If you thought that Noah and Joanne spent the hiatus between seasons figuring out the major obstacle they face on the way to love and happiness, you thought wrong.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
As Ryan Gosling once famously asked, What do you want? And the answer is “I don’t know, Ryan, God, does anyone know what they want? Please stop asking me!” The second season of the Kristen Bell–Adam Brody rom-com Nobody Wants This, about a rabbi who falls in love with a podcaster despite the odds and, like, so many red flags, tackles this very idea of how to know what you really want. Does Joanne want to convert to Judaism? Does Noah want to give up his dream of being a head rabbi in order to marry someone who isn’t Jewish? Do they really want to fight this much to be together?
Over the course of the season, they grapple with these questions, seeking answers in the form of gut instinct or signs from a higher power or advice from a wildly unethical therapist. By the end, Joanne and Noah do manage to make some decisions about what they really want, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle for these two ding-dongs. So in that spirit, let’s dissect each episode of season two to see how they get there and make our own decisions about what we, the audience, really want (or don’t) from Nobody Wants This.
Spoilers follow for all of season two.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
If you thought that over the hiatus Joanne and Noah would have figured out the major obstacle they face on the way to love and happiness — Noah’s career at Temple Chai can only move forward if his wife is Jewish, and Joanne is unsure about converting — you’d be wrong. In fact, that problem is festering. And when Joanne and Noah realize they are on completely different pages — he thought she was taking her time before converting, she thought they agreed to just be an interfaith couple — they wonder, once again, if they might be doomed. They especially wonder this after Noah gets passed over for the senior rabbi position to make room for another Noah who isn’t dating a shiksa. Hey, at least their first attempt to merge their friends by way of a dinner party isn’t a complete disaster. I mean, Joanne’s friend Ryann does spend the evening wallowing on the floor because she just got dumped and no one can really get the lighting right, but other than that, pretty good!
Oh, nobody wants this: Esther is putting a complete kibosh on the perhaps-at-moments boundary-crossing friendship between Sasha and Morgan because she’s tired of seeing him have fun with another woman. It’s a shame because that friendship was one of the best parts of season one. On the bright side, this threesome’s discussion about threesomes does gift us Jackie Tohn’s perfect line reading of “First of all, neither of you would be involved.” Honestly, maybe they should just have a threesome and flush out these weird vibes.
Actually, everybody wants this: Ugh, of course, of course, Noah (but mostly Adam Brody) can make nightstands sexy. It’s really unfair to all other men on this planet that Noah can calm fears and silence doubts with just one thoughtful furniture purchase. But that’s exactly what happens when Joanne notices he went out and bought a nightstand for her side of the bed at his house to hold her copious nighttime-routine items. Does it solve their converting-to-Judaism problem? No, but it does remind them they really want to make this work and lets them, uh, table the discussion for later. (Noah would love that joke, I just know it.)
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
Well, the reviews for Big Noah, our Noah’s replacement at Temple Chai, are in, and they are, in a word, “transcendent.” Unless you ask Bina, in which case Big Noah sucks the big one. Seeing Big Noah flourish with the community not only breaks our Noah’s heart but fuels the hate Bina has for Joanne, whom she blames for everything, naturally. She even comes to a Matzah Ballers game to inform his son’s girlfriend of this. Meanwhile, Sasha attempts to heal the growing rift between him and Esther, who is still bothered by the closeness between her husband and Morgan, by taking her back to the park table they hung out at as kids. A lot of table work in season two of Nobody Wants This!
Oh, nobody wants this: It doesn’t matter that Morgan tells Bina that Joanne did give up Noah so that he could have his dream job and it was Noah who dramatically ran after her. It doesn’t matter that Bina sees how good Noah and Joanne are together when Joanne encourages him to talk about his anger and jealousy over the whole Big Noah thing. She may finally invite her son’s girlfriend to Shabbat, but Bina has not abandoned her plan to break these two up. Well-deployed Taylor Swift music cue or not, this retread of last season is both frustrating and boring!
Actually, everybody wants this: Morgan just keeps winning over members of the Roklov family, doesn’t she? During the basketball game, Noah’s friend Lenny gives Morgan some harsh notes on her behavior at the dinner party (she’s severe, self-centered, not a “real person”) and she heads into the bathroom to have a good cry, as one does. She runs into a surprisingly open-hearted Bina, who tells her that if she’s this hurt by what someone else said, it’s probably because she believes those things are true. “She’s just so small and wise,” Morgan tells Joanne later. If we can’t have Morgan and Sasha hanging out anymore, maybe this budding friendship between Morgan and Bina will do?
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Noah’s having a tough time with his demotion at the temple, so he begins to channel his rabbi skills into his personal life, doling advice out to Joanne and Morgan’s podcast audience (give this rabbi his own podcast, people!); forcing Joanne into celebrating long-lost birthday traditions for her mom, Lynn; and providing Lynn with the opportunity to achieve her dream of getting a tramp stamp. Okay, that last one isn’t technically under the purview of a rabbi, but it is quite gentlemanly of Noah.
Turns out everyone needs advice from the good rabbi when Morgan arrives at the party with a surprise boyfriend named Dr. Andy, who is, in fact, her therapist. Well, former therapist — they had their close-out session the week prior. Noah may have a few more interested parties for his heart-to-hearts when he hears that, thanks to Bina, Sasha has broached the subject of having another baby and Esther could not be less interested. And hey, Noah may have more time to assist with the fallout of that obvious incoming implosion, since he decides to take some of his own rabbi’s advice to have faith in the unknown: He officially says goodbye to Temple Chai.
Oh, nobody wants this: Joanne does use the phrase “Noah and I are figuring out how to be a ‘we’” and that is objectively disgusting.
Actually, everybody wants this: If you’ve been waiting for season two to get swoony, look no further than the scene when Noah joins an upset Joanne in her mother’s bed to debrief her big fight with Morgan about Dr. Andy. Noah very sweetly tells Joanne that even if she can’t support her sister dating her therapist, she can still be there for Morgan. Joanne very sweetly comforts Noah because she knows he’s having a hard time giving up his dream job. They share a snuggle and a kiss. Is Lynn there the entire time? Yes. But she’s just as big a fan of this moment as we are.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
Valentine’s Day is a big ol’ misfire for Noah and Joanne once Joanne learns that Noah seems like such a great boyfriend because he’s basically pulling things from a boyfriend handbook — he buys all his girlfriends the same gifts, plans the exact same dates, and treats them the way he thinks a boyfriend should treat his partner rather than, you know, treating each person he dates like an individual. It’s rocky for a moment, but they get through it. Meanwhile, Dr. Andy gives Morgan the Valentine’s Day of, well, not her dreams exactly, but someone’s dreams, and while she seems genuinely into him, she does question how fast things are moving … right before she agrees to move in with him. It was probably the soloist playing “Kiss From a Rose” to wake her up that did it. That or the psychological manipulation he’s running on her. One of the two.
Oh, nobody wants this: Hey, remember how romantic and sexy and earth-shattering that big kiss from season one was? This episode is kind of the opposite of that. Every activity Noah plans for Joanne is either boring or goes wrong, mostly both of those things, and somehow these two have the least romantic bubble bath in recorded history. I guess they learn to be honest with each other even when it’s difficult, but at what cost?
Actually, everybody wants this: Is the best part of this episode the Shaq-as-Kazaam movie poster Joanne gives Noah or Sasha’s cringey dance to Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings?” The answer is neither. The best part is that nightmare mashup photo of what Sasha and Miriam’s child would look like. I regret to inform you that’s not a typo — Miriam, his daughter. I will be offering no further context at this time.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
Never have I understood a conflict more than when Joanne and Morgan explain that the reason they have an undying hatred for Abby, the influencer who hired Noah for his first freelance brit bat, is because at a sleepover in the sixth grade Abby cut off their Felicity doll’s hair. Maiming someone’s American Girl doll? Especially the “plucky redhead who survived the goddamn Revolutionary War!” Decades of hatred over this wrongdoing aren’t even enough. Still, over the course of the day at Abby’s house in celebration of her daughter, Afternoon, Joanne realizes that she doesn’t really hate Abby: She’s jealous of everything she has — nice house, doting husband, cute kids — and admits to Noah that she wants this, too. Elsewhere, Sasha and Esther are showcasing that a traditional life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when Esther has a pregnancy scare and they both react very differently to the news. Most important, though, Esther gets bangs.
Oh, nobody wants this: How about that insane lingering shot on the Estee Lauder serum? The product placement this season is — how do you say — not subtle?
Actually, everybody wants this! Can anyone deliver the two lines “It was really nice seeing you. Can you get out of this room, please?” in a tone as simultaneously sweet and cutting as Leighton Meester can? More! Leighton! Meester! Both on this show and just in general.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
It’s Purim, baby! A holiday during which anything can happen, self-revelations are encouraged, and people get very drunk while in costume. It sounds like a day Joanne would love, but she’s feeling the pressure from Noah to maybe, possibly, have that revelation about converting to Judaism during the festivities. She is a ball of anxiety even in her Cinderella costume. The conversion talk has ramped up around the same time Noah has requested “a night off” to prep for his interview at a new, more progressive temple (a job he gets), but of course Joanne takes that personally. Her insecurities regarding anything that doesn’t center her know no bounds. I’m no Dr. Andy, but maybe her dad — who comes dressed as Queen Esther — isn’t the only narcissist in the family. It certainly doesn’t help when Lynn has an epiphany that she’s Jewish, only to be one-upped by Dr. Andy, who realizes he never wants “a night off” from Morgan, so he proposes. It’s a true nightmare situation for Joanne.
Oh, nobody wants this: There’s certainly no subtlety to the reveal that Esther, who usually attends the party as Queen Esther, would rather change it up and be a sexy cat this year. If you didn’t get it, Bina’s “Esther doesn’t want to be Esther” line should clear it up. Esther and Sasha are struggling, and it’s a real mood killer.
Actually, everybody wants this: Not a mood killer? Sasha becoming Dr. Andy’s biggest fan. It was bound to happen once they realized they both played Kenickie in their high-school productions of Grease the same year, just three states away. Your mudda!
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
Joanne just can’t help herself, can she? She’s right that Morgan marrying Dr. Andy is a bad idea and that Morgan can’t seem to say no to her fiancé. But instead of talking to her sister, she embarks on a passive-aggressive blaze of glory that, yes, includes donning a wedding dress during Morgan’s wedding-dress shopping. Joanne insists she’s not jealous — you just can’t come to a wedding-dress store and not try on a dress, which her dad counters with “You can if you’re not an attention whore.” Joanne and Morgan’s relationship implodes on their podcast, and they decide to take a break from each other. Meanwhile, it looks like Noah’s gig at the progressive temple was a real “too good to be true” situation and will not be his way out of this conversion problem.
Oh, nobody wants this: You get Seth Rogen and Kate Berlant to play the leaders of the no-actual-rules (or plans!) progressive Temple Ahava and … have them make Fantastic Four and Kylie Kardashian jokes? What did we do to deserve this?
Actually, everybody wants this: It’s a tie between literally everything Stephanie Faracy and Michael Hitchcock do in that wedding boutique and Morgan’s two interesting facts about Dr. Andy being “He hates his mother and was in a hit-and-run once.”
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The season’s hurtling toward its conclusion, which means everyone is beginning to have some major and majorly honest conversations. Noah admits that Temple Ahava’s “groovy vibes” aren’t really for him. He also tells Joanne that he’s scared of her obvious commitment issues. She assures him all she wants in her adult life is the stability she never had growing up — she’s not running from this. Esther blurts out to Rebecca that if she were to get married today, she would not choose Sasha. During an evening spent trying to break into Dr. Andy’s phone after Morgan learns she isn’t the first patient he’s dated, Sasha admits that Esther is pulling away and it’s “killing” him. Emotions are running high — and that’s all before Joanne finds an eviction notice on her door after her landlord listens to her trashing him on her podcast.
Oh, nobody wants this: No offense to Gabe, but they bring him back to inform us about his separation and not Abby Loves Smoothies? How dare you!
Actually, everybody wants this: Between her sincere conversation with Joanne about figuring out what she wants inch by inch and her conversion meeting at Temple Ahava — “I’m a speed reader, and also I know what happened to me on every day of my life. Just like Marilu Henner” — Stephanie Faracy’s Lynn is stealing the show this season.
Photo: Erin Simkin/Netflix
Well, this is why you don’t have honest conversations. It’s also why you shouldn’t play games invented by therapists. All three of our main couples wind up at a beer-garden hang, and Morgan and Dr. Andy, fresh out of couples therapy, bring the “Go Deep” card game invented by their therapist, Lois. (She sold the movie rights, Dr. Andy is an associate producer; it’s a whole thing.) Since Joanne and Noah are already on edge because he doesn’t want to move in with her, Sasha and Esther’s marriage is on its last leg, and Morgan is beginning to notice Dr. Andy is a giant red flag in human form, this game of asking probing questions does not go well. Everyone winds up hurt and yelling at their significant other and it seems that most, if not all of them, might be calling it quits.
Oh, nobody wants this: This has been obvious for some time, but are we really doing the same exact conflict as the first season? Joanne converting is the only way Noah sees this relationship having a future, and she is left wondering if maybe they “both deserve to be in a relationship where [they] both get to be exactly who [they] are while moving forward.” He was the one who ran after her and wanted to give this a go. I can’t believe I’m Team Joanne here.
Actually, everybody wants this: Morgan and Dr. Andy’s insane relationship holds up the com portion of the rom-com proceedings. The moment he reveals he has a twin he hates and Morgan knew nothing about it was a nice reprieve in an otherwise tense episode.
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Welcome to the most depressing engagement party of the century. Even the bride- and groom-to-be break up. Although Morgan, thanks to a sweet but forceful push from her mother, of all people, dumps Dr. Andy. Hey, as her fiancé, he may be heartbroken, but as her therapist, he’s really proud. This was much needed. The breakup between Esther and Sasha, though? That one hurts. Still, Sasha already admits he’ll wait for her to figure out what she needs to, and honestly, Esther out in the wild alone with those bangs is going to be a good time. Breakups are contagious, it seems: Joanne and Noah use the party for a teary good-bye after coming to the conclusion that this shouldn’t be so hard and Noah doesn’t want to be the one to force Joanne to change.
But wait! Then, Esther tells Joanne that she’s overcomplicating this Jewish thing and that if she already loves all of these little Jewish traditions, what is she even waiting for? At the same time, Noah remembers how fucking good that kiss was last season — and, I guess, some other things he loves about Joanne. They race toward each other.
Oh, nobody wants this: That’s right, for some reason we’re ending season two the same way we ended season one: with a romantic run and a proclamation that Noah and Joanne choose each other, no matter what. Like, they probably could’ve just used the same footage. Would anyone have noticed?
Actually, everybody wants this: OKAY, FINE. I am a sucker for a big, romantic Joanne and Noah kiss. I’m not a monster!
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