TV

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist renewed for season 2

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Published on June 11, 2020 08:52PM EDT

NBC just gave us something to sing about: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist has been renewed for a second season.

"We were overwhelmed by the number of people who fell in love with Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and how much joy it brought to everyone," Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta, co-presidents of scripted programming at NBC Entertainment, said in a statement Thursday. "We're thrilled to bring it back and can't wait to see how Zoey's journey continues."

The series centers on Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a whip-smart computer coder living and working in San Francisco. After an unusual event, Zoey, who always preferred podcasts over pop songs, suddenly starts to hear the innermost thoughts and desires of the people around her — family, co-workers, and complete strangers — through popular songs. At first she questions her sanity, but after getting some guidance from her musically adept neighbor, Mo (Alex Newell), and finally being able to communicate with her father (Peter Gallagher), who can no longer talk due to his degenerative neurological disease, Zoey soon realizes this unwanted curse may just be a wonderful gift as she connects with the world like never before, all through the lens of big, colorful musical numbers choreographed by Mandy Moore.

By the end of the first season, Zoey was forced to say goodbye to her father in an emotional finale musical number that ended with a heartbreaking moment of silence after his funeral as the full weight of his absence hit. When EW asked creator and showrunner Austin Winsberg (who based this show on his own experience losing his father to the same disease) what that death meant for Gallagher's future on the series, he revealed that he "would love to figure out creative ways to continue to have him involved in some capacity."

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist — Sergei Bachlakov/NBC

"I think that Zoey already has the power to hear music and see music, so I think to make him come back in a way like in Dexter or Six Feet Under where she's suddenly seeing her dad everywhere she goes I feel might be what we call bananas on bananas," Winsberg said with a laugh. "But I think there are still creative ways that we can either through flashbacks or dream sequences or things like that find ways to still bring him back every now and then."

Meanwhile, by the end of the season 1 finale Zoey also took steps forward in her relationships with both her BFF-turned-love-interest Max (Skylar Astin) and coworker/crush Simon (John Clarence Stewart), and Winsberg teased that the love triangle is far from over.

"It opens doors in season 2 for both of these guys to continue to be viable and to bring different things out in Zoey," he said. "What I didn't want to do was put a firm exclamation point on one or the other or to villainize one or the other, but to allow it to be something that could continue to play out going forward. That might be disappointing to some fans, but I do feel like we have to continue to, like any good, long television romantic comedy, it's important to keep those threads alive."

All episodes of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, which also stars Mary Steenburgen and Lauren Graham, are currently streaming on Peacock.

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