Nobody Wants This

In the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, Kristen Bell plays an agnostic podcaster, who meets a rabbi, played by Adam Brody. They like each other immediately, but there are some hurdles for them when it comes to being together. The show offers plenty of romantic comedy banter and good chemistry, as well as some pretty deep questions about faith and compatibility. Nobody Wants This just returned for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the series. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Linda Holmes?

  So many things can make it hard to fall in love. You're shy and they're extroverted. You're adventurous and they're cautious. Or maybe you're agnostic and they're a rabbi. That's the premise of Netflix's "Nobody Wants This." The series stars Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, and there's plenty of romantic comedy banter and good chemistry. But there are also some pretty deep questions about faith and compatibility, and they get pretty serious, not only about love, but also about Judaism. The series just came back for a second season, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the show. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about "Nobody Wants This" on Top Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:15Linda Holmes?

  Joining me today is Sarah Ventry. She's NPR's Religion and Spirituality Producer. Hello, Sarah. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to see you.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Hi, Lynda. It's so good to see you, too.

• 2:25Linda Holmes?

  In "Nobody Wants This," Kristen Bell plays Joanne, who makes a podcast about relationships with her sister Morgan. She's played by Justine Loop, who is probably best known for playing Willa on Succession. Then there's Adam Brody, who plays Noah, a rabbi who's recently broken up with the girlfriend his family adored. His closest confidant is his brother Sasha, played by Timothy Simons. You might know him as the tall guy on Veep. When Joanne and Noah meet at a party, they like each other immediately. You're a real-life rabbi?

• 2:58Speaker 04

  It's hot, right?

• 2:59Linda Holmes?

  I mean, sort of. But there are some hurdles for them when it comes to being together, not only for all the usual reasons: insecurities, old business, meddling family, but because Noah's commitments to his Jewish faith and his leadership in his faith community are serious and meaningful, and it's not clear whether he can have a partner who isn't part of those things. "Nobody Wants This" was created by writer and podcaster Erin Foster, based on her story of falling in love with her husband, who's Jewish, which she wasn't when they met. It is streaming on Netflix now. Sarah, this was really super my jam, because I am a romantic comedy person, and I like these leads and their chemistry. My understanding is that

• 3:41Linda Holmes?

  it was a little bit less your jam than my jam. Talk to me about that.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  This is true. So I'm not the biggest fan of romantic comedies, but I really like when they're super weird, or when there's like some sort of quirky, odd, unexpected thing about them, but not in like a quirky, twee way, like in a sort of uncomfortable way. I like discomfort. So I think for me... Look, a lot of Jewish music is sung in harmonic minor key. There's something a little bit sad. There's a little tinge of unexpectedness. I want this in my romantic comedy, particularly when I'm seeing what is billed to me as a hot rabbi romantic comedy.

• 4:24Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, you know, that makes sense to me because like, I'm a fan of both of these performers, Adam Brody and Kristen Bell. I have enjoyed both of them in other things. I think they are both good rom com leads and I enjoyed them a lot together. I think they have terrific chemistry. They are, they've both done other shows where they've done kind of fun back and forth dialogue. And that part of it worked really well here for me, but that's because I am a rom com person and I am a sucker for a banter scene.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Seem to be going through something.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  Oh, no, I'm just in constant need of attention.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  I respect that. I also like attention. I say I don't, but I do.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  You do, right?

• 5:00Speaker 04

  Sorry, I'm cute. I like when people notice.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  There you go. You are cute. I noticed.

• 5:05Linda Holmes?

  In a romantic comedy, you're always going to see people who meet cute, as they say. And one of the things that I think they're going for in this show that is intentional is that these people quickly conclude that they're pretty much perfect for each other, except for this major issue of he's a rabbi and she's not Jewish.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Right. This one major part of not only your profession, but like it's your vocation, it's your identity, it's your everything.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  You're not by chance wrestling with your faith, are you, considering throwing it all away? Because with all of the [BLEEP] and the flirting, you really don't feel like a rabbi.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I know. I play up the Torah bad boy vibe, but uh, no, I'm all in on this thing.

• 5:50Linda Holmes?

  What I did like about it was I don't see a lot of things about anybody whose faith is super, super important to them. And it's not a thing that television tends to be great at or willing to wade into. And it's not presented like this is really just an odd couple thing. And, you know, sure, okay, well, he'll be Jewish and she won't be Jewish and love conquers all and they'll, you know, it's treated more seriously than that. And I did appreciate, I think, that part.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  I did appreciate that part, although there was one sort of really striking thing in that vein that really bothered me that I couldn't quite get past, which is that At some point, he broaches the question of whether or not she may consider conversion as a possible solution to this problem. Religiously speaking, this is not how this conversation should go. I think in practical terms, this is probably how it does go in some relationships.

• 6:49Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Jews actually don't believe in proselytization. In fact, traditionally, if you want to convert to Judaism, the rabbi is supposed to deny you three times. Like, you have to really want it and be really persistent about it.

• 7:01Linda Holmes?

  Oh, I did not know that.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the idea that a rabbi of all people would be the one trying to do it. And there is sort of a moment where he kind of realizes that her, in considering converting, that she's considering it for him, and he kind of says like, oh, but also for you, right? Like, because this is really important and you have to do it for yourself. And it's very clear that she is not in that place. A lot of times when we think about religious people and we see representation of a religious person in TV or movies, the person is either completely secular or like completely on the other end of the spectrum and hyper religious. And so the idea that he's a rabbi, but he's not orthodox, like, he goes to Friday night services and leads a service at temple and then afterwards goes to a bar, like, that

• 7:47Speaker 03

  is a much more kind of liberal, reformed Judaism that we don't see as much of. And so even in that context, the idea that it would be such a problem that he was dating a non-Jew, and then he would go so far as to ask her to convert, when that is like truly not something you're supposed to do, is really, was quite striking to me.

• 8:06Linda Holmes?

  I would tend to suspect that part of what happened in the writing is that the subtleties of this are hard to convey. But I think in a way, that's what the show is getting at, is that ultimately, it's so common for romantic comedies to kind of take the position that like, anything you do for love is noble, right? And I do think the show gets as far as to say, that's not really true. And for both of them, it's a thing where they have to think, like, if you're only converting because you want to marry this person, or because you want to stay with this person, are you really converting at all? Or are you just pretending to convert, in a sense? Like, it's a sort of a, how do you know that you mean it?

• 8:50Linda Holmes?

  Thing that I think they would like to kind of probably deal with more subtly than they ultimately can. But I think that's one of the things the show is trying to be about. But I, I agree with you that they don't entirely get there.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do think that one thing they did well in this respect, though, is that so in religious, like journalism and like scholarly religion, they actually refer to someone like her as a nun, which is N O N E, which means that she is somewhere on the spectrum of atheist or agnostic or spiritual, but not religious.

• 9:25Linda Holmes?

  Okay.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Or like, has a set of beliefs, but they're not really contained. And actually, I would argue that she might not even be any of those things because like, her beliefs seem to be nonexistent and also kind of terrible. Like, I think this is part of what I didn't like about this was that she's actually doesn't seem to me like a very good person. And she doesn't really care about being a good person. And at some point, I think it's her sister says to her, you don't even have beliefs. But there is a moment where she sort of realizes that non-belief is belief and that not having a belief that is spiritual in nature is also meaningful and is also something. And so it's not so simple as to just say, well, it's important to the other person, so I guess I can do it. And that I thought was kind of interesting.

• 10:11Linda Holmes?

  It's funny because her podcast is about relationships and clearly falling in love and finding a partner is something she's very, very focused on, or she thinks she's very, very focused on. So to her, that's kind of the ultimate goal is to find somebody and fall in love. She ultimately realizes like, oh, I can't, even if I really, really think this might be the best person I'm ever going to find otherwise, I can't disrespect his religious beliefs in this way. And I can't kind of sacrifice my own compass to please somebody else.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Exactly. She comes to this realization by talking to the rabbi's ex, who is Jewish, who is religious, who Sort of has this like very old fashioned dream of being the, they call it the Rebisson, the rabbi's wife.

• 11:05Speaker 06

  He represents the temple. So you represent the temple. People look to you as an example, like a good example. That's a lot of pressure. You look so scared right now. No, it, it should feel like good pressure, you know?

• 11:20Speaker 03

  You see so many moments early on where Joanne, she's just so inconsiderate of other people. Like she's sort of in the very first episode, like tells her date, she has to go to the bathroom and then just leaves, just like ditches him. She routinely ghosts people. She is like super selfish and self-absorbed. And so I think it sort of takes a lot for her to realize that like, this isn't just about her wanting to fall in love and have this beautiful, magical thing, but that actually there's a lot of collateral damage that can come. And that when you marry someone, you're not just marrying them, but you're marrying their family and their community and like so many things about them.

• 11:58Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's a romantic comedy that ultimately comes around to the idea that romantic love is not everything. And that is somewhat uncommon.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Wait, do you think that's where it lands? Cause I did not get that from it.

• 12:10Linda Holmes?

  Well, I think it's unclear where it lands. It's unclear that you're not at another point that's going to turn out to be a temporary solution to their problem.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:21Linda Holmes?

  We talked a little bit about what kind of a Jewish person he is. And he is more a liberal, as you said, sort of rabbi.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:32Linda Holmes?

  Other than that, how does Judaism in this show, how much does it look like Judaism as you know it?

• 12:39Speaker 03

  So it was interesting because there was a, I did notice that there were a mix of things that sort of happened and didn't happen. So for example, there's like a scene where Joanne brings a gift of a charcuterie plate to the rabbi's parents' house. And it has prosciutto on it. And first of all, she apparently doesn't know that prosciutto is pork, which is its own issue. But then, you know, there's this thing like, oh, we can't possibly have pork in our house. This is a kosher household. Number one, the plate also had milk and meat on it together, which by definition is not kosher, even if it had been beef and not pork.

• 13:14Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  So there's like another kosher problem there.

• 13:16Linda Holmes?

  Right.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  The other thing is I was like, oh, this is a family that keeps kosher. That's kind of interesting, or they keep some type of kosher styled. But then there's another scene where he tells his brother Sasha, I want to do havdalah with Joanne. Now havdalah is the service that marks the end of Shabbat that happens on Saturday night at sundown. And it separates the holy time of Shabbat from the kind of everyday nature of the week. It's like the beginning of the week.

• 13:45Linda Holmes?

  Right.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Sasha doesn't even know what havdalah is. And that, for example, was like, felt incongruous to me.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Havdalah is seriously slept on. No, I completely agree. That's the dessert with the custard, right? No, it's the ceremony to mark the end of Shabbat with the three stars. You light the candle, you smell the spices. Nothing, it'll come back to you.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  But I do think that they were doing some interesting sign posting with things like the kosher. He's wearing a yarmulke a lot of the time. You know, he says certain things that even like, oh, well, we have to wait till there are three stars in the sky. That's like a more traditional sort of way of understanding havdalah. But then he's like, doing it in this way where he can convince his non-Jewish girlfriend that Judaism is magical, which is not something you're supposed to even try to convince somebody of. So I think it was a little bit mixed up. But I also felt like it was, there were things about it that did feel true to me as a representation of kind of liberal, reformed Judaism, particularly like they're on the West Coast. It felt super West Coast to me. I also was thinking a lot about Rami.

• 14:47Linda Holmes?

  Yes, Rami is Rami Yusef's Hulu series, sort of loosely based on his experiences and his own family.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Right, so I'm a huge fan of Rami. So Rami, his family are Egyptian immigrants. He's a first generation American. He's Muslim and he's navigating kind of this. Identity both as a first generation American, but also as a Muslim American and trying to figure out what it means to be a millennial and a Muslim American who steps in between secular and religious societies on the regular. But I think he sort of gets at this question of like, do I go to mosque on Friday and then go to a party on Friday night? This did not get it in, at it in nearly as nuanced of a way, but I think because it was background, whereas in Rami, I think it's foreground.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  I think that they were just trying to give these little signposts to people that like, hey, he's Jewish and he's doing the thing and it's not just incidental.

• 15:44Linda Holmes?

  Well, and I also think it's more complicated in this show in the sense of trickier to make it work because Noah is a rabbi. And so one of the things that's happening in Rami is that he's just kind of grown up in his faith and he comes to this really interesting point in adulthood where he's asking a lot of questions that he hasn't always asked. And I feel like Noah, as a rabbi, would have gone through a whole process of education where figuring out what his Judaism is going to look like probably would have happened during the course of that education.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. And interestingly, he actually did have a really beautiful answer when Joanne asks him, why did you want to be a rabbi? He has this really lovely answer about how he uses it as a way to make sense of the world.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  And when I started paying attention to the lessons of the Torah and was exposed to the rituals and the traditions, it allowed me to view the world as a much safer and much more meaningful place. And I knew from a very young age that I wanted to spend my life trying to help keep it alive.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  And I think that Joanne is trying to make sense of the world, but she's doing it not only not in a religious context, which many people do it not in a religious context. But again, I think she seems to have such a small moral compass that now she's with someone who has a big moral compass and it's like jarring to her.

• 17:06Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  And I think being with him does make her think more about right and wrong. Like she has these moments where she's like, I would have done this before, but I'm not going to do it now.

• 17:14Linda Holmes?

  Right, right.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  I also imagined sort of an alternate reality in which, separate from the main storyline of the rabbi and Joanne, there were a lot of other couples that get together in unexpected ways. Namely, I actually think that Sasha's

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Wife should be lesbian lovers with with the rabbi's ex.

• 17:33Linda Holmes?

  Oh, with the rabbi's ex. Sure.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  And then that frees up Sasha, so that helps a little bit, too.

• 17:38Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some fun business between Sasha and Morgan, Joanne's sister. They kind of become, they sort of start out as like having a lot of friction and then they kind of become pals.

• 17:49Speaker 07

  You're the loser sibling.

• 17:51Linda Holmes?

  What?

• 17:52Speaker 07

  And no judgment, I'm the loser sibling. I mean, it's hard to compete when your brother's the Jewish Jesus. Doesn't make as much sense with you, though. You're like, cool as hell. You always have a witty comeback for everything. You're like a smoke show. You got like this hot earth mother vibe going on.

• 18:06Linda Holmes?

  But I enjoyed both of those actors and that little stuff, too. It's it's kind of playful and fun.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  I enjoyed them. I would be remiss if I didn't say the thing that I was most annoyed about, though.

• 18:17Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Linda, which was, how the hell does this podcast, A, exist, B, have a huge listenership?

• 18:24Linda Holmes?

  Sarah.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  C, get monetized?

• 18:26Linda Holmes?

  Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  I was just like, listen, the most unrealistic thing y'all did was make a situation in which two sisters who hold bad microphones in poor placement on their couch and who don't know how to use XLR cables.

• 18:40Linda Holmes?

  Yes.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Have a monetized podcast that makes all their money.

• 18:43Linda Holmes?

  Yes. So they have this super popular podcast that it seems to me they make alone, which is not a thing.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 18:51Linda Holmes?

  Especially if neither one of you seems like you know what you're doing.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  They said that somebody wrote a review where they complained about her taking too many pee breaks. And I was just like, if these people don't know how to edit out their own bathroom breaks, listen, this is a microcosm of larger issues.

• 19:07Linda Holmes?

  Yes, it is another entry in the long line of shows and movies about podcasts that do not know about what things look like.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:16Linda Holmes?

  Well, we want to know what you think about Nobody Wants This. Find us at facebook.com/PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Sarah Ventry, you are a delight. I am always so happy to see you. Thank you for being here.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  You are a delight. Thank you so much for having me.

• 19:30Linda Holmes?

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.

• 19:48Speaker 00

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