes the salesman to give her the bottom line. David cracks a joke about the home writing the eulogies for them, too, and it turns out they can. After a breath and a wealth of too much information, the salesman apologizes for going too fast and escorts them into a casket room to choose one for Mitch. It’s about time for a song with tensions high and everyone feeling very overwhelmed. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” takes over. Zoe directs David that they need to leave, and as she escorts her mom out of the room, Maggie almost collapses.
When Zoey reports to SPRQ Point that day, she is on the elevator joined by Max and Leif, unaware that Leif has moved to the sixth floor with Max in the middle of the bake-off. Zoey is appalled that Max would be so mad at her that he would willingly steal his least favorite person for his team. Leif, however, was the one who sought to leave the fourth floor on his own, and Tobin is Max’s least favorite. Zoey storms into Joan’s office angry about Leif transferring, except Joan is deterred with Zoey’s tardiness for the day, unaware of the mornings excursion with her family. Joan also tells her there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t make him be someplace he doesn’t want to be and after everything that happened she is trying to be sensitive about it. Zoey insists they have to take down Ava and win the bake-off. If it wasn’t for the bad timing with her dad, Zoey is unsure she can be on her A-game at the moment. Joan is supportive and tells her to take all the time she needs.
At her parents house, Zoey is trying to help her mother go over items like casket samples, engraving fonts, and interior swatches. It’s overwhelming. Zoey tries to point her in a direction to begin, but Maggie would need Mitch to help make the decisions. Maggie goes over to ask Mitch at first what his opinions would be but instead tucks his arm up and places a blanket more securely around him. He is not doing well either, not eating, sleeping most of the time, and in a serious state of decline. Zoey wonders why they didn’t do this sooner, when they were younger. Maggie opens up telling her that they never thought it would happen this fast, and they thought they had all the time in the world.
Later at Mo’s, Zoey vents about funeral shopping with her mother, also hearing that Mo has his entire funeral planned out: from the colors that guests are not allowed to wear to dinner to what music is to be played. Zoey asks him to speak at her funeral, seeing as he is now officially her best friend due to the most recent Max drama. Eddie walks in to their conversation announcing that he has a callback for a Broadway show on a cruise boat, except it would take him away for eight months. Mo shakes his head as Eddie leaves the room. He is over this relationship if he is going to be left behind for that long.
Back at SPRQ Point, Max celebrates with his sixth floor team for completing the interface for the Chirp, and while Max has bonded with the rest of the team, it is a little weird for Leif seeing him be an impressive manager. Leif had been drawing a broken heart photo of him and Joan, which Max sees. They talk about why he wanted to transfer up to Max’s team and decide on drinks after work.
At the funeral home, David, his wife Emily, and Zoey decide to take matters into their own hands to help out their mother. We were about due for another song, and this time, as Zoey is looking out the window she notices a guest, who sings her heart-song, a melancholy rendition of “Feeling Good.” Zoey takes the map and information to Maggie that she got the family plots, however Maggie is unhappy with both the selections presented. Maggie unfortunately doesn’t have anyone to talk to in this situation, no friends who have been through losing anyone. Zoey asks how she can help and Maggie tells her to just get her deposit back because none of what she has done is going to help.
Zoey returns to work to find out that Tobin completed the AR interface with the Chirp and sees someone at Max’s desk, Joan. Since they are short on help she came out of the office to give the team some support. Joan instructs Tobin to stop slacking with Leif, later finding out the instant messaging has been for a programming code for the Chirp in order to sink the sixth floor and have Joan’s team win. Zoey thanks her team for holding down the fort and will catch up when she can, and Joan invites her out for the evening for an hour away from her family.
Joan invited Zoey out because she wanted to tell Zoey about her mom, a mom who looked like Audrey Hepburn but spoke like a college football coach and in a different time, not in Bismarck, ND. She was a woman that could have ruled the world. Joan has been where Zoey is, having a parent sick and leaving you, while being consumed with work feeling like you can’t leave it behind to take care of your family. Joan’s advice is to quit apologizing because she will not have a chance to get this time back. Just then, Max and Leif walk in, and they decide to stay, saying hello. Leif asks Max how he moved on with his life after Zoey, and though he is not sure he is over her, it’s about regaining a sense of self and thriving in it. Leif had signed up for karaoke though, singing “All Out of Love” directly to Joan. While Zoey motions to Max to cut him off, Max bursts into a heart-song of “Bye, Bye, Bye.” Zoey and Joan, who are both significantly uncomfortable, leave before Leif is finished with his song.
We flash-forward back to the funeral home with Zoey taking her mother’s advice to get her deposit back, and she sees the same woman at another funeral, this time approaching her, learning her name is Deb. She was very well taken care of when her husband died and now she is like a weed that won’t stop growing around the Tower of Tranquility, since she keeps recommending the place to all her friends who are in need. Zoey invites Deb out for the afternoon, and later for pie with her mother. Deb may be just the person to help Maggie if Zoey can’t.
Deb and Maggie bond over having a terrible time making decisions, how their children each call it “analysis paralysis” and “compare and despair.” Maggie doesn’t feel comfortable opening up to a complete stranger, but as Deb tells her story, Maggie is put at ease. She comes to the realization that every one of these decisions she is having to make is also moving her one step closer to Mitch being gone. Deb could give her a lecture on all the things you gain from loss, but the hard part is they just have to get her through this first. Maggie doesn’t want to “get through it” though, sadly it’s part of life. It’s that train that doesn’t have any stops and it’s not up to her.
Back at SPRQ Point, Joan asks Tobin for a pattern file, messaging Leif under Tobin’s name to meet on the fifth floor and shut down not only their relationship, but also the corporate espionage. Later on the same floor, Joan meets Ava to inform her that someone from her team has been leaking information to her floor. Ava asks if it was Max, but no, it was Leif and she wants to let him go immediately. However, Joan thinks she can handle it directly. Ava wants to know why pass along the information if she is going to handle it. The bake-off is poisoned and Joan likes to fight fair. So what are they going to do about it? The two women have not always created the healthiest work environment, so they decide to show the teams a different way to get things done.
Mo decided to break up with Eddie, changing the locks on his apartment, packing up his items and even going to the dance studio where Eddie rehearses. In the middle of auditions, Mo’s heart-song comes out and “Issues” is folded into the episode, but he couldn’t help himself when walking toward Eddie as he ended up in front of the judges for the dancers by mistake. Clearly Mo does not want to let Eddie go, no matter what Eddie tells him. Zoey recommends to Mo that they work through their issues together and try to push through them. Mo quips back, “like you did with Max?” Ouch.
Returning to SPRQ Point, the team from the sixth floor comes down to the fourth to meet with everyone, that Joan and Ava want to talk to both teams together, which can mean one thing: it’s either about the Chirp or it’s the apocalypse. The ladies address both teams, saying that over the years the friendly competitions have only divided them when they should have been one big team. So rather than hiding and sneaking information, planting viruses in each others servers, they are all in this together moving forward. This is the point the two powerful women in Joan and Ava have a shared heart-song of “Get Together,” and both tech crews with the exception of Max and Zoey join in for the chorus.
At home, Maggie shows the kids the spot that she was able to secure for Mitch and the rest of the family, even arranging to have a cedar tree planted to allow shade for visitors. Apparently you just have to know the right people. Zoey is proud of her mother, but as Maggie says, you can only postpone the inevitable for so long.
Zoey pays a visit to Max, opening up to him about where she has spent her last few days and how aware she is of time. If something were to happen to Zoey tomorrow, she doesn’t think she could stomach being that far apart from him, or him being mad at her. Ava calls Max into her office before she is ready to leave for the night to inform him he let a fox into the henhouse in Leif, who also has a history of insubordination. Ava can’t let someone with that kind of judgement lead her team, and Ava fires Max!
Find out what happens next week on the season finale of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist on NBC next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.