As anyone who has been following along since the Oct. 23 drop date can tell, we’re pretty invested in the new season of “Nobody Wants This.”
When The Hot Rabbi Show premiered on Netflix last year, we had a lot of fun bingeing it, dissecting it, arguing about it and landing on some things we really loved. As everyone knows, to complain is to enjoy and to critique is to engage, so even though we had some big gripes with the show, we were genuinely excited for season two to come out. And we knew what we had to do: Conduct another roundtable of real Jewish women sharing their real Jewish opinions about “Nobody Wants This”!
Five members of the team at Hey Alma and our partner site Kveller all watched the show individually, and then we met up on Slack to discuss. This included: Vanessa Friedman, deputy editor of Hey Alma and Kveller; Evelyn Frick, associate editor of Hey Alma; Avital Dayanim, audience engagement editor and graphic designer of Hey Alma; Lior Zaltzman, deputy managing editor of Kveller; and Daci Platt, audience engagement editor of Kveller.
The first half of our conversation is published here; to read the rest, click over to Kveller!
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.
Vanessa: One of our main feelings at the end of season one was: This show is good for Judaism, bad for Jewish women. Now that we’ve seen season two, what do you think overall?
Evelyn: I think season two is bad. Period. But I think it lays off the stereotypes of Jewish women a bit.
Lior: I think it’s not as bad for Jewish women, but not great for Judaism. Even if, on paper, it sounds like a lot of Jewish things are happening this season, they’re all very skin deep.
Avital: I was going to say, it all felt very shallow and somehow less Jewish than the first season (which didn’t feel very deep or Jewish to begin with).
Daci: The magic of the first season was gone — both as far as Judaism was concerned and as a rom-com.
Lior: I don’t think it’s particularly terrible for Judaism, but I don’t love the way this season portrays certain Jewish spaces — from Noah’s still interfaith-hating former congregation Temple Chai to the new progressive Temple Ahava.
Daci: None of the Jewish spaces looked good. And I think their answer to the feedback of Jewish women being portrayed in a negative light was to make everyone more insufferable.
Avital: I truly had to watch all scenes with Kristen Bell set to double speed because it was so infuriating.
Lior: Is this season bad for women, period?
Daci: Not just women! I think the person I disliked the most was Rabbi Noah.
Lior: Yeah, true. Actually he and Dr. Andy are the worst.
Evelyn: Totally agreed, Daci. So much of what made season one work, it seems, was the shiny newness of it all. Now that we’re settled into this world, the writers didn’t know what to do with it. And I feel like they mostly abandoned Jewish tradition, the podcast, Noah’s parents, and the Jewish community in favor of… not moving the plot forward at all.
Vanessa: Daci, please talk more about why you disliked Rabbi Noah.
Daci: I’m so glad you asked. First of all, I hate his beard.
Avital: Too straggly?
Evelyn: 1000%.
Lior: I do think he’s less hot with the beard. It’s giving more Tevye than David Beckham, if that makes sense. Not that Tevye can’t be sexy but…
Evelyn: Sorry to Adam Brody.
Daci: But mostly, I hate him as a boyfriend. I don’t like how he insisted Joanne celebrate her mom’s birthday. I get they were trying to show how pro-family he was, but I just wanted him to back off! His behavior on the Valentine’s Day episode was just pure cringe.
Vanessa: Definitely, a lot of what I felt they were trying to portray as “family man” came off as bossy, domineering or insincere.
Evelyn: It was whiplash-inducing to see Noah be so emotionally intelligent last season and this season he’s like, “All women are the same.”
Vanessa: I felt that way about a few characters. What does everyone think about Esther now? Esther of this season seemed entirely unrelated to Esther of last season, to me.
Evelyn: Even the Esther of the first half of season two was unrelated to Esther of second half of season two.
Avital: I feel like she had no consistent arc — like the writers had no idea where to take Esther.
Daci: Yes! I think Esther’s changes were also related to the feedback they received. Like, “make her bossy but in a cute way!”
Lior: I think she is bossy in a cute way at certain points this season but if you want to make her have some kind of character breakdown we need MORE. Like, I don’t feel like I know enough about Esther.
Vanessa: It was so frustrating to see this character I actually really like sort of… have a different version of herself every scene?
Daci: That being said she’s my favorite and I would watch an Esther spinoff. Every line in this show I laughed at was an Esther line (or a Sasha line).
Avital: Esther is the only character I could tolerate.
Lior: I love Esther and I think she looks great with bangs.
Avital: I also liked the bangs! They were hating on the bangs.
Evelyn: As a viewer, it felt like the writers wrote multiple versions of the season and then Frankenstein’s monstered them together. In the first half, Esther still hates Joanne and loves Sasha and in the second, she loves Joanne and hates Sasha. It’s just inexplicable to me.
Vanessa: When Esther and Rebecca sit down to chat late in the season and Esther confesses she’s not really into her marriage anymore I genuinely had to pause and check which characters I was watching because it seemed so random.
Lior: So random! They were so cute together the whole first half of the season and then what happened?
Vanessa: I LOVE the idea of exploring the trials and tribulations of a long-term marriage. I LOVE diving deeper into how hard it is to deal with an overbearing mother-in-law like Bina. But that… isn’t what the show did?
Lior: No, it wasn’t at all. There was potential there to have an interesting Esther storyline but it felt disjointed.
Avital: Right. Is that emotional distance supposed to be rooted in the baby dilemma or something else entirely?
Evelyn: I think maybe that’s what the show was going for? But it wasn’t connected well.
Daci: Agreed, the baby plot felt so flip-floppy but there was no throughline.
Lior: I do love the Rebecca/Esther relationship though and I wanted more.
Vanessa: Yes! Give us a Rebecca/Esther buddy comedy!
Avital: Speaking of disjointed, did anyone else feel put off by the random guest stars appearing for two minutes in an episode and then never again?
Evelyn: Extremely put off.
Lior: Yeah! Where was Darcy C’arden this whole season, just on the floor in episode one.
Evelyn: What do you mean Alex Karpovsky had like 5 lines?
Vanessa: A waste!
Lior: I know, I wanted more Big Noah, less Dr. Andy.
Evelyn: Leighton Meester was the only guest star they didn’t waste.
Lior: Leighton Meester was fun.
Vanessa: Correct, and I could’ve used even more of her.
Avital: I did chuckle at Noah’s, “She’s not my type.”
Lior: Yeah what a fun meta moment.
Daci: I think Kate Berlant was my favorite, but I wanted more of her.
Evelyn: Oh I HATED Kate Berlant’s character.
Vanessa: I also hated Kate Berlant’s character.
Evelyn: I love Kate Berlant though.
Vanessa: Same.
Lior: I don’t like any of the Temple Ahava characters, and I love Seth Rogen and Kate Berlant as actors and creators.
Vanessa: What did we think about Temple Ahava in general?
Evelyn: As someone who goes to a progressive shul that is still religiously serious and rigorous, Temple Ahava made my blood boil.
Lior: It was just making a mockery of progressive Jewish spaces.
Evelyn: I know TV isn’t reality, but it makes it seem like the only two options are Conservative, observant to a tee, and not accepting of interfaith couples or progressive Reconstructionist/Renewal/Reform but not serious about Judaism.
Daci: I could 100% see how a viewer with casual knowledge of Judaism would take that away.
Avital: For a show that’s seemingly anti a “right” way to observe Judaism, it seemed to mock both sides of the spectrum in a way that felt bizarre and not nuanced.
Lior: There was a way more meaningful and deeply felt way to show that not all Jewish spaces are right for everyone than to just make this vapid, pop-culture-obsessed place that has no spiritual content.
Vanessa: I was comparing this to “Long Story Short” and how different the jokes (about Judaism!) feel in each show, and I can’t really put my finger on why, but it’s stark.
Daci: “Long Story Short” speaks way more explicitly negatively about Judaism but somehow still feels less rude.
Lior: Because Raphael Bob-Waksberg seems to love and understand the subtleties of Judaism and that’s really felt in that show.
Avital: God bless “Long Story Short.”
Lior: Truly, thank you.
Avital: Can we talk about the Purim party?
Lior: Yes. Where is the mishloach manot? Where is the megillah? There was like one plate of hamantaschen! No one is drunk!
Evelyn: What the HELL is a shadow self?
Avital: To be fair, my therapist loves to talk about the shadow self.
Daci: Do people actually think all these things about Purim? Like taking this deeper meaning from it?
Evelyn: The whole part about Purim being a time when people feel closer to Judaism and when inner selves come out was… so crazy. Like yes, Queen Esther had to hide her true identity. We get it.
Lior: I mean, I think if he had taken two more sentences to explain the Purim story maybe it would have made a bit more sense.
Evelyn: But like… Purim is when you get drunk. It’s really not that deep in the party celebration aspect.
Daci: OK thank you, I was like, did I miss that day in religious school?
Lior: No his whole rabbinical interpretation was weird, agreed.
Avital: Also, Ilan’s Haman costume… Where was the hat???
Daci: The hat is the most important part!! Even my 2-year-old knows that!
Avital: That was NOT the Haman I know.
Evelyn: His costume was 1000% from Amazon.
Lior: Where were the groggers?
Avital: Also, Noah says “Mazel everyone!” and not “Chag Sameach” after his speech?
Lior: MAZEL?! MAZEL?!
Vanessa: We must discuss Lynn and her conversion plotline. I insist.
Avital: It started as a joke, which I really hated.
Lior: When she said “I was at the mountain” I cringed so hard.
Daci: “There’s no point to it” — my feelings about a lot of this season.
Evelyn: I was a little annoyed at first that she kept saying she was Jewish pre-conversion, but I really came around. She is clearly very devoted to converting and became a better mom from her studies of Judaism.
Lior: I liked it a lot for her in the later episodes, but in the Purim episode I was so mad.
Vanessa: That’s really beautiful, Evelyn. To be honest I think Lynn is my favorite Jewish woman of the season.
Evelyn: It does beg the question… why couldn’t they have given Joanne a meaningful conversion moment?
Daci: I think my issue is with the pipeline from joke to reality. Lynn having a random lightbulb moment felt true to her character and maybe even a little funny. But it didn’t feel realistic for her to keep going with it.
Evelyn: I think I always need to remind myself that people converting to Judaism deserve so much grace because it’s so hard and complicated and of course you will get things wrong. And it’s OK to be excited.
Daci: I do agree, once it progressed it turned into a nice story!
Vanessa: It all really fits with Lynn’s character. Like it felt way more congruent than any other character’s arc this season, to me.
Lior: Yeah, she is really sweet this season. She’s still super quirky but becoming a better person and mom.
Daci: So as far as the depiction of Jewish women goes, Lynn helps this season.
Avital: Joanne, meanwhile, is whinier than ever and a horrible sister.
Daci: This is what I’m saying about how they just made everyone worse! Am I an Unfun Esther that I think keying a car for funsies is out of line??
Lior: The biggest Jewish win of this season is that Dr. Andy is not Jewish.
Evelyn: I was genuinely worried for Morgan about Dr. Andy. Like a therapist abusing his power is actually not at all funny to me and very stressful.
Avital: Yeah the emotional manipulation Dr. Andy subplot was so downplayed???
Lior: I couldn’t stand the Dr. Andy storyline. It also makes therapists look so bad. It’s so scary! And abusive!
Vanessa: It was awful. And seemed to be played for laughs, which was disappointing.
Lior: It’s not funny at all! For a therapist to break your trust like that…
Evelyn: It makes me question the base reality of the world of “Nobody Wants This.”
Click here to continue reading our thoughts on Bina, The Yenta Speech and Sasha’s mullet.
