Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This’ Trades Fairy Tales For Real, Messy Love

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody talk about season two of ‘Nobody Wants This’ on Netflix.

PHOTO BY ERIN SIMKIN/NETFLIX

Netflix’s Nobody Wants This isn’t your typical happily-ever-after. The series broke the glossy rom-com mold for a love story that is far more realistic and honest. Instead of the meet-cute/boy-meets-girl formula viewers have become accustomed to, series creator Erin Foster decided to ditch the cliché and go a more relatable route.

In so doing, Foster’s TV version of modern love has become the perfect example of two people who love each other learning to navigate a myriad of differences without intentionally hurting one another. This show doesn’t shy away from the compromise and chaos it takes to go from a me to a we, but rather embraces the vulnerability and messiness it takes to meet in the middle.

In the classic romantic comedy of yesteryear, boy gets girl, does something to lose girl, and eventually wins her back! Then the credits roll. That toxic pattern led generations of singletons to believe that a painful betrayal was part of finding love. Foster’s smartly written Jewish rom-com, inspired by her real-life love story, doesn’t conform to that narrative.

The highly anticipated ten-episode second season premiered on October 23 and picks up with agnostic podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell) and hot rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) figuring out how to make their relationship work while she decides if converting to Judaism is right for her. The beloved cast returns this season with a few fun newcomers, including Brody’s wife, Leighton Meester, and Seth Rogen.

Foster sat alongside co-showrunner Jenni Konner (she teamed up with Bruce Eric Kaplan for season two) in a sit-down interview to discuss the phenomenon that this show has become.

“My instinct is that it’s about meeting a little bit later in life and not the traditional timeline, and also analyzing those small, real things that come up in a relationship,” explained Foster. “Like, how hard it is to be with someone healthy. That isn’t something we’ve really seen a lot of. Usually, love stories have a lot of toxic beginnings, and then the big win is getting the guy who won’t commit to you to commit. And I just don’t think that’s what people want to see anymore.”

Konner credits Foster’s “incredibly specific” voice for the show’s success. “People respond to the truth of it. I think so many people watch and think, ‘I understand that. I feel that. I’ve felt that. I want to feel that.’ And that comes from the truth and groundedness of this story. And I think that is really appealing to people.”

This show presents its main couple with a very real obstacle. “Most rom-coms are, ‘He lives in New York and she lives in Dallas’ or whatever it is. Okay, well, someone can move. This one has a real problem to solve, and it’s nobody’s fault,” Konner adds. “I think there’s something incredibly romantic in this idea that they both want this so badly. This season is about them both on their own journeys, trying to find the answer and solve this problem themselves and together.”

Bell and Brody spoke in a separate interview about the realities of modern love and dating. “Love and relationships are way more nuanced than have previously been represented in movies and television. I think where Erin’s brilliance came in is that she said, ‘Let me take this foundation of the romantic comedy, but let me infuse it with hyper-realistic moments; moments that almost feel too small to write about, with the backdrop of something very large, like this thing that ostensibly should keep them apart. You can insert any difference, but ultimately the lesson for me is that the things that make us different just pale in comparison in size to the things we have in common.”

The current dating landscape is rife with divisiveness over politics, religion, and lifestyle, to name just a few of the things that do more to keep us apart than bring us together. This reality infuses the series with a multitude of interesting storylines.

“Along every single step in a relationship, you’re figuring out how much of yourself you are willing to give up or compromise,” said Bell, adding that everyone has their must-haves. “My friend Jack used to say, ‘What’s on your pizza when you’re dating someone?’ For me, a huge portion of the pizza is laughter. I’ve got to be laughing. Laughter and goofiness are a huge part. Generosity is a huge part of my pizza. Everyone has their unbreakables, and that’s okay.”

It makes one wonder how many love stories will never come to be because of these must-haves. “Certainly for Noah and probably Joanne as well, had they been on Tinder, they wouldn’t have connected,” said Brody. “He would’ve been like, ‘Yeah, she needs to be Jewish.’”

Justine Lupe, who portrays Joanne’s sister and podcast co-host (and is very much like Foster’s sister, Sara, who is an executive producer on the series), sat down to talk about why this show has struck such a chord with viewers.

This season, Morgan finds something kind of like love with her therapist, Dr. Andy (Arian Moayed), but Lupe concludes that this new relationship is more about her fear of losing her sister.

“I think that we find out that this is a reactionary endeavor, and that she wants so badly to buy into this being something that works, and that there are some missing pieces. She’s processing the realization that this is a real thing that her sister is actually going to go through with, and now Morgan is out on her own,” explained Lupe. “The codependent thing that she had going with her sister is a bit shattered. Morgan’s journey this season is how she copes with that, and does she have the tools?”

There’s another central relationship to this story, albeit one that is a bit blurry around the edges. Morgan and Noah’s brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons), have formed a friendship, which brings up the topic of opposite-sex friendships while one or both people are in a relationship.

Do Sasha and Morgan have more than friendly feelings for one another? Lupe laughed when asked about this, telling me that these are some of her favorite scenes because Simons is one of her best friends. “These are two oddball, strange characters who have a magnetic pull towards each other, and it’s unclear what that draw is, whether it’s a romantic draw or a platonic draw, or something vague that’s kind of in between that.”

Lupe tells me she relates because she’s experienced this. “I’ve had this kind of relationship where I find someone really compelling and I’m not quite sure what the feeling is that I have towards them, but I just feel excited by them and playful around them. I think that the playfulness and the teasing come with a feeling of safety that they have with each other. They can rely on each other in a way that they might not with other people.”

Simons sat alongside Jackie Tohn, who portrays his on-screen wife Esther, and they weighed in on the Morgan-Sasha situation. “This is something I’ve talked about before. I think that no matter what that connection is, romantic, friendly, whatever it is, they have one,” Simons confirmed. “I think that those two characters, despite different upbringings or their worldviews, are very much the same. I think they feel a kinship. It’s clear that there is something there in that they find support in one another, and maybe in ways that they haven’t found with their own families or with their partners.”

Tohn understands how Esther feels about this new friendship and how it’s led to her now questioning her marriage. She also admits that her real-life boyfriend has several female friends that he had before they met, and with whom she’s grown to love. However, she clarified, there’s a difference between those friends that are grandfathered in, and new friends made while already in a relationship.

“When you’re in a relationship for years and then your partner becomes really good friends with a person of the opposite sex, you’re like, ‘What?’ Now you have a new friend you talk to all the time? I want to be more evolved than that, but I feel like, objectively, I’m with Esther a little, where it’s like, ‘That is weird.’ You’re making a new friend who’s a hot woman at this point in your life. Like, what are you doing? Cultivating new friendships feels different,” Tohn admitted.

Nobody Wants This challenges Esther and Sasha this season, with each wondering what could’ve been. Per Simons, “This is very relatable for those who have been married for a long time. It’s normal to wonder if your life turned out the way you’d hoped. Would I have made this choice knowing what I know now? We were perfect for each other back then. Are we perfect for each other now?”

Simons concludes that this realistic rom-com hit the zeitgeist because it poses a crucial question. “The show is examining something very important in just about every adult human’s life, which is how do you navigate romantic relationships?”

For Foster, from day one, the answer to that is with authenticity. “When you talk about real relationship obstacles, we see a lot of, ‘We’re in our sweatpants and wearing our retainers at night.’ There’s that view of what a normal relationship is. And then there’s this toxic, exciting, chaotic version. And most relationships aren’t either of those. Most relationships that have longevity are somewhere in the middle. We want this to feel like a real relationship.”