To which Zoey responds "do you want to be serious?"  Finally, when her date to the school dance asks her to help, she loses it and gets mad.  She has her own exams to prepare for!

Mr. Bender, the cool teacher, has a new cell phone.  He shows the kids the picture phone feature, until his wife shows the dirty underwear he left on the floor!

The next scene shows exams finishing - exam week is officially over!  Most of the main characters are in the same class.  Now it is time for a yearly tradition - the trip to Mystic Beach!  Dustin comes in and asks if he can ride to the beach on their bus.  Quinn then comes into the room.  She finished her chemistry exam in 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the time making a coconut scent.  She persuades everybody to take a sniff - but unknown to everybody, it has a side effect.  It immediately causes everybody to go to sleep.

Two and a half hours later, Michaels cell phone rings, waking him up.  It is now 15 minutes till noon, and the last bus leaves at noon!  He wakes everybody up - all but Dustin, and they rush out the door. Chase, Zoey, and Quinn come back to get Dustin; evidently his smaller size makes him more susceptible to the sleep effect.

The kids have rushed to get their stuff, but the last bus leaves as they go down the stairs.  There are no more busses - Mystic Beach is 57 miles away, and they have missed the party!  That is, until Logan gets out his father's credit card and calls a cab.

The cab drops the kids on the beach, and leaves.  Dustin is still asleep, but begins to wake up.  After the cab is gone - something is wrong.  The beach is deserted; they are the only ones there!As Dustin wakes up, he remembers that Mystic Beach is South of PCA, not North.  They took the cab the wrong direction, and are now two hours from the party!  Grabbing their cell phones, they discover that none of them have coverage.  They are stranded!!!

They walk for a long time, until they are tired of walking.  Still no cell phone coverage, still no people.  Suddenly, they realize that even though they are the only ones, they can still have a beach party.  They have a boom box, MP3 player, and everything else they need for a party.  So they start enjoying themselves.  Sometime in the midst of the fun, a big wave knocks off Dustin's swim suit and he refuses to come out of the water.

Then, they get hungry and start looking for survival supplies.  Finding a broken fishing pole, they ask Logan to go dig some worms, others to gather firewood.  Michael remembers he brought his laptop - and it gives Quinn an idea.  She can use the circuits in the laptop to boost the cell phone power.  Reluctantly, Michael surrenders the laptop and Chase his phone.  At least it is better than staying there all night and freezing.

They manage to catch a fish, and now need to cook it.  They have an enormous pile of driftwood - but how to light it?  QUINN!  She interrupts her work on the cell phone range extender to help.  They borrow a mirror from Logan's pack, and Quinn manages to start the fire using it.  Michael comments that she may be weird, but she sure comes in handy!  Later, they are enjoying the fish.  Nicole even throws some to a very hungry and cold Dustin - who is still in the ocean.  They decide that their little beach party was more fun than the Mystic Beach party, and decide to do it again next year.

Quinn's cell phone range extender works - and they decide to call Mr. Bender.  He arrives in an hour or so, with pants for Dustin (they are terribly over sized - Mr. Bender didn't know what they were for).  They all get into the back of his pickup for the long trip back to PCA.  In spite of the fact that Quinn's coconut scent caused their mishaps, they thank her for the best beach party ever!

They arrive back after dark.  All of them are asleep in the back of the pickup - the stopper came off the coconut scent.  Mr. Bender picks it up, sniffs it, and he goes to sleep up against the wall.

Closing line: (Nicole) "You're a boy, go dig some worms!"

This is a very good episode, enjoyable on just about every level.  It is also one of the most problematic ones.  Unanswered questions / mistakes:

(1) Why did Quinn's sleep gas not affect her when she made it?

 

(2) Why didn't Chase, Michael, and Logan know that Mystic Beach was South of PCA, not North?

 

(3) They walked North, not South in the direction of PCA.

 

(4) It is easy to see a black bathing suit on Dustin through the water, even though he says he lost his.

(5) How did they catch a fish with a broken fishing pole?

 

(6) The fish they do catch looks like a shark in the water, but isn't when they get it on shore.

Oh my - mixed emotions here. The end of season 1, no more new Zoey episodes for quite a while. Gosh – it’s going to be a long drought.  But Erin and the others are going to be around for another season, something to look forward to.  And thanks to bad cable service – I still haven't seen "Backpack", which sounds like a real winner.

In spite of the fact that I have sent Zoey some bad report cards playing "Zoey hangman" on the Nick site -- in the show she is an outstanding scholar, and tutor to everybody, even Logan.  We see her selflessly helping everybody, which is nice character development - but finally she has enough.  This is the maddest we have ever seen her since the play with Logan.

Flash forward to a really good Quinn scene, when she aces her chemistry final and brews up some coconut scent, which knocks everybody out!  Flash forward a couple more hours, and they realize
the last bus to Mystic Beach is about to leave - which they miss.  Logan to the rescue - with his dad's platinum card for a cab ride to the beach, which we learn is 57 miles away.  Apparently Dustin is the only one would know the way, and he was still unconscious until they got to the beach, which was empty!  Logan had the cab driver go North instead of South.  I believe this is a bit of a blooper, because certainly the boys who had been at PCA before would have realized the error almost immediately, but then there would have been no show.

I was happy that nobody really blamed Quinn for missing the party - in fact she was the hero in the end.  After walking for an hour to try and find a stretch of beach with cell phone reception, they give up and turn to survival skills - then to having a party of their own.  Sideline to this - if you guys ever get stuck without cell phone reception in the middle of nowhere, get high as you can!  If one of the kids had hiked up to the road, the phone might have worked.  It certainly would have if they went up the hill.  Blooper #2 - they walked North when the PCA party - and PCA - was to the South.  This was most likely to give a good angle with the sun on the kids.  A 57 mile hike would not be pleasant, but they could drag back to PCA in a day or so.  But going the wrong way?  I guess I'm too analytical.  Quinn becomes the hero by using Logan's mirror and her glasses to light a fire.  This, by the way, would mean Quinn is far-sighted not near sighted because the glasses would have to magnify.  I had a good laugh when the log burst into flame - if you have ever done this, it takes a while.  And the kids manage to catch a fish - that looks like a shark in the surf but isn't when they get it on shore.  We see Quinn using a Swiss Army knife later, so that must be how they prepared the fish - oh I wish they had shown Zoey or especially Nicole grossed out by having to scale and gut a fish!  I doubt Logan would be bothered.  He would pay somebody else to do it.  Love-smitten Chase would do anything for Zoey, so maybe he did.

Poor Dustin loses his bathing suit in the surf - and stays in the water 6 hours until help arrives (with pants).  Note to Zoey producers - you might want to give Dustin a flesh colored suit instead of black - twice I was able to see a black swim suit on him.  Not that I would care to look anyway, but it was obvious.  Quinn was able to adapt a cell phone and laptop to boost more power and complete a call to a PCA teacher, who somehow located them.  Sideline from an electronics type - this would only work if the cell phone and the laptop used the same voltage, and the battery in the cell phone was weak.  Now - a Swiss army knife and some tin foil could make a fractal antenna that would really boost range.

The last plot twist was when Quinn's coconut sleep juice accidentally spills and sends everybody to sleep in the back of the teacher's pickup - including the teacher who found the potion (he collapses by a planter). Not explained is how he found the kids when they had no idea where they were themselves!

I am sure all you guys enjoyed seeing the girls in bathing suits!  And you girls got to see Logan and the boys without shirts.  I'm sure you enjoyed!

Return To Previous Page