This recap includes spoilers for season two of “Nobody Wants This.” If you’d like to share your opinion about this episode or any aspect of season two, subscribe to our Substack, Jewish TV Club and join us in the chat!
Episode two, “Leave It at the Tree,” is named after a Matzah Baller tradition we see Noah enact in this episode. Before a game, you take all the things that are preoccupying or bothering you and leave them at a tree by the JCC where the team plays! One of the gags of this episode is that Joanne mistakes this for a Jewish Tradition rather than a Sports Superstition, but I will say, trees and nature are such a big part of Judaism and I kind of love that the big emotional moment of this episode happens by one.
As the episode opens, we’re back at Temple Chai, where the whole congregation is drinking the Big Noah Kool-Aid, including Noah’s Matzah Ballers teammate Lenny. Even Ruth, the older congregant who was rooting for Our Hot Rabbi Noah (it is very confusing to be writing about two rabbi Noah, but I shall refer to Brody’s character as Hot Noah, in accordance with Netflix’s marketing MO) ends up finding Big Noah’s sermons about loving one’s neighbor “transcendent.” Personally, I can’t say that Big Noah’s sermon is the most inspiring rabbinical speech I’ve ever heard — has anyone at this synagogue checked out Rabbi Sharon Brous lately?! — but sure, OK.
Of course, there’s one person who hates it all: Bina, Rabbi Noah Roklov’s stern Jewish mama, played by Tovah Feldshuh. If looks could kill, I think she could beam Big Noah out of existence. She tries to trash-talk him with her son, Hot Noah, but when she laments the fact that Hot Noah is no longer coming to Shabbat dinner, the (Shabbat dinner) tables get turned against her. Noah confronts her about not inviting Joanne to Shabbat, and when Bina tells him that Shabbat is for family, he says: “Bina Yelena Roklov, is your facialist family?” (Which, honestly, yes??) But also, love Hot Noah for his clear boundaries here.
Bina is clearly mad at Joanne, not just for not being Jewish, but also for allegedly ruining Noah’s career. Joanne seems to know this and wants to confront Bina. At the tree, ahead of a Matzah Baller game, Noah lets go of his judgy-ness toward Joanne for encouraging Morgan to scratch a Cybertruck that almost ran a woman with a stroller over at the garage where they parked, and Joanne gets an idea to write a confrontational email to Bina.
Morgan, who is there because her therapist told her that every time she goes on a date it is “a way of collecting data” and she wants to collect this data from Lenny, with whom she was being set up with at the disastrous dinner party, helps her draft. Esther also volunteers to help them out because she “speaks Bina” (and is also apparently legit friends with them now? I guess?).
Of course, if you say Bina three times she magically appears, and so who should walk through the JCC basketball court doors at that very moment, wearing her shiva black finest and slicked back hair, “Greased Lightnin'” style? It’s giving Jewish mom at an event meets The Fonz (Henry Winkler is Jewish after all). Joanne tries to do her confrontation IRL but Bina insists that she’s the one who “ruined” Noah’s career and accuses her of keeping him away from their family. Joanne stands her ground and says that it’s Bina, not her, keeping their family apart.
Esther gets bummed out about Morgan and Sasha calling each other “loser” and feels left out, which makes Sasha leave the game to be with his cute leopard-cardigan-wearing wife. The two later have a moment that involves a weed gummy at the bench where they first got together. “Marriage is hard,” they commiserate.
In the meantime, Morgan questions Lenny and he finally acquiesces to her demand for feedback, calling her “severe” and saying that it seems like she’s not really interested in a relationship and that she didn’t take any interest in him at the dinner. “I just want to be in a relationship with a real person,” he tells her.
While Joanne talks to Noah about boycotting Shabbat dinner for her in a heart-melting moment, Bina and Morgan have a moment of their own in the JCC bathroom (a place that certainly has seen lots of moments). The two bond about the open criticism they just received, Bina from Joanne, Morgan from Lenny. Bina says she admires Morgan for not caring what people think, and says that she thinks Lenny’s words bothered her not because of the fact that they’re what he thinks, but because she also thinks they’re true. Morgan, in turn, tells Bina that Joanne wanted to break-up with Noah rather than to put his career at risk, a fact that Bina seems to have been unaware of until that moment.
When Joanne finds out that Morgan spilled the beans she’s delighted, because she gets to be the bigger person without having to show off that she was the bigger person — but now Bina knows. Bina, Noah, and Joanne find themselves all at the tree and Joanne insists that she and Bina can “leave it at the tree,” as per “Jewish tradition!” Noah has to break it to her that the tradition comes from Shaq (who makes the best Sukkot jokes, to be fair) and not Judaism. Joanne, lightly embarrassed but mostly undeterred, then urges Noah to let go of his own frustrations at the tree. He tries to avoid it, but eventually gives in and vents about how jealous and angry he is about the Big Noah situation.
All this shows Bina just how good Joanne is for Noah, and gets her a begrudging Shabbat dinner invitation, of course.
Back at their bench, Sasha and Esther talk about their relationship. Esther gets sad about the distance between them. “We’re still the same people who fell in love at this table,” Sasha tells her, and the two find a way to still feel hope about the future of their relationship (the gummy helps, for sure).
At the JCC post-game, Lenny walks Bina to her car and the two admire Joanne and Noah from afar. “Those two are really tied together,” Lenny tells Bina. In spite of her apparent growth in this episode, she responds in true villain fashion: “And I have scissors.”
The wins
Noah saying, “In my perfect world, we’re all at Shabbat together,” melted my heart.
Sasha continues to be a mensch.
Bina’s fit is definitely a Jewish fashion win.
The icks
Unfortunately, it seems that Bina continues to be the villain of our story and we don’t really get a lot more depth from her here. I think Tovah Feldshuh is amazing in this role but it’s still giving very tired Jewish mom as bad guy trope.
Also, Jews are still bad at sports. Boo!
