One thing I’ve never complained about here but think about fairly often is just how much missed potential there is in Zoey’s character, to the point that, I’ll be honest, it actually pisses me off sometimes.
We’ve seen that this show is capable of writing characters who are bullies but not pure evil. Not only does Lia and the protagonist of the entire show fall into that category, but the main antagonist as well.
Because yes, in my opinion, Zoey is not the main antagonist of the season. Drew is. While Zoey definitely does villainous things, like recording the audio and stealing Milly’s writings about Elliot, the show puts much more focus into Drew and how he targets Hailey and Zander, as well as his relationship with Jake. In general, Zoey’s character and relationships are much less expanded upon and she has a great deal less influence on Jake and the club than Drew does (outside of episode three specifically). Lia ends up sharing the audio with the club and bullying Hailey into singing with Jake, so Zoey doesn’t do as much in the main plot as you’d expect.
That part isn’t a complaint, exactly, because you can’t just have Lia not do that stuff so Zoey has more to do. Her recording Jake in the first place is enough. And it might be enough to categorize her as the main villain, but I don’t think TMF itself is pushing for her to be. That’s not where the show wants to put its focus.
And that’s fine, not every villain needs to be super complicated, but it gets really annoying to me personally, since Zoey is basically the only character the show refuses to three-dimensionalize in any way. I can’t really blame people who like Drew but hate Zoey, because the show puts so much less effort into subtly showing Zoey’s motivations. Drew does bad things, but he deeply cares about his friends and wants to keep them close, and the narrative is careful to emphasize that. Zoey’s just a bad, manipulative person and it all ends there. The best we get is her saying that she actually trusted Lia before she leaked the audio, implying there was some actual weight to their relationship before. How much she cares about Drew is even more unclear. I think I might be the only person ever to have this complaint, but…
Why the actual hell do we not get to see the Droey break-up? The Drake-up scene is one of the best in the show, probably, and it really lets you see why Jake and Drew both did what they did, gives you insight into both of their characters. But the Droey break-up is entirely off-screen, and for what? Their relationship is actually kind of interesting and could’ve been even more interesting if we’d seen the immediate fallout. How Zoey responded to her plans falling apart would’ve been so cool!
Instead we get like ten seconds of her crying afterwards and getting revenge on Jake.
The show has such comedic disregard for her character that her boyfriend breaking up with her isn’t deemed important enough to be shown. And while her platonic break-up scene with Lia is fine, and probably even worse for Zoey than if Lia would’ve yelled at her or something else more dramatic, it’s admittedly pretty lackluster, at least until we see the repercussions for Lia in season two.
It seems like the line about Jake telling Drew about Zoey’s cheating was added in fairly late into production, and you can tell, because not only does it make Jake look way worse than Rosy likely intended, the episode does not have the time to unpack it or its full effect on Drew and Zoey. At that point, I’m starting to wonder if it should’ve been saved for season two, but my personal best case scenario is that they just add in the Droey break-up scene, since that alleviates most of my qualms with it, and Jake not telling Drew until that episode is bad enough, so he’s only going to look worse if Drew finds out a different way or if he tells him way later. (I figure that Jake’s line was added in later because of Rosy’s cut scenes video on YouTube where she shows the original cut scene she later replaced with Jake’s line about Zoey, by the way).
I want to like Zoey, and I do, but it’s hard to call her one of my favorite characters when the narrative just gives her way less to work with than the other antagonists. But hey, that doesn’t stop me with Liam, so it won’t stop me with her. Zoey is funny and I like how obnoxious she is, (“I am such a girlboss!! Mwahahaha!!!” is something I quote in my head all the time; all my favorite characters must be at least a little cringe). So she can join my favorite characters club anyways. Maybe I’ll try to make an analysis post on her at some point! She does have a little bit going on, after all.
I just really hope season two dives into her character a little more, since it feels very unfair for every character to get that except her. She can be evil with bad intentions, but at least give me a little backstory as to why she’s this way. Maybe a Regina George-style redemption arc could be cool, where it’s not a major part of the season but in the end she still learns from her mistakes (that comparison works extra well when considering the “like they were surprised I could bleed” part of Regina’s ending speech, Zoey’s a teenager too not a monster!!). Also I doubt I have to mention this but the sugar daddy thing is weird and they should definitely address that somehow.
For this one, I was on the Rosy's Mystical Meadow discord server and I saw someone draw Drew with brown roots and then I wanted to draw the bois with their hair like that!! :DDD
Even if it's not my personal heacannon abhvsgdjahj
