At what point could it have been shown earlier? A mix of showing what is happening with Zoey in San Diego alongside the current story at B&R? That would annoy people even more than the interlude. Timeframe is also important, there seems to be a lot of ambiguity about what happens when with Zoey and the main story. But we know when Zoey leaves for San Diego Fuckface has not finished school, yet when the game starts Fuckface has been working in the store with Josy for three months. So events 6 months into San Diego happen contemporary with ep 1. It also appears like the cluck happens prior to the story, it certainly happens prior to Fuckface's chat with Bella and we don't see it on Rooster. So basically nothing happens in the interlude while the main story is happening other than Zoey working in the tattoo shop and slowly running out of money.
Isn't the chat with Bella on every playthrough? And he also talks with other girls about how his only relationship ended badly after the chat, which is DPC trying to draw attention back to her each time.
Therefore she obviously is still in his mind, if you're right about the amount of players who remembered her then that justifies the interlude to put her back into the mind of that 98%.
Yes, and she had Zero fucking line in i the flashback. Rest assure you, it was only there because it's a porn game, and to show us that MC is not a Virgin isekai protagonist.
and I think MC only mentioning to Sage that he was only in a relationship once, kind of , and ended up badly. However, this conversation sparked because of the recent Josy & Maya drama. so its not really the effect of Zoey at all.
if DPC has planned Zoey return since the beginning, he should have at least, put some effort into it. for example, MC and Zoey could stay in touch, but as we learned Zoey pretty much ghosted him, and MC didin't care about it ,
He was Busy stearing at Josy when she was not looking.
so all in all, Zoey was indeed insignificant, and while Interlude at least properly introduced her to us, all it did was to paint a very bad picture about her. The trip, to Sand Diego was a total failure. She came back, without Dreams, Money, and also Burned a few bridgest while she was there.
but I still don't know, why my MC should care about her.