Recap of ‘Nobody Wants This’, season 1, episode 2

The second installment of our rabbi-gentile romantic comedy is about two people who realize that it’s crazy to try a real relationship, that their lives are too different, and then try it anyway. That’s love, baby! Or a terrible choice that will only lead to heartbreak. We’ll see in due time!

In “A Shiksa Walks Into a Temple,” Noah and Joanne go on two dates not exactly with wildly different results. If Noah thought no one was paying attention to his little run-in with Joanne after services, he’s kidding himself. More than one wants to know why he was so close to that woman. However, Noah’s father, Ilan, asks the first important question: “Does he have a title?” Of course, the most upset by this new revelation is Noah’s mother, Bina. While Tovah Feldshuh is intimidating from the jump, here’s hoping Nobody wants this does more with her than leaning into the trope of the meddling Jewish mother. In a later scene, when the family confronts Noah about what he’s doing with Joanne, she makes it clear that her concerns go beyond marriage (this could also affect his job as a rabbi) and that helps a little, but I’m worried. that Bina becomes a caricature.

Anyway, Noah doesn’t mind pissing off his mom a little to see where this could go with Joanne. He tries his best to get out of the crowd of people voicing their grievances or making him watch trailers for their kids’ documentaries about the history of the documentary to meet up with Joanne, who is supposed to be waiting for him outside. But when he and Sasha, who has begged to come along because he’s the saddest bag (albeit a sad, self-aware one, which we love), head outside, he finds Joanne seconds away from getting into Morgan’s car and taking off.

You see, once Joanne explained to her sister where she was and what she was doing, Morgan made her take off those rose-colored glasses for just a second. “He asked me to wait outside, but not in a bad way,” he tells her. “Is there a good way?” Morgan replies, cringing on her sister’s behalf before moving on to get Joanne out of there. She’s right: it’s not a good sign that he immediately removed her from the sight of everyone she knows. But Noah recognizes it was a bad move, apologizes, and then makes sure Joanne will really like him by asking her to join them for a drink (Sasha has already broken into the car). This man just oozes charm in a non-threatening or overbearing way, and honestly…do men like this really exist? They can’t, right? It’s so nice and fun. It’s really puzzling me.

The sister and brother pairs get into the car and the situation becomes awkward almost immediately. When Joanne plugs her phone into a charger, she doesn’t realize that it will connect to the speaker system, signifying Morgan’s text that says “It’s cuter than I expected, it doesn’t look so Jewish. Brother is brutal, ogre emoji, vomit emoji” is heard loudly for everyone to hear. Now, on the one hand, there isn’t a world in which a person wouldn’t disconnect that phone immediately after reading the text, but on the other hand, the line “bro is brutal” is objectively hilarious, and I’m so glad we’ve all could hear it. Joanne is mortified, and Noah and Sasha take it upon themselves to dig a little deeper into that shame. “How do you like the Jew?” Noah asks Morgan. “It doesn’t seem like my brother can control the media?” Sasha continues. They also remind women that there are many very good-looking Jews out there. Paul Rudd, for example. and “have you ever seen a young Mandy Patinkin?” Sasha wonders. They embarrass Joanne and Morgan enough and move on. As Noah explains, Sasha wasn’t even offended: “He’s just happy that people are talking about him.” I’m obviously interested in our main couple’s story, but I really hope the show opens up on some subplots with our fellow brothers, because they’re easily stealing the show.

It certainly seems like our main characters will have some stories outside of their romance, as once the quartet arrives at the bar, there’s palpable tension between our sisters once they start talking about their big Spotify reunion. Morgan is promoting the fun sexual aspects of the show, but Joanne wants to emphasize that the show is about more than just sex: it’s about honesty and encouraging people to open up, and the empowerment that comes with that. She doesn’t want to be one calls his daddy imitation. When Morgan scoffs about not wanting a $60 million podcast deal, Joanne has to drop him. In their subsequent meeting with Spotify, we see that they have the same disagreement about the direction of the show; we hope that comes into play later.

For now, this fight means two things. First, we get to see Morgan and Sasha interact alone, and it’s just as wonderful as you’d expect. When she is surprised to learn that Sasha is married because he “doesn’t have any husband energy” and he shows her that he is wearing a wedding ring, she reminds him, “Yeah, but I haven’t been looking at you” in such a way. hilariously cutting. Naturally, Sasha is not at all offended; he’s just happy to be in public with other people.

However, the most important byproduct of this fight is that Joanne and Noah have more time to be alone. Sure, she’s on a high because Noah and Sasha just explained that a “shiksa” is basically an obnoxious non-Jewish hottie and that’s pretty much her brand, but she’s also worried that Noah sees her podcast as unimportant nonsense. Joanne wants Noah to understand the way she views his podcast (she obviously feels silly making her job as a podcaster seem as important as his, she feels self-conscious about it), but Noah has heard something from him, specifically the ” Dil- The do’s and don’ts, and he understands (or at least says he understands) where she’s coming from. He just thinks that if people were more open about the things that make them uncomfortable, other people. They would listen to it and “carry a lot less shame.” It’s a lot to ask of a podcast, but that’s okay.

Their conversation is interrupted by a loud, unpleasant honk from the street: it’s Sasha’s wife, Esther, trying to get her attention and, speaking without shame, the woman doesn’t care who sees her causing a scene. She also seems very serious about running over her husband if he doesn’t get in the car right now. Esther also delivers a bit of fun news to Joanne, when she yells at Noah that he’s getting engaged to Rebecca and that he shouldn’t be “here with whore number 1 and whore number 2.” You could also play a scratch record, the moment Joanne hears the word. engagedShe doesn’t want to do this anymore, whatever it is, with Noah. When she leaves, she’s clearly upset that she didn’t see this coming and disappointed that something that seemed so cool isn’t going to work.

Noah is not deterred. In fact, after his entire family is ambushed, he seems even more determined to see what could happen between him and Joanne. She’s not what he expected. Having his mother tell him that she tried, that it wasn’t for him, and that it’s time to move on to something realistic, only makes him realize that it could be the opposite: whatever he feels about Joanne seems like it could be for him. him.

He is absolutely convinced this is true after a meeting with a couple he is counseling. Remember what Joanne said about opening up to people so that they, in turn, feel more comfortable opening up, and that’s what she does. He tells them about the end of his relationship with Rebecca, how they never really talked about the hard things and because of that, they didn’t know each other at all. It works: the couple starts talking to each other. He immediately texts Joanne and asks her out for dinner as a friend.

Joanne comes in hot. She swears she won’t stay. This is too complicated and she warned him not to look for disorder. But slowly, as Noah apologizes for not telling her about Rebecca’s situation and tells her how she helped him at work, she starts putting things away. She takes off her jacket. By the time he tells her that “what you do is important,” wow, wow, I honestly can’t believe she doesn’t reach across the table and plant one on him. Again, I feel like these summaries are just making me hyper-aware that my standards are too low, but does anyone tell you that your work is important, even when it’s a little silly? That’s fucking sexy.

Don’t worry friends, the kisses are coming. The “dinner as friends” goes so well that the two end up taking a walk afterwards for ice cream. Joanne asks him about Rebecca, and she seems great: she seems like someone Noah deserves to be with instead of a menace to society like Joanne. She tells him to come back to her. They suddenly say goodbye before their Ubers arrive and realize it’s a little weird that they haven’t even kissed once during this whole thing. Maybe they should kiss goodbye, Joanne suggests. This woman did not understand the chaos she would be unleashing with this request. The moment my boy grabs his cups of ice cream and sets them down on the sidewalk, you know this is going to be more than just a kiss goodbye. You know he’s serious.

Guys, it’s very, very serious. This kiss! This kiss is a very good kiss that took me several minutes to recover from. I know Adam Brody isn’t Seth Cohen, but also, GET IT, SETH COHEN. Bell and Brody’s chemistry and comedic timing have been on point from the beginning, and it’s refreshing to see that chemistry extend to this aspect as well. The only problem now is that if these two ding-dongs don’t end up together, I’ll probably flip a table or something.

And it’s certainly not a given that they’ll end up together, as this kiss is first interrupted by Noah catching his breath and asking, “Is there a world where this works?” and then a second time when his phone rang. He says it’s work before sending Joanne in his car, but we know he’s lying: it’s Rebecca and they call her several times. Even more worrying: he calls her back.