“Nobody Wants This” is back, literally and figuratively. Yes, Season Two disappointed, mostly repeating Season One’s beats, but with less heat. This installment recaptures the magic of our first encounter with Kristen Bell’s Joanne Williams and Adam Brody’s Noah Roklov, while taking their relationship to new heights.
Season three drops the ‘will they/won’t they’ between the sexy rabbi and the on-her-way-to-conversion podcaster. Instead, the show focuses on what these two look like together, using the perils of living together and making compromises to power the show.
The third season of “Nobody Wants This” does that successfully, giving Joanne and Noah big romantic moments, silly times, and meaningful conflict without ever putting their relationship at risk. It’s a relief, and it lets the audience enjoy the sweetness of their pairing. Think Joanne and Noah stoned together, goofing off. Or navigating being stuck with one of her toxic exes. Or just needing alone time after moving in together. Thankfully, these two have learned enough over the last two seasons not to get derailed by whatever Season Three throws at them, even as family chaos mounts.
The result is ten episodes that actually move their relationship forward. They figure some stuff out! About themselves and about what being a couple means to them. And when this season delivers a mid-run big moment, it feels emotional and earned. Despite the repetitive second season and these characters’ limitations, it’s easy to get swept up here and feel real joy for these two.
Fans of will-they/won’t-they tension need not worry: show creator Erin Foster hasn’t forgotten about you. This season sees Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Esther (Jackie Thon) separated and dating. They both get love interests (and duds), including some with real spark, duplicating the heat of Noah and Joanne’s first kiss.
Some choices here feel strange, particularly in Esther’s arc, with the show pairing her with a much older man. Maybe Foster is trying to duplicate the obstacles Joanne and Noah faced by pairing Esther with her own new beau. But without real exploration, it feels like short shrift for the show’s most dynamic Jewish woman character. That is a step back after the second season did some work to address the first season’s stereotypes.
Esther remains interesting but secondary here, mostly a plot vehicle for the two gentile sisters. Likewise, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh) lives in the demanding Jewish mother role, making unseemly demands on the new couple even as she becomes a bit more accepting of Joanne. Thankfully, Sarah Silverman makes guest appearances, offering a model of Jewish womanhood not defined by the Roklov brothers (or romance at all), but by her role as a rabbi and faith leader in her own right.
And that’s not the only place where “Nobody Wants This” emphasizes the women’s careers. Morgan (Justine Lupe, stealing the show) gets a big career arc, while Joanne gets a smaller one as one sister’s career takes off, while the other’s falters.
The show perhaps succeeds the most this season by charting personal growth. Both Williams sisters started the Netflix series as self-absorbed, difficult people who were totally comfortable hurting whoever was in their way. Sometimes their terribleness is delightful; Morgan gets plenty of fun, petty moments this season that showcase Lupe’s comedic chops.
But both sisters also grow, realizing, at least in part, that their old ways no longer serve them. Morgan has to learn things the hard way, while Joanne grows in her relationship with Noah. In one particularly meaningful sequence, she meets a doppelganger of her former self and eventually learns important lessons about how she’s changing by looking in this fun-house mirror.
By the end of the season, Joanne makes it clear she is working to be a better person, and that her love for Noah (and herself, and her family) inspires her to do it. This simple idea—that it’s not love for love’s sake, but for bringing out the best in each other—elevates the show.
“Nobody Wants This” always promised more than romance: it wanted to grapple with ideas of faith and morality. Sometimes that was just window dressing meant to distract us from Brody and Bell’s chemistry or the delight of watching Morgan act so badly. But in season three, we finally get to see a love that’s more than just sexy or even romantic. We see a love that does what love does best: ask more of us. And that’s something to celebrate.
Full season screened for review. Currently streaming on Netflix.
