Grown-ish Season 1, Episode 7 Recap: "Un-Break My Heart"

There were a lot of reasons not to love Zoey Johnson’s (Yara Shahidi) first big grown-ish relationship. I mean, where do I start with Cash Mooney (Da’Vinchi)? Is it the manipulation of her virginity for his own branding? Or the fact Cash was cool with Zoey ditching her life to follow him on his journey… before it all got too real? And then there’s the simple fact he’s an academic fraud. All together, Cash’s litany of red flags made me glad to know we were going into this week’s episode with Zoey fresh off her breakup with the low-key selfish athlete.

Yet, we can’t say the same for our heroine, who’s been wallowing in self pity and heartbreak in the Dorito-dusted cave once known as her room. For three weeks. Three weeks! That is at least triple the amount of time she was with Cash, if not quadruple. At least we can all be happy Zoey is still properly wrapping her braids, even in the midst of her emotional crisis (the subtle, unapologetic Blackness of grown-ish’s natural hair parade oftentimes feels revolutionary).

That emotional crisis is what leads the rest of the comedy’s wonderful ladies — Ana Torres (Francia Raisa), Nomi Segal (Emily Arlook), and Foster sisters Jazz (Chloe Bailey) and Sky (Halle Bailey) — to Zoey’s room for an intervention. After all, this is Ana’s impossibly cavernous dorm room too, you know? After Nomi threatens to broadcast Zoey's hellscape of pizza boxes and “sad-ass white lady movies” to the world, she agrees to drag herself out of bed and go to a party with her friends. It sure seems like our favourite girls are headed towards a night of cheap vodka shots and hot outfits until electricity ruins everyone’s fun.

Once a blackout randomly strikes Cal U, an all-made-up Zoey is back in bed, pajamas on, faster than Drake could say, “Sweatpants, hair tied, chillin' with no make-up on.”

With everyone squarely in for the evening, it's time for these BFFs to have a good, long conversation about Zoey’s heartbreak, bringing us to grown-ish version of a bottle episode. Ana tries to be understanding. The Fosters need Zoey to snap out of her quest to become a single trans-fat. Nomi, ever the realist/realest, reminds everyone she also just went through a tough breakup but is still living her life.

Can someone please ask Nomi how she’s doing? Like maybe Zoey, who couldn’t even be bothered to remember her alleged best friend’s (now ex) boyfriend’s name last week (it’s Dave! Big Dave!).

Since no one wants to inquire as to the state of Nomi’s emotional well-being, we get back to Zoey’s romantic woes. This is how we find out she is still talking to Cash. Everyone is rightly annoyed Zoey hid her secret chats, especially since they’ve been listening to her cry over her ex for nearly a month. Zoey counters by explaining she got caught back in the Cash trap after he liked one of her old Instagram photos and then hit her with a “Hey” text. Everyone reminds Zo she was seriously played. Thankfully, she hands Nomi her phone to prevent future, inevitable social media stalking.

This is when Aaron Jackson (Trevor Jackson) just so happens to show up with a lit candle and a bottle of Andre which he was 100% not going to use as a way to become Zoey’s rebound guy. No, siree.

Despite Aaron’s totally pure intentions, he’s not actually here to serve as Miss Johnson’s blackout hookup. Instead, he shows up for two purposes: to remind everyone he and Zoey have undeniable chemistry and to drop the bomb that Cash is rumoured to be dating Zoe Kravitz. While the racially ambiguous Zoey-Zoe joke is pretty darn funny, I would like to remind everyone the real Zoe Kravitz is actually a 29-year-old woman on an Emmy-winning series who doesn't have time for teen basketball players who haven’t even made the pros yet. Zoe Kravitz has to go block scenes with Meryl Streep.

As expected, Zoey melts down over Cash’s new relationship, which makes sense. Not only did he humiliate Zoey by rejecting her the moment she offered to give up college for him, but then tricked her into talking to him for weeks after that. At no point during their clandestine chats could Cash not mention he was dating the progeny of the woman who launched grown-ish’s forbearer?

Zoey is so upset by this news, she storms out of the room to rage call Cash. Yet, before she can dial the phone, Cash magically appears in Zoey’s dorm floor's common room to profess his love and beg her to take him back. Thank the Freeform gods this entire exchange ends up being a dream sequence because I said “This is so boring to me” out loud. Terrible men making terrible, shallow apologies at the last possible second is boring, friends!

Thankfully, grown-ish proves Zoey is so much stronger than the pull of some athlete’s “Hey” texts and finally deletes Cash’s phone number. That’s why the episode ends with Zoey partying with the people who really matter: her friends.

Jazz and Sky are the absolute best if you’re actually listening — “Should we just kill Cash?” “You know I’m down.” — and deserve their own advice vlog on YouTube, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, whatever. Get on it, Freeform.

The incest intrigue around Ana’s family continues. Her first love was her uncle’s son (a.k.a. her cousin), but their relationship ended after Ana caught him making out with her mom’s sister (her aunt). All of a sudden, that sex-less hotel date between Ana and her uncle sounds normal.

This week's Drone Class lesson: None this week (is Charlie okay?!), but might I recommend always keeping a $5 bottle of bubbly and a $60 candle on hand in case the opportunity of a blackout hookup arises? You never know.