“Nobody Wants That” Season 1 Episode 2 recap

Nobody wants that

A shiksa enters a temple

Season 1

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: Stefania Rosini/Netflix

The second part of our rabbinic-gentile romantic comedy is mainly about two people who realize that it’s crazy to get into a real relationship, that their lives are just too different, and then they try anyway. That’s love, baby! Or a terrible decision that will only lead to heartbreak. We’ll see in due course!

In “A Shiksa Walks Into a Temple,” Noah and Joanne go on two not-exactly-identical dates with completely different results. If Noah thought no one was paying attention to his little argument with Joanne after the service, then he’s kidding himself. More than one wants to know why he was so close to this woman. However, Noah’s father Ilan asks the important first question: “Does she have a degree?” Of course, the person most upset about this new revelation is Noah’s mother Bina. While Tovah Feldshuh looks intimidating from the jump, there is hope here Nobody wants that do more with her than give in to the meddling image of the Jewish mother. In a later scene, when the family confronts Noah about what he’s doing with Joanne, she makes it clear that their concerns are about more than just marriage – this could also affect his work as a rabbi – and that helps little, but I worry that Bina will become a caricature.

Regardless, Noah doesn’t mind upsetting his mother a little to see where this Joanne thing might go. He tries his best to get out of the crowd of people voicing complaints or forcing him to watch trailers of their sons’ documentaries about the history of the documentary in order to meet with Joanne, who was supposed to be waiting for him outside. But when he and Sasha, who has been begging to come with him because he’s the saddest sack (albeit a confident sad sack that we love), come outside, he finds Joanne seconds away in Morgan’s Jump into the car and drive off.

You see, after Joanne explained to her sister where she was and what she was up to, Morgan forced her to take off her rose-colored glasses for a heated moment. “He asked me to wait outside, but not in a bad way,” she tells her. “Is there a good way?” Morgan replies, leaning forward on her sister’s behalf before coming over to get Joanne out of there. She’s right – it’s not a good sign that he immediately pushed her out of the sight of everyone he knows. But Noah admits it was a bad move, apologizes, and then makes sure Joanne will actually like him by asking her to come with them for a drink (Sasha has already forced her way into the car). This man just exudes so much charm that he’s non-threatening and non-overbearing, and honestly… do men like that even exist? They can’t do that, can they? He’s just so nice and funny. It really upsets me.

The sister-brother pair get in the car and things get awkward almost immediately. When Joanne plugs her phone into a charger, she doesn’t realize it’s connecting to the speaker system, which means Morgan’s text: “He’s cuter than I expected, he doesn’t look so Jewish.” “The brother is brutal, ogre -emoji, vomit emoji” is shouted loudly for everyone to hear. On the one hand, there is no world in which someone wouldn’t immediately unplug their phone after reading this text, but on the other hand, the phrase “The brother is brutal” is objectively hilarious and I’m so glad we all got to hear it. Joanne is embarrassed, and Noah and Sasha take it upon themselves to deal with the embarrassment some seriously. “What does Jewish look like to you?” Noah asks Morgan. “Doesn’t my brother look like he can control the media?” Sasha follows him. They also remind women that there are many very good-looking Jewish men out there. Paul Rudd for example. And “Have you ever seen a young Mandy Patinkin?” Sasha wonders. They shame Joanne and Morgan enough and move on. As Noah explains, Sasha wasn’t even really offended: “He’s just happy that people are talking about him.” I obviously like our main couple’s story, but I really hope the show includes some subplots with our sibling sidekicks, because they easily steal the show.

It definitely looks like our main characters will have some storylines outside of their romance, because once the foursome reaches the bar, there’s a palpable tension between our sisters as soon as they start talking about their big Spotify get-together. Morgan emphasizes the fun sex 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 it. She doesn’t want to be one Call her dad Imitation. When Morgan scoffs that he doesn’t want a $60 million podcast deal, Joanne has to respond. In their later meeting with Spotify, we see that they have the same disagreement about the direction of the show – we assume that comes into play later.

Right now, this fight means two things. First, we get to watch Morgan and Sasha interact alone, and it’s as wonderful as you’d expect. When she’s shocked to learn that Sasha is married because he has “no husband energy at all,” and he shows her he’s wearing a wedding ring, she reminds him, “Yeah, but I wasn’t looking at you,” matter-of-factly and so hilariously cutting . Of course, Sasha isn’t offended at all – he’s just happy to be in public with other people.

The more important side effect of this fight, however, is that Joanne and Noah have more time to be alone. Sure, she’s high on things because Noah and Sasha just explained that a “shiksa” is basically an unlikable non-Jewish hot girl and that’s pretty much her trademark, but she’s also worried that Noah will view her podcast as unimportant will look at nonsense. Joanne wants Noah to understand how she sees her podcast – she obviously feels silly making her work as a podcaster seem as important as his work, she’s aware of that – but Noah has listened to some of it, esp the “Dil-Dos and Dil-Don’ts” episode, and he understands (or at least says he understands) where she’s coming from. She just thinks that if people were more open about things that make them uncomfortable, others would hear it and “carry a lot less shame.” That’s a lot to ask of a podcast, but okay.

Their conversation is interrupted by a loud, obnoxious honk from the street – it’s Sasha’s wife Esther, trying to get her attention, and since we’re talking no shame, the woman doesn’t care who sees her causing a scene . She also seems dead serious about running over her husband if he doesn’t get in the car right away. Esther also brings some funny news for Joanne when she yells at Noah about getting engaged to Rebecca and that he shouldn’t be “out here with Whore #1 and Whore #2.” They might as well play a record scratcher – as soon as Joanne hears the word busyshe is eager to pursue whatever it is with Noah for a longer period of time. As she leaves, she is visibly upset that she didn’t see this coming and disappointed that something that seemed so great isn’t going to work out.

Noah is undeterred. In fact, after the ambush of his entire family, he seems even more determined to find out what might become of him and Joanne. She’s not what he expected. His mother tells him that he’s tried it, it’s not for him and it’s time to move on to something realistic, only making him realize that the opposite might be true – whatever he feels about Joanne , it could well be him.

After meeting with a couple he counseled, he is absolutely convinced that this is the truth. He remembers what Joanne said about opening up to people so that they will in turn feel more comfortable opening up, and that’s exactly what he does. He tells them about the end of his relationship with Rebecca – how they never really talked about the difficult things and therefore didn’t know each other at all. It works – the couple actually starts talking to each other. He immediately texts Joanne and asks her to have dinner as a friend.

Joanne comes in hot. She swears she won’t stay. This is too chaotic and she warned him that she wasn’t looking for chaos. But slowly, as Noah apologizes for not telling her about the Rebecca situation and tells her how she helped him with work, she starts ordering things. She takes off her jacket. When he then tells her that “what you do matters,” boy oh boy, I honestly can’t believe she doesn’t reach across the table and smack him. Again, I feel like these flashbacks just make me overly aware that my standards are too low, but someone telling you that your work is important, even if it’s kind of silly? This is so fucking hot.

Don’t worry friends, the kiss is just around the corner. The “dinner among friends” goes so well that the two of them take a walk for ice cream afterwards. Joanne asks him about Rebecca, and she seems kind of great – she seems like someone Noah should be with, rather than a threat to society like Joanne. She tells him to get back together with her. Suddenly they say goodbye before their Ubers arrive, realizing that it’s kind of weird that they haven’t kissed once in the whole thing. Maybe they should have a goodbye kiss, Joanne suggests. This woman did not understand the chaos she would cause with this request. The moment my husband takes their sundaes and places them on the sidewalk, you know it’s going to be more than just a goodbye kiss. You know he’s serious.

Guys, he’s so, so serious. That kiss! This kiss is a very good kiss that took me several minutes to recover from. I know Adam Brody is not Seth Cohen, but I also know, GET IT, SETH COHEN. The chemistry between Bell and Brody and the comedic timing were right from the start, and it’s reassuring to see the chemistry apply to this aspect as well. The only problem now is that if these two ding-dongs don’t match, I’ll probably flip a table or something.

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