(courtesy IMP Awards)
Finding home is something we all dream of.
And not in the sense that we stumble across the property of our dreams at weekend auctions or we have a Dorothy moment, desperately trying to get home to whatever our Kansas is by clicking our heels; no, that glorious safe and content sense that we have the one person who sees the real us, knows who we intrinsically are without bells, whistles or filters (and yeah, we were doing that long before social media, trust me) and who loves us, whatever comes down the existential pike.
It’s a feeling like no other, and it’s one that sex and dating podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell) has, or at least first acknowledges the existence of, with her hot, sweet, caring rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) later in the latest season of Nobody Wants This., a show so clever nuanced and humourously thoughtful that it turns out that quite a few people actually do want this.
After ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- splitting after for about an hour at the end of season two, and then just as quickly realising that they would choose each other in a heartbeat every single damn time, Joanne and Noah are moving in together at the start of the latest batch of ten perfectly pitched episodes, and while the gloss wears off a little as it always does as each other’s less pretty domestic habits emerge, it’s clear that the cosy couple are definitely meant to be together.
The really lovely thing is that this sense of forever togetherness isn’t one of those overwrought things you see in poorly done romcoms or soapsy melodramas; it’s the real thing, that calm, assured sense that arguments aside and moments of butting heads taken out of the equation, because they will always happen no matter how much you like each other, this is your person and you feel safe and loved and cared for with them.
For some people fond of a cynical eyeroll, and yes, sometimes they are needed, that kind of love is impossible, the creation of wistful souls clutching Mills & Boon novels and hoping Meg Ryan gets back into romcoms sooner rather than later, but Nobody Wants This. season three makes a fairly convincing case for the fact that finding the right person is like finding home and that once moved in, the odds of you moving out are slim to none.
That doesn’t mean that all your troubles cease; it just means that when they come, whether it’s in the form of an overbearing Jewish mother-in-law, Noah’s mother Bina (Tovah Feldshuh who is in fabulously fine form) trying to plan a major event for you or various family members testing the boundaries of your tolerances, you have a port in the storm when life’s troubles strike.
The beauty of this season of Nobody Wants This. is that it manages to firmly establish Noah and Joanne in their domestic idyll without draining the show of all its life and vitality.
That’s quite a challenge since we’re long past the gushy, dreamy novelty of the first season‘s meet-cute and the getting-to-know-you ups and downs of the second season, and it would be easier to switch off and think all the fun has gone.
But it hasn’t and while that’s partly thanks to an unfailingly quick and witty script which establishes that Joanne and Noah are quietly and hilarious super cute and whipsmart with each other, even well into their relationship, meaning they still really like each other and are enjoying each other’s still fresh company, and Bell and Brody remains right at the top of their brilliantly good screen chemistry game, that Nobody Wants This. is more than capable of growing and pivoting, much like the relationship at its heart.
That results in two of the ensemble stepping far more into the spotlight.
Noah’s brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Joanne’s sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) have been steadily growing closer as friends, and while Sasha has been scrupulous about keeping them in the “friend zone”, that all starts to change in season three when he and wife Esther (Jackie Tohn) spilt up and start seeing other people.
It’s super awkward at first for both Esther and Sasha who were each other’s first loves and haven’t known a world where they aren’t a couple, but as ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- Esther meets and finds Julian (Steven Weber), her rich home buying client turned boyfriend, Sasha finds himself having to admit that he is definitely and emphatically crushing on Morgan.
Yeah, yeah, we know that Nobody Wants This. risks becoming some sort of weird women’s magazine story-of-the-week narrative, but the show is too smart and well-written to fall into that sudsy trap, and while there is swooning and yes, a possibly ill-judged and all-but-inevitable night of s*x in New York City as Morgan’s podcasting career goes viral, things don’t quite go as planned.
But they do, and they’re cute and sweet and funny and groundedly romantic, and their will-they-won’t-they vibe gives Nobody Wants This. a fun injection of meet-cute tingles all over again, nicely contrasting the established love of Joanne and Noah who take a BIG step (no, not the moving in one; the, you know …) with a newly admitted-to love that is till messily finding its feet and isn’t sure what it wants to be.
There are some cool other dynamics at play, and it’s enjoyable to see that while Bina continues continues to terrorise and delight in all her emotionally manipulative glory, that Joanne’s divorced parents, Lynn (Stephanie Faracy) and Henry (Michael Hitchcock) are getting lots more to do, giving them a chance to grow as characters just as their on-screen daughters stretch their more mature wings too.
In a season where Joanne converts in a way that feel authentic and sincere, and Noah returns to the temple from which he came, and they both know beyond a shadow of a doubt that home is, and no emotionally empty bumper stickers here, with each other, Nobody Wants This. continues to amuse, delight and make the soul feel like this show is home and life can be funny, challenging, cute and smart way past the meet-cute and well into the established joy of being together, come what may.
Nobody Wants This. streams on Netflix.