HEART MENDS
Zoey’s’ extraordinary season 2 recovery
Zoey’s “heart songs” have gone quiet.
After the devastating finale of the first season of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” when the Clarke family lost its patriarch (Peter Gallagher)— and mourned him at a funeral that included a single-shot rendition of “American Pie” — Zoey holed up at her mother’s home, hiding from her new reality.
Her “heart songs” have been hiding, too: No one has accidentally poured out their deepest emotions in a tune since the funeral.
But Zoey and her musical numbers come roaring back, even with a heavy heart.
“She is a problem solver by nature and she thinks, at some point, that she can just solve her way out of the grieving process,” Jane Levy, who plays Zoey, told the Daily News.
“But you have to go through something in order to move forward; you can’t go around it.”
The second season, which premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. on NBC, jumps right back into the show’s shining glory: the dream-sequence musical numbers with dazzling choreography. The season opener includes “Hello, Dolly,” Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and fun.’s “Carry On.” Levy teased Britney Spears and Ariana Grande. And each song sends a secret message from its singer, choreographed to a T by Mandy Moore, who won an Emmy last year.
“As someone who’s in every single musical number ... I’m not actually involved in much of the process,” Levy told The News. “I’m just a lucky front-row patron.”
Like the musical numbers, much of Zoey’s life seems to be happening without her permission: her dad’s death, a messy love triangle between her best friend and a new co-worker, a promotion at work.
“It’s hard enough being a boss, but extra hard knowing what your employees or co-workers think of you at all times because they sing to you,” Levy, 30, laughed.
But while her office at SPRQ Point may be a little less toxic than your average Silicon Valley haunt, the interpersonal drama continues, this year aided by guest star Harvey Guillén (“What We Do in the Shadows”). Zoey, the woman at the top, has to deal with all of it on top of her own personal life.
It’s not all grief and work drama. The messy love triangle between Zoey, Max (Skyler Astin) and Simon (John Clarence Stewart) gets some movement early in the second season, though Levy warned it’s more of a “one step forward, two steps back.” Moe (Alex Newell), Zoey’s gender-fluid neighbor who became her closest confidant, opens the new year in the same role, but with more of a personal storyline.
The Clarkes (Mary Steenburgen, Andrew Leeds and Alice Lee), still reeling from Mitch’s death, circle around each other, each struggling to find their place in the world again.
“Zoey has to do two things: become her own person but also accept the community around her,” Levy told The News. “I think that her community and her friendships are carrying her through.”