Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Tears will be flowing on Sunday as season 1 of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist comes to an end.
The creator, Austin Winsberg, discussed the emotional finale and the show’s killer playlist on a recent episode of Us Weekly’s Watch With Us podcast, revealing that there was one particular song he asked for all season and was denied time and time again: “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth.
“The reason why we didn’t get it was because it was in [Furious 7], when Paul Walker passed away,” he explained. “That song, I guess, is so closely aligned with his death in that movie that they didn’t want it to play in another form of popular entertainment as being about anything other than that.”
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We can’t help but agree — as a spoiler, the song plays at a pivotal moment in Furious 7 as Vin Diesel says goodbye to Walker both on-screen and off through a touching monologue.
Still, even without the inclusion of “See You Again,” Winsberg promises an emotional ending for the season. He didn’t say whether or not Zoey’s (Jane Levy) father, Mitch (Peter Gallagher), dies, but shared that at the table read for the episode “everyone was crying.” Winsberg also said that what happened with Zoey’s family in season 1 was based on his own experiences losing his dad.
“I was writing always from my heart and from my memory and my experience of that and just trying to be as true and authentic to what we went through,” Winsberg said.
Get those tissues ready. The season finale of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is Sunday, May 3 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.