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!
I’ve always dreamed of a Purim TV episode. So I have to give credit to “Nobody Wants This” — in the sixth episode of season two, the show finally delivers with a Purim party. It’s also the first time Joanne and Noah blend their family — Ilan and Bina will be meeting Lynn and Henry for the first time.
“Purim is the celebration of Queen Esther who saved the Jews from this evil dude Haman’s plot to destroy them,” is how Noah explains the holiday to Joanne when they go shopping for costumes. It’s the basic gist of it, for sure, but we don’t get any deeper into the Purim story in which Esther hides her Jewish identity to marry King Ahasuerus, to help save her people, which is why it maybe feels disjointed when Noah tells her that aside from just being fun, “the idea is that anything can happen and that what’s hidden might become revealed.” Joanne tries to make a joke about “Eyes Wide Shut” but Noah shuts it down saying it’s “less orgy and more personal insight.”
He continues, not very subtly: “People feel more themselves… or more connected to Judaism… sometimes people even discover Judaism within themselves for the very first time. So what’s hidden becomes revealed.”
Joanne takes this as a hint about her conversion journey, and quickly distracts Noah with a joke about crop tops instead. Noah, who is nervous about his upcoming interview at Temple Ahava, asks Joanne for a night off to prepare. She takes it as him wanting some distance after her apparent rejection of the conversion conversation rather than just a reasonable demand for a person preparing for a job interview.
Joanne then spends her night reading Malala’s autobiography, commenting on Abby’s Instagram, eating peanut butter sandwiches, putting on face masks and sending Noah a message on IG that gets left on read (to be fair, that is alarming, but I don’t know how much Noah “gets” IG). She finally ends up at Morgan and Dr. Andy’s place, where our unethical therapist is the one who tells her that Noah’s request may just be “someone who is honestly communicating their needs.” I really hate agreeing with Dr. Andy so much.
It’s the day of Noah’s job interview! We all get to meet Ahava’s head rabbi, Neil, who’s played by — you guessed it — Seth Rogen. Honestly, I can’t believe he hasn’t played a rabbi before.
Rabbi Neil was apparently raised conservative but created Temple Ahava (the Hebrew word for love and also the name of that Dead Sea brand you see everywhere) as a way to make Judaism more fun and less rigid. We can take the words that were given to us thousands of years ago and translate them into modern ideals, Rabbi Neil says, which does seem to grate Noah a little because he is a big fan of the actual words (even if we really don’t hear him say them that much). Neil agrees that they are the best words.
Turns out, Neil’s not really there to interview Rabbi Noah because apparently, he’s already a fan. “You’re the hot rabbi,” he tells him and adds that his Tu Bishvat sermon changed the way he thinks about mourning. I do believe Rabbi Neil might mean Tisha B’av, because Tu Bishvat is the very fun Jewish New Year of Trees, while Tisha B’av is a Jewish day of mourning. Rabbi Noah was apparently on Temple Ahava’s vision board and Neil tells him that “we’d love to have you here — if you’ll ahava us” (get it??).
The Jewish dad jokes do feel accurate, at least.
Neil also drops a quick tidbit of interest: his wife is not Jewish and she can’t bake or pronounce the word challah! The two rabbis kvetch, or maybe kvell, about that and about the lack of acceptance of interfaith relationships in their religion at large.
But back to the Purim party! Things do indeed become revealed, though not the things anyone might be hoping for. Bina, who is dressed like Queen Elizabeth the Second, doesn’t exactly understand why she and her husband need to meet Joanne’s parents if she won’t convert, but Noah, who is dressed like a very adorable vampire, says that they will, pu pu pu, be in her life long-term. Bina is also skeptical about Temple Ahava, which, fair.
Joanne, dressed as Cinderella (in a nod to Kristen Bell’s Disney princess gig?), gets to the party late after her and Noah’s night apart; she is still feeling super sore about it. Esther’s crisis continues — instead of donning her traditional Esther costume, she’s in a sexy latex kitten costume. Sasha thinks it’s hot, but is also disturbed. Miriam — in her literal one appearance this season — is like mom, what are you wearing, which is very teenager. Bina is all double, double, toil and trouble, this is a bad omen for your marriage, I am a villain, etc.
Speaking of toil and trouble, Stephanie Faracy (playing Lynn) reprises her Madonna costume from the movie “Hocus Pocus” for this party — bonus points because Madonna’s Hebrew name is Esther! Henry come dressed as Queen Esther, because he always needs more attention.
When perusing a spread with a paltry amount of hamantaschen (SHAME!), Noah tells Lynn about the belief that every Jewish soul was at Mt. Sinai… and… she exclaims that she was at the mountain. That’s right, the big Jewish revelation is that Lynn feels Jewish and wants to convert! She kvells about it with Ilan while Henry compliments Bina. Joanne hates this, of course, because it just makes her struggles around conversion feel more dire.
Since I must speak of Morgan and Dr. Andy (unfortunately), they’re both at the party as Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman.” Sasha bonds with Dr. Andy because they both played Kenickie Murdoch in productions of “Grease” at their respective high school. I love Sasha so much, but a good judge of character he is not.
Joanne and Noah make up about the night-off kerfuffle, with Noah assuring her that he hates being apart from her and her asking him to call it a “sad night away” instead. Before they leave for their canoodling, Noah makes a speech about Purim and everything being turned upside down, and all the exciting things in life you don’t plan for (much like his relationship with Joanne). Unfortunately, this very run-of-the-mill speech inspires Dr. Andy to propose to Morgan, because he is a toxic love-bomber, sigh.
I don’t always feel for Joanne (she doesn’t want people to feel for her, to be fair) but I do feel genuinely terrible for her in this moment. Her mother gets to feel good about the Jewish conversion she just doesn’t feel ready for, and her sister gets the commitment she just can’t wrangle out of Noah because of said conversion issue. Bell definitely acts the heck out of that heartbreak in this final scene, and in spite of whether Joanne would want it or not — she has my sympathy.
The wins
We got a Purim episode! We got a Purim episode!!! We! Got! A! Purim! Episode!
The icks
Where is the megillah? Where are the mishloach manot? Why does no one seem quite drunk enough? Where are the groggers? No offense, this Purim episode is not that great. Someone send help.
