Every once in a while, Netflix hits it outta the park with a series, and Nobody Wants This is that show. The romcom, which stars the adorable Kristen Bell as Joanne, and Adam Brody as Noah Roklov, is loosely based on Erin Foster’s real-life marriage to her hubby, Simon Tikhman.
Sounds generic, right? It’s not. You know why? Because Joanne is a shiksa (a non-Jewish, blonde woman), and Noah is a rabbi. Oy vey!
If this doesn’t sound like a big obstacle to overcome, allow me to explain—a rabbi cannot marry anyone but another Jewish person. Period. Yes, the woman can convert to Judaism (which is what Foster did before marrying her husband), but what if she was agnostic?
In the series, Joanne is agnostic—she wasn’t raised with any religion, so the idea that someone would dedicate their lives to one is foreign to her. And she’s also a podcaster, which she hosts with her sister, Justine Lupe, who is best known for her role on Succession. They talk about sex. A lot. Cue the hurdles for this rom com.
Anyway, the show had everyone online losing their dang minds, because rom-coms (and Adam Brody aka Seth Cohen from The O.C.) are officially back, baby! And as a Gen X Adam Brody devotee, I just had to talk about this show that I binge-watched twice in a row.
Nobody Wants This – The Plot
Nobody Wants This takes place in L.A. and follows Joanne, who makes a living dishing about her bad dates and sex life on a podcast she co-hosts with her sister, Morgan. We first meet Joanne as she ghosts a guy mid-date because he got super emotional talking about his grandmother’s death. Morgan’s response? “Save it for the podcast!”
And then there’s Noah (Brody), a thoughtful and unconventional rabbi who could easily sit shiva for days without flinching. He breaks up with his sweet (but dull) long-term girlfriend, Rebecca, after he sees her wearing the engagement ring that he hasn’t given her…yet. She found it and just popped it on THE finger without him asking. That should be reason enough for him to end it, but he calmly tells her he is not feeling the way he thinks he should be feeling.
Then comes the meet-cute at a dinner party thrown by Joanne’s manager (played by the totally underused Sherry Cola). Joanne makes an entrance in a mid-length chinchilla coat, says her hellos, and then sidles up to Noah. He adorably struggles to open a bottle of wine and their banter is off the charts.
There’s a classic misunderstanding—she thinks someone else is “the rabbi” she was told would be there—followed by a walk to the car that’s so charged with chemistry you forget to wonder how much wine they’ve had and if they should be getting behind the wheel of a car. It’s intense, and they don’t even smooch until Nobody Wants This, episode two.
The biggest issue? No, rabbis don’t have the same strict dating rules as priests, but Noah’s in the running to become the head rabbi at his synagogue, Temple Chai. Dating a non-Jewish, sex-positive podcaster like Joanne will not be the best look for him—hence the title. Throw in family dynamics on top of the whole religion thing, and you’ve got the main conflict these lovebirds have to negotiate.
Will They, Won’t They?
Over the season’s 10 half-hour episodes, Noah and Joanne try to figure out if their relationship even stands a chance. He’s supposed to settle down with a nice Jewish woman, and she’s supposed to be on the dating apps and collecting wild dating stories for her podcast.
The whole will-they-or-won’t-they, and should-they-even-try vibe that drives Nobody Wants This is fun right out of the gate, and it manages to hit that sweet spot between romance and comedy where other rom-coms fall short. But it’s not the jokes or the swoon-worthy moments (OMG that first kiss) that make the show so, so good—the real magic is in the casting. From Brody and Bell in the lead roles to their siblings Sasha (Timothy Simmons from Veep) and Justine Lupe, the cast is stacked.
As someone who grew up watching both The OC and Veronica Mars, which launched the careers of Brody and Bell, I can confidently say I’m exactly who this show is made for. I could watch Brody channel his Seth Cohen-like charm, playing a Jewish guy hanging out in the kitchen eating a bagel all day. And it’s an absolute delight to see Bell back in her element as a snarky outsider (being the blonde non-Jew), negotiating life with her trademark wit and sarcasm. While they’re great on their own, the chemistry between Brody and Bell together is pure magic.
The magic between the cast is so strong that it def makes up for the show’s shortcomings. Do we really need another LA-based story about older millennials trying to figure out their lives while juggling their family expectations? Eh, mostly likely not. Is it jam-packed with familiar tropes like the overbearing Jewish mom and the way-too-quirky single mother? Yup. Does the show keep insisting Joanne is a bad person, even though she never really does anything that terrible? Another yup. Are there a few plot holes? Yah. And do Brody, Bell, Simmons, and Lupe stray far from the roles that made them famous? Not so much!
Did I even notice or care about those things while I was glued to my TV? LOL nope. This is a rom-com—it’s supposed to be fun, something you can watch without overthinking it, and the kind of show you are texting your friends about while you’re all watching and telling your baristas that they should watch. It delivers—and for me, the off-the-charts chemistry between Bell and Brody gave me all of the nostalgic feels.
From Joanne awkwardly (and hilariously, IMO) crossing herself in a synagogue to Noah taking and setting down her ice cream on a Los Angeles sidewalk so they can kiss (again, that kiss OMG), the show peppers in these sweet little moments that make it work, even some other scenes or dialogue doesn’t really hit.
But even with the familiar tropes and sometimes-clunky dialogue, I was in deep because I couldn’t get enough of the moments between Noah and Joanne. And their scenes with their siblings were almost as fun—and that’s where the show really clicks. It brings something new while leaning into the great chemistry between the main cast, tapping into our nostalgia in a way that feels organic—not force fed to us like so many reboots or sequels.
I ripped through the season, and by the 10th and final episode, I went back to episode one and hit “play” like I was on autopilot. I texted my mom that she HAD to watch this show (she did, and she loved it, too). As a Jewish mom and daughter, we were kvelling, which means swooning in Yiddish. When the trailer first dropped, I was stoked to see Brody and Bell in a rom-com together. And a lot of other Gen Xers and millennials feel the same—it’s still number one on Netflix, and you can stream it there.
Final Thoughts
The only final thoughts I have are these 10 simple words: Can we get a season 2 of Nobody Wants This?
Because everyone obviously wants this
