first they deny but in the end everyone loves revivals!!!
and then let's talk about it again!
in my opinion the interlude was necessary, when compared to the 13 months of overall wait its effect remains negligible and I am all in all optimistic that Zoey will be a good glue for the third season (glue that was complately lacking in the second season, in which things happened... random things).
but if its primary intent was to make us like Zoey it has failed, and I could also say that simply from a statistical point of view of how many she convinced (and if liking Zoey before remains that it was unnecessary...). but I prefer to do it from a narrative point of view.
we had already known Zoey, superficially, from MC's tale to Bella, and from that tale we had glimpsed a courageous girl who was ready to leave everything behind (at the time there was even theorizing about serious reasons why Zoey SHOULD leave) in order to start anew elsewhere, and we could even disagree with MC who did not have the courage to follow her. a girl who had somehow found her place, while MC worked sadly at the store trying to find the courage to say goodbye to Josy.
the interlude recounts this episode for us but makes it worse throughout. Zoey does not leave leaving everything behind, relying on her own strength, but goes on a nice vacation with her grandmother's money (and DPC emphasizes this aspect as well as she can, Zoey has yet to get off the train and already twice the danger of dissipating that money is evoked).
her invitation to MC seems almost like a tease-how could he possibly follow her?
to do what?
with whose money?
the interlude, however, gives her a motivation, the famous dream that only she and her grandmother believed in, but just as her stepfather predicted it fails miserably, fails even before she tries for real (have you noticed how boomer DPC is? as much as most adults are often negative characters they always end up being right!!
). and she doesn't find it her place at all, in fact she regrets what little she had at home (which honestly was little...)
DPC has a sadistic taste for pointing out how every choice Zoey makes is wrong:
she dropped out of school? okay, she makes up for it online with a degree and a grade that don't allow her to be accepted by any colleges in the area (said explicitly by her so if she had been accepted maybe she wouldn't have come back...) but fortunately there is BR, and with the "outcasts of the outcasts" shift there might be room for her too
she decided to let MC go by ghosting him (which, although without any real motivation, was still a selfless gesture)? she finds herself without his phone number and has to go back with hat in hand to ask if there is still room for her. imagine in reality going to the father of someone you have been avoiding and asking him to put you in touch...depression coming on...good thing MC is a snowflake
and will make time for her.
to me it seems that the interlude gives us back a weaker Zoey in everything, compared to the Zoey we had glimpsed previously, I cannot see it as a success.