FRANKIE PLOT
Frankie is excited to start her summer job as an intern for the city’s cleanup project and wants to be sure her co-interns think of her as a hard working individual rather than someone who freeloads just because her dad is mayor. However, on the way to work she is followed by a man in a car who insists on offering her a ride. Frankie continuously rejects his offer, but the notion causes her to be late to her internship, giving her a bad first impression with her co-interns Kat and Logan. In order to win them over, Frankie cancels a beach date with Winston to go to Kat’s party, where she drinks to fit in with them. It works, Kat and Logan like her now, but she comes home late and pukes, causing her mom to know she is drunk. When her dad finds out, he punishes the interns for drinking and forces them to paint over graffiti around the city. Frankie tries to give them free ice cream to make it up, but Logan tells her that they all worked hard to be there and she just got a free ride since her dad is mayor. Frankie insists that she cares about helping the city and wants to learn, so Logan gives her a tour of his neighborhood - a run down one. There, Logan receives the news that his girlfriend Gloria has been missing for 24 hours, and Frankie wants to help.
Frankie is a very passionate young lady, and although we’ve gotten the chance to get to know her and that she actually does care about helping the city (she helped her dad through his entire campaign to become mayor), the other interns haven’t. To them, she’s just a freeloader who’s riding on her dad’s coattails to get to the top faster while they all had to work for it. It’s ironic that Frankie’s “easier” climb to the top due to her dad is actually what makes it more difficult for her to fit in. But Frankie’s persistent, and her charm seems to be winning them over. I also like how the guy who stalked her gets tied in at the end as the possible guy who abuducted Gloria.
MAYA PLOT
Maya, Zig, and Tiny have been training to become lifegaurds, but Maya fails the course when she forgets to test Gloria, who is roleplaying the drowned victim, for injuries. Maya is angry because Zig and Tiny gawk at Gloria’s body and her boobs. However, Maya has her sights set on an internship for music producer Jordan Kinkaid - but when Gloria overhears Maya talking about it and interviews too, Maya is pissed, especially when Gloria gets the job. Instead, Maya has to take a summer job as a walking taco advertisement for Lola’s Cantina, to which Gloria makes fun of her for. When Gloria flirts with Zig, Maya is pissed and tells her off. She’s so pissed that she asks Lola to put a curse on Gloria, and when Maya gets a call from Jordan Kinkaid saying Gloria never showed up and she needs Maya to take over, she thinks the curse worked. Jordan’s kids tell Maya that they really like Gloria better than her. Maya apologizes to Zig for being so jealous lately, and is horrified to hear on the news that Gloria went missing.
While Maya’s jealousy towards Gloria is authentic (Gloria flirts with Zig and botched her interview and the kids say they like Gloria better), it felt like this plot was lazily written and overplayed. Maya has dealt with being jealous of other girls for their bodies or attractiveness way too many times before, and it’s getting old. Also, the whole record producer thing is such a plot device that it sticks out like a sore thumb. It was all way too convenient. How did a 10th grader score an interview with a big time record producer? And then Gloria hears about it and within a day she’s able to score one too? Not likely. I’m hoping this plot picks up now that Gloria is missing, possibly by focusing on Maya blaming herself since she was so mean to her. But again, Maya blaming herself is another overplayed element to her storylines, which seem to always go in a circle.
ZOE PLOT
Zoe and Tristan are stuck in summer school, but rather than working together, Tristan comes up with the plan of them working with smarter people so they get good grades. Tristan teams up with Hunter and he pushes Zoe to partner with Grace. Grace realizes that Zoe is just scrubbing off of her, so she urges her to actually try to understand the material rather than just giving up and claiming she can’t do it. When Zoe is still resistant about learning, Grace zaps her with an experimental learning method called transcranial direct stimulation. Zoe gets an A on her assignment, but it turns out it was just a placebo and Grace just wanted to prove to Zoe that she’s actually smart. Their teacher, Mr. Bain, who was the creepy guy who offered Frankie a ride, invites Grace and Zoe to the woods to watch a meteor shower and Zoe decides to go with Grace because she’s interested in science.
I like that while Tristan and Zoe planned on scrubbing off the smart kids to get a good grade in summer school, Zoe actually realizes that if she tries she can be smart on her own too. The placebo was a funny little way of bringing it out, but the core issue here is that Zoe is actually interested in science. And she likes feeling smart. The look on her face when she got the A on her assignment said it all. And the budding friendship between Zoe and Grace is great because Grace sees past Zoe’s bullshit of “not caring” and “not trying” and actually urges her to persevere.
