What I’m Watching: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: Season 1, Episode 9 “Zoey’s Extraordinary Silence” (B)

It’s good to see Zoey back to using her powers for good, picking up on the unspoken pain of others that they sing to her and stepping up to help them resolve whatever is going on in their lives. Her efforts in this episode also comforted her father, who wanted to make sure that his kindly caregiver wasn’t burdened by his own complicated relationship with his daughter. The performance by deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank and the Deaf West Theatre Company was particularly moving, though the optics of how Zoey understands it without knowing sign language is just another one of this show’s unexplained plot holes. She did help them get to a better place, which might enable her to focus more on what’s going on in her life. It was peculiar to see Emily go to her mother-in-law for advice about a lack of her apparent sex drive and interest from her husband, and it didn’t take all that much work for it to get better pretty quickly. Max being approached by Ava, played by Renée Elise Goldsberry from “The Good Wife” and “Hamilton,” does present a new career advancement opportunity for him, but it’s being done in exactly the same kind of clunky, unbelievable way that has kept this show from being completely well-rounded and great. I think there’s a solid format here, and the music works well, but her work life in particular isn’t presented in a coherent or sophisticated manner. Hopefully that will improve with time, though a second season is far from guaranteed at this point.