Zoey's 'black-ish' Spinoff Is Possible After Her College Visit

Even though there's jut a few months before the fall TV shows will debut, there's not much that fans know about black-ish's Zory-focused spinoff — until the show's backdoor pilot standing in for an episode of black-ish Season 3 proved that Yara Shahidi's character has what it takes to have her own show. In the previous episode, Zoey realized that she wasn't so certain that she wanted to move all the way across the country for college, and that she might actually be more at home going to the local California Liberal Arts University. And now that she's made her decision, Zoey's first college visit doubles as a look at what her solo adventures would be like.

This episode introduces a few characters that could become recurring characters in the future. There's Chris Parnell as the Dean, Matt Walsh as the President of CalU. In a meeting with Stacy the try-hard RA, Zoey meets Miriam, a frontrunner for her new BFF, and the hunky Black Student Union leader who's super woke and frequently cites James Baldwin in everyday conversation. And, of course, somehow Charlie is an adjunct professor (but only in the middle of the night). Everything is nearly perfect, until the Johnsons of course almost manage to screw things up by not filling out the correct forms.

Due to a misunderstanding and a case of mistaken identity, Zoey's lack of a housing assignment gets conflated with the administration's desire to break up Hawkins Hall, a dorm popular with Black students. But when she's guilty of accidenally greenlighting a plan to get rid of the dorm, she needs to resort to Charlie's midnight marketing class in order to get the confidence and the passion to convince the administrators to save Hawkins.

While with her family, Zoey is usually a bit vain, self-absorbed, and above it all, but when she's on her own, already she's becoming more of a "joiner." Whether or not ABC decides to move forward with their Zoey-centric show, the character has definitely become worthy of her own adventures.