Y'all can we take a minute to talk about how awful they wrote Cody to be in Suite Life on Deck.
I'm saying this as a former Cody Girl:
In the OG show, they show Cody having various interests, one being sports, like Zack. He wasn't as good at them or as knowledgeable about them as Zack, but he still took an interest in watching and even playing sports.
They BOTH liked playing video games. They BOTH liked riding bikes. They BOTH liked girls and trying to get their attention. Sure, Cody was also great at school and very book smart, but it didn't consume him.
On Deck, Cody seems to know little to nothing about sports and has no interest in them at all. In fact, he seems to have no interest in anything that isn't strictly educational. Which brings me to my next point...
Exhibit B: Cody's lack of shenanigans.
In the OG show, Zack and Cody typically engaged in various shenanigans TOGETHER.
Wanted free bikes? Zack trains Cody to win a teen pageant. Suspect one of the rooms is haunted? Gather their friends to perform a seance. Suspect a guest of conning their mom and their friends? Spy on him and plant traps to catch him. Needed some extra money AND wanted to impress a crush? Rented out London's Suite while she was out of town.
Even Cody gets into his own shenanigans BY HIMSELF. Remember the episode where he moved into a linen closet because he got annoyed sharing a room with Zack?
Do y'all see that kind of energy from him On Deck? NO.
Well maybe in the first season, but for the most part, not really.
Most hijinks Cody finds himself in on deck, he does not take part in as willingly as he did at the hotel. Mr. Mosbey doesn't even blame Cody for anything that goes wrong on the boat! At the hotel, mosbey always came for "the boys", "you two", "the twins", etc. On Deck, he mainly goes after Zack. The only time I remember him being upset with Cody is when they both wear some "traditional" outfits to a party where everyone else is in black tie.
The adults on the show only seem to be upset with Cody when he's being a know-it-all and correcting the adults around him, or being a very pushy perfect student. Like when he and Bailey refused to take part in the senior ditch day so they made Ms Tutwiler stay with them in the classroom and only teach to them.
And when Cody DOES actually take part in any pranks or hijinks in On Deck, half the time it feels out of character for him. Like when he joined in on the prank on Mosbey that resulted in prom getting cancelled. It just doesn't make sense with the direction they took Cody's character in that he would join in on a prank that endangered Mosbey. He spends so much of On Deck sucking up to authority and teachers and never doing anything remotely wrong, to that. Sure, it's Mosbey, and Cody and Mosbey have history, but still it felt off in On Deck.
Exhibit C: Cody's treatment of women
Y'all remember this iconic line from the OG?
Yeah. A few years later, that kid's gonna become a massive incel and write a "play" demonizing his exgf and killing her off at the end.
In both versions of the show, they made Zack to be the "lady's man" and Cody was the one who had a harder time with girls. Even though Cody had his fair share of girlfriends during both shows. Two main ones we're gonna look at: Barbara and Bailey.
If y'all don't remember, Barbara was Cody's crush/friend/gf for a decent amount of the original run for Suite Life. Here's a quick little blip of a scene with them:
This is probably the beginning of the end for Cody. Sure by the end of the episode, he snaps out of it and accepts Barbara being stronger, and it's never really mentioned again. If you ignore this episode, Cody appears to view Barbara as an equal for a majority of their time together. And they appeared to mention a fairly amicable breakup between them once On Deck aired.
Now let's look at Cody and Bailey. On paper they seem perfect together. Both top of their class, type A personalities, straight A students. Cody was head over heels for her from the start, and when Bailey finally reciprocated those feelings all seemed well. Then the Paris incident.
But let's ignore the Paris incident for a minute. Cody was ALWAYS threatened by Bailey. It shows consistently in the show. They're always fighting to be top of the class. Well, Cody's fighting. Bailey just does it.
Let's look at when the gang gets lost at sea. London, Woody, and Zack all agree that Bailey should be captain and in charge of getting them back home, much to Cody's disapproval. When everyone goes to sleep, Cody changes course behind everyone's back because he can't handle being ignored and not being the leader. When they're on the island, Cody starts sulking because Bailey was angry that he undermined her, yet saw no reason to apologize to her.
And then with the finale, when Cody gets rejected from Yale. While Cody is wallowing in misery, he then remembers Bailey also applied. His immediate thought? If HE didn't get in, there was no way Bailey got in, right? Wrong. Bailey got accepted. Further pushing Cody into misery. Not only was he rejected from his dream school, but his girlfriend WAS accepted and HE thought he deserved admission more than she did.
Cody had a desperate need to be the smartest person in the room, and Bailey challenged him on that. Unlike Barbara, who was also a very intelligent character, Cody didn't seem to view her as equally as he viewed Barbara. Cody thought he was better than her. And when they broke up it struck a chord with him. He couldn't let the breakup, or Bailey go. The nail in the coffin for him should've been the play. After humiliating her like that, Bailey, definitely should've seen the writing on the wall that Cody did not respect her.
There's a lot that I don't like very much about Suite Life on Deck. The worst thing is the general flanderization of all the characters, but with Cody, it just feels like it's on another level, like they're not even the same person. Z&C Zack and On Deck Zack, okay makes sense how we got here, even London somehow losing more braincells in On Deck feels more in character than whatever tf they did with Cody.