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!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think “Nobody Wants This” just gave us our first Jewish baby naming TV episode ever?! Exciting stuff, but we’ll get to that in a sec, because first we have to talk about Esther’s new look.
That’s right, Esther got bangs (!!!) and she looks like a 70s Jewess baddie in this episode with big hoop earrings and a knit sleeveless top. Esther looks fire, I need this entire fit, but also, we all know what bangs mean — a character crisis is about to occur. I have full faith in Esther, though, and I think she’ll weather through it… but she might need more than just this season to come through the other side.
But back to the baby naming!
While bowling with Joanne, Esther and Sasha, Noah announces he got his first post Temple Chai gig, a “Brit Bat” aka a baby naming. Noah describes it as “a ritual where Jewish parents reveal the name of their child and its significance” — a very legit basic explanation. Joanne wants to go to see her hot rabbi in action and to learn more about Judaism and asks if she can tag along — we love a supportive partner! But when Noah reveals that this baby naming is for a woman named Abby Kaplan, also known as social media influencer Abby Loves Smoothies, she realizes it’s her old middle school enemy. Turns out Abby cut the hair of Joanne’s Felicity American Girl Doll at a preteen sleepover — which anyone who has ever owned an American Girl Doll knows is an unforgivable crime.
Noah is concerned that the past drama might affect his gig, but Joanne promises that she’ll be good.
At the bar, away from the men, Esther reveals to Joanne in secrecy that she’s worried she might be pregnant — hence the identity crisis/bangs. Is Bina’s master plan bearing fruit (literally)? We shall see.
Speaking of kids, at a cereal-chomping get-together with Morgan (why is everyone always eating in this show, and why is that maybe the most Jewish thing about it?), Joanne cyberstalks Abby’s many maternity shoots and muses about what a great dad Noah would make — they both want kids, and they’re both down in theory to have them together, she says. Morgan wonders if Joanne has taken into account what having kids with a rabbi would be like, which is truly a legit question and an important conversation to have. The sisters’ concerns seem a little surface level: “No bacon, no Christmas,” Morgan laments, and “Praying for fun?” Joanne is worried about the lack of Santa.
When asking Noah about baby naming ceremonies on their way to Abby’s house, Joanne gets a primer into one of the first Jewish traditions that may affect their future children. “As Ashkenazi Jews, we traditionally name a baby after a relative who’s died,” Noah tells her, and gives her an example: “My deda’s name was Alexander so I always planned on naming my future child Alexander. I could also choose a name that starts with an A.” Joanne is not exactly feeling this, but it is, once again, a pretty accurate rudimentary explainer, so love that for this show. (Btw, if you’re looking for a baby name, we have an entire Jewish baby name database here at Kveller!)
They arrive, and Joanne cringes at Abby’s domestic existence, telling Noah she doesn’t want any of it. At the center of this episode is her getting comfortable with the idea of the quaint and traditional picture of the future with Noah — kids, a house, stability — at the expense of being a rebel and focused on drama and American Doll-induced revenge.
As they walk through the door, Abby recognizes Joanne right away — and we recognize Abby too! She’s played by Leighton Meester, Adam Brody’s IRL wife. Later in the episode, Joanne notes that she’s pretty and Noah replies with a funny wink of, “she’s not my type.”
It’s clear that Abby doesn’t understand why Joanne and Morgan and her stopped being “LYLAS” — “love you like a sister,” and asks Joanne to invite Morgan to the baby naming, which she eventually does.
I have to say, for his first non Temple Chai gig, I’m a little disappointed in Noah’s level of prep, especially for something as important as a baby naming. He doesn’t know how many children Abby and her husband Gabe (whose name he will later get wrong at the beginning of the ceremony, cringe!) even have! Or anything about Abby and Gabe’s family! Yet it’s also clear that Abby is way more focused on her life as an influencer than the Jewish gravity of this moment, and when Noah tries to dig deep for baby naming ceremony lore to share, she recruits him to take selfies instead.
Joanne is still a little preoccupied with her hate for Abby, even though she’s promised Noah she’ll be on good behavior at the baby naming. It becomes clear that this hate really has to do with the fact that Abby, unlike Joanne and Morgan, had a happy, well-adjusted childhood. Joanne calls Morgan from the bathroom where she’s stealing tampons and using Abby’s serum, which is the same serum Joanne actually uses. There’s some intense Estée Lauder Advanced Repair product placement in this season and so I feel like I have to tell you that Estée was indeed, Jewish.
Anyway, Morgan shows up at Abby’s in a leather dress and black boots which she does not take off in Abby’s shoeless home, a shanda, just as the ceremony is about to begin. She confronts Abby about the doll situation but Abby says she has no idea what Morgan is talking about.
The ceremony happens and it is… well… fine. The baby’s name is Afternoon Aliza, and while the Hebrew word for Afternoon, “tzhoraim,” is on signs across the home, Noah doesn’t actually mention it. He does wax romantic about the nature of naming your kid Aliza (Abby’s grandmother’s name), a name that means joyful in Hebrew, and that giving her that name is a hope for her to enjoy life. It’s cute but basic. He introduces her as “Afternoon Aliza bat Gabriel ve’Avigayil,” using the Hebrew version of her parents’ names. I guess explaining what a Hebrew name is was too much for “Nobody Wants This.” I suppose I can understand that.
Even if the speech felt lackluster to me, Joanne and the rest of the room look at Noah with stars in their eyes, so I guess he did good. As Joanne tells him later: “You named the shit out of that baby.”
In fact, Gabe loves it all so much that he tells Noah he thinks he would be a great fit for his temple, which is looking for a new rabbi — it looks like Noah might get an actual full-time gig out of this.
Morgan drags Joanne upstairs after the naming, even though Joanne protests, “What if they do the chair lifting? I really like the chair lifting.” The sisters end up in the nursery, where Morgan uses baby Afternoon’s moisturizer and hopes to mess with Abby, while Joanne says she came here to “support Noah.” Abby does end up finding them at the nursery, and fesses up to the doll hair-cutting. She gives Morgan Afternoon’s American Girl Doll to make up for it in a pretty awkward exchange. Joanne apologizes for making fun of her for being happy; Abby confesses that she got Noah to officiate the baby naming because she is a fan of their podcast, and they ask her to come on the pod.
Joanne finds Noah and tells him she’s realized that she wants to be an adult with him. “I used to think I was so anti-establishment, but as it turns out I am establishment,” she says, and it’s a line I’m sure many of us have felt before. She romances him by fantasizing out loud about couple’s stationary and him having to “check with the boss” before making plans to go on boys’ trips in the future. It’s a silly — but honestly, pretty swoon-worthy — moment.
The wins
We get our first TV baby naming and a very nice primer on what it is, along with some Ashkenazi naming traditions.
The icks
But I wish… I wish it were a better baby naming ceremony.
