The Netflix rom-com series Nobody Wants This isn’t exactly known for surprises. It’s a charming show about a messy podcaster, Joanne (Kristen Bell), who falls in love with hot rabbi Noah (Adam Brody). Plenty of challenges come their way, but in Season 3, the pair are firmly engaged, and Joanne is preparing to convert to Judaism while they begin planning their wedding.
The effortlessly watchable third season comes to a head in its excellent finale, which throws a genuine curveball and delivers one of TV’s best surprises this year.
As the 10th and final episode begins, Joanne is preparing for her Mikveh, the final step in her conversion process. It’s a symbolic ritual bath that acts as a cleansing, freeing one of the deeds of their past so they can forge a new life. (And yes, though a Mikveh is traditionally done in a bath, the ocean is permissible since it’s considered a natural spring.) After the ritual, Joanne’s conversion will be complete.
Rabbi Eden (Sarah Silverman) takes Joanne and Noah out onto the beach, amid all the fighting, to start the Mikveh. Joanne is more than happy to leave the drama behind and make this big change. After utter chaos comes total serenity.
It marks a major shift from the woman Joanne was in Season 1. She was strictly agnostic and didn’t even know what Shabbat was. She had no interest in organized religion, but through her relationship with Noah, she’s seen how important it is to him, and how important it is for her, too.
“I wanna see the world the way that you do,” she tells him. “But I’m not just converting for me or for you. I’m converting for the family we’re going to make, too.” She wants the kind of family she never had, and believes that with Judaism, and with Noah, she can achieve that.
Joanne walks into the ocean with a spring in her step. At this moment, she’s completely away from the shouting in the house. Kristen Bell is wonderful here, radiating with excitement and opportunity as she completes the Mikveh and becomes Jewish, ready for the next phase of her life with Noah. The camera closes in on her bright smile, full of hope and wonder.
That’s precisely where you—and admittedly, I—would expect Nobody Wants This to end the season.
Instead, she comes out of the water and shares a warm embrace with Noah. The rabbi advises them to take a moment and enjoy before returning to the chaos that awaits them inside. Noah has a spark of inspiration: on the beach, with just the two of them, he wants to marry Joanne right here and now.
It’s quite a shock. The vast majority of Joanne and Noah’s storyline in Season 3 has been preparing for a wedding, and considering they’re in the heat of preparation in the finale, you’d expect the next season to end with a big glorious wedding, not this one.
“It’s gonna be a controversial choice,” Noah says, and he’s not kidding. His mother, in particular, is not going to be happy. But all Noah and Joanne want is each other, family be damned.
And in a way, viewers are damned too, because the episode ends just as their private wedding begins. But ultimately, it’s a wonderful choice. It’s a moment with two people who want nothing more than to be together and marry away from everyone else, so it makes sense we shouldn’t get to see it, either. Even if it stops us from getting a legendary sitcom wedding (of which there have been so many), it’s a choice that feels right at the moment.
It does, however, leave some big questions for a potential Season 4 that may go unanswered. Netflix has yet to renew the show, though considering it’s once again at the top of the viewing charts, renewal seems likely. Series creator And Erin Foster told Parade that “there’s more story to tell.”
Continuing, Foster said, “There’s those next steps as people who are not in their 20s, getting married, and you’re starting off already kind of behind everyone else. I experienced that when I got married; I was 37, and it’s a different experience.”
Foster is referring to Joanne and Noah’s new marriage, which is bound to be rife with complications. Especially since the moment they walk back into the Malibu rental, they’ll have to deal with Bina’s (Tovah Feldshuh) fury over getting married without her, and without all the plans they’ve made.
And what about one of the series most pivotal relationships: Joanne and her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe)? Earlier in the episode, the two share a tender moment on the beach, and Joanne pleads with her to get over her endlessly complicated relationship with Sasha, saying that she needs her to be part of her wedding, only for Joanne to do it without her.
Then there is the still-fraught relationship between Morgan and Noah’s brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons). After what felt like an eternity of will-they-won’t-they, the pair finally hooked up on a trip to New York, though Sasha ultimately rejected Morgan’s offer to give their romance a serious shot.
Another big finale development: After rejecting Morgan, Sasha sleeps with his ex-wife, Esther (Jackie Tohn), complicating things further. Much of the chaos in the Malibu rental stems from Esther discovering that Sasha slept with Morgan.
Suffice it to say, there are a lot of loose threads to clean up. So perhaps the biggest surprise in Nobody Wants This is that it sidesteps all the drama in favor of a beautiful romantic moment between its two leads.
But if it does come back for Season 4—and it better—they’ve got a lot of explaining to do. It’s gonna get wild.
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