Last summer, “Grown-ish” stopped airing in the middle of the fourth season. However, in December, Freeform announced the release date of the mid-season premiere — and it’s on January 27! Are you excited? Because we are.
When the ninth episode ended with Zoey (Yara Shahidi) finding out that Aaron (Trevor Jackson) had helped her get all the internship credits she needed in order to graduate, we all knew the wait for the next episode would be pure torture. Since the mid-season premiere will likely be giving us all the answers to the questions we have been asking ourselves, why don’t we recap where the storyline left off?
The ninth episode primarily took place at a Hawaiian party Zoey’s crew attended. But of course, we all know that when it comes to this group of friends, what seems like a fun college party always has much deeper drama in store.
As mentioned before, Zoey found out that her Beau cleared her of all her internship requirements. But unfortunately, what should have been the most romantic scene of the episode — with her being surprised by the flowers and all — ended with Zoey unsuccessfully going to Aaron’s apartment to look for him after their fight. To better understand where things went wrong, although he had made it clear he wouldn’t make it to the party — both because he didn’t want to and because he had a class to give — our favorite activist still showed up to surprise his ‘honey’ (as he likes to call Zoey). He couldn’t have arrived at a better time though, because Zoey and Luca (Luka Sabbat) had just made up after Luca apologized for outing her on social media. And when Aaron saw them, they were hitting it off.
It is no secret that Aaron and Luca got off on the wrong foot from day one. Adding to that, Luca and Zoey dated for a year. And we might or might have not felt that Luca might still be feeling something for her during their reconciliation. So, in Aaron’s defense, him punching Luca might have made sense (we said might!).
It should also be noted that, in order to make up for Zoey losing her internship because of him, Luca offered her one at his own company (remember his fashion brand Anti-muse?).
Aaron didn’t like the idea, but the look on his face when Zoey told him she’d already said yes was the most painful thing to see, really. Now, a question remains unanswered: Is Zoey going to keep the internship, or is she going to quit?
Luca hadn’t mentioned Anti-muse for a while before his internship offer. As a matter of fact, the first part of the fourth season of “Grown-ish” introduced the character of Kiela (Daniella Perkins), who is Luca’s younger sister. She is a freshman, an activist and is hooking up with Doug (Diggy Simmons). Yeah, Doug, as in Jazz’s (Chloe Bailey) ex. They apparently have been broken up for a year now, so Doug tries to move on by giving it a shot with Kiela. He first tried to keep his distance out of respect for Luca, but eventually found himself giving in.
As Jazz’s friends have suggested, however, she may still have unresolved feelings for Doug. Despite these feelings, Jazz does have a new love interest, Des (Warren Egypt Franklin). It seemed like she was pretty much slowing things down with him, before she ran into Doug making out with someone else [Kiela]. Jazz then threw us through a loop by kissing Des. On top of that, she is in the middle of an identity crisis. She is considering quitting track and is seeing a therapist to help her navigate the decision. Although Doug didn’t see Jazz see him with Kiela, we kind of wish he did. Would things go differently if he finds out Jazz still has feelings for him?
Jazz’s twin sister, Sky (Halle Bailey), hasn’t appeared much this season. We’ve only seen her through Jazz’s FaceTime screen, as she has been away training for the Olympics.
While big things seem to be happening for her friends, Nomi (Emily Arlook) is busy juggling her life as a student and single mom, since Phil (Tommy O’Brien), Luna’s father, allegedly doesn’t want to be involved. What really took a toll on her, was when daycare was shut down. Although she managed to find a babysitter with Anna’s help (remember her “Consider me your village” line, when Nomi felt overwhelmed without her village’s assistance so Anna rallied for her?), Nomi still seems to have some unfinished business with her baby daddy.
Meanwhile, Vivek is doing community service after being caught drug dealing. He has also been expelled from Cal-U for the same reason. The episode closed with him and Anna having sex. Even though it was supposed to be “uncommitted, unemotional sloppy spontaneous sex with someone that [Anna] would never ever consider being in a relationship with,” could there be any possibility of some kind of development? After all, Vivek is no longer with Heidi (Kirrilee Berger) since his drug-dealing conviction, and Anna broke up with Javi (Henri Esteve).
We are looking forward to watching what comes next for these characters. Will the rocky way things ended in episode nine cost Zoey her relationship? How is Anna and Vivek’s one-night stand going to affect their friendship? Will Phil ever meet his daughter? Does Luca still have feelings for Zoey? And is there even the slightest chance we will see Jazz and Doug back together? One thing’s for sure, the second half of “Grown-ish” season 4 will have a lot to unravel.
Freeform hasn’t yet announced whether the show will be back for a season five. As “Black-ish” is airing its final season, could “Grown-ish” be experiencing the same fate? We hope not, because we are certainly not ready to let go of Zoey Johnson’s spinoff.
“Grown-ish” season 4B premieres Thursday, Jan. 27 on Freeform and arrives the next day on Hulu.