Photo: Hopper Stone/Netflix
Joanne’s family is mentally unhinged in the very best way and I’m obsessed with them. (Stephanie Faracy for everything!) Though it’s unplanned, Joanne and Noah’s relationship takes the next big step when Joanne’s parents, Henry and Lynn, and Henry’s new boyfriend Pat, pop in unexpectedly during Vanderpump night with their daughters and Noah. What ensues is easily the funniest episode of Nobody Wants This thus far (“This Ick” was written by Jane Becker and directed by Karen Maine) and shows us exactly what this show can be when it’s firing on all cylinders: There’s swoony but relatable romantic beats, pitch-perfect ensemble chemistry, and Adam Brody says “prego” with an insane Italian accent. What more could you want from your rom-com, honestly?
When Morgan starts complaining that Joanne’s relationship is ruining the podcast — downloads are down and the comments are brutal — Joanne decides it’s time her sister actually got to know Noah; She’ll love him. Even if Morgan is convinced that they must be having “freaky rabbi sex through a hole in a sheet.” It’s supposed to be a casual hang and it starts out great — Noah even brings his own sheet with a hole in it. He’s funny! Morgan can’t hide that she’s just a little bit impressed.
Once Henry and Lynn (and Pat) announce they’re on their way over, however, Noah’s entire attitude shifts. He’s in Meet the Parents mode, which is to say the guy is stressed. He’s in his basketball clothes! There aren’t enough snacks! He’s out the door to fix both problems before Joanne and Morgan can tell him to relax. “Nothing is less important than my parents,” Joanne tries to impress upon him. That’s harsh, but they are agents of chaos. It’s clear from the get-go that Lynn is having a disastrously tough time seeing her ex-husband all lovey-dovey in a new relationship but trying to seem cool with it. Her strained “love is in the air!” really sent me. When Noah does return, not in a blazer but a sport coat — it’s really important you get the terminology correct — over his hoodie and a comically large bouquet of sunflowers, Lynn’s first words to him are “oy vey a rabbi!” before informing him that he is handsome and he looks just like Billy Joel and didn’t you know, Billy Joel’s birthday is just three days after hers. By the time Henry tells Noah about his job, saying, “Actually, podiatry is very steady because, you know, almost everybody has feet,” you’ll wish these people were in every episode.
You’d think Lynn and Henry being mostly disasters would make Noah less nervous, but this is not the case. He’s trying so hard! Well, not hard enough to not yell out “prego” in a terrible maybe Italian accent when Morgan says she’ll put the sunflowers in an empty Prego bottle (no one in their family knows what to do with flowers, they don’t even know what they’re for, really), but he is trying.
The funny thing is, he doesn’t really have to try with the parents. They seem to love him right away. Lynn, especially, is moved by him: Noah seems to be the only one who notices how hard this all is for Lynn. Alone in the kitchen after watching Henry and Pat be affectionate and Henry telling Pat he loves him, Noah wants to make sure Lynn is okay. She opens up to him right away: She knows her girls must be having a tough time seeing their dad so emotionally open with someone else since he never was with them, and she knows she’s supposed to have moved on by now; She’s trying to hold it all together. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a good job,” Noah tells her. They both know he’s lying, but it is very sweet.
Now, he is having some issues with Joanne. Joanne sees that sport coat, hears him calling it a sport coat, takes one look at that ridiculous bouquet of flowers, and the girl has, as Morgan calls it, “the ick.” You can’t hide the ick from your sister and even though Joanne tries to deny that she is so turned off by everything Noah is doing right now that she honestly might have to break up with him, it’s all over her face. It’s the prego thing that really sends her over. And this thing, dumping a guy the moment he does something a little cringeworthy, is simply how these sisters operate. Morgan saw a guy she was dating running with a backpack, watching it bounce up and down on his ass, and their relationship never recovered. The guy Joanne watched chasing a ping pong ball across a room? Dead to her. “You can’t unsee something like that,” she says, truth-telling.
But just as Joanne seems resigned to end things with Noah, as much as we all might be screaming at her to stop being so dumb, something great happens. After his conversation with Lynn and really just the disgust written all over Joanne’s face, Noah puts several things together and he pulls her aside to have a chat. First of all, he’s very aware that he has done something, or many things, to freak her out. But he isn’t going to apologize for trying to make a good impression on her family. Mostly because it’s a normal thing to want to do, but also because he doesn’t think her being upset really has anything to do with him acting a little nutty. There is clearly a lot going on with her family, with her relationship with both her parents, so he “understands why [she] would have her guard up.” He knows right away that her reaction to all of these intense feelings is to self-sabotage. “Joanne, I’m on your side. I can handle you.” The way he says this one line should honestly get Adam Brody hired for every romantic comedy ever made for the rest of time. I’m weak!
I wish we had an official timeline to know how long these two have been dating because Noah can read Joanne so well. It’s not that surprising since he nailed her perfectly the very first night they met on their long walk to her car, but still, it’s pretty lovely to see. Grand gestures are cool and all, but I love that Nobody Wants This is really showing romance by having Noah truly see Joanne for who she is.
He tells her to get over this defense mechanism of pretending she isn’t into him or that she’s too cool for this. He really likes her and he knows she likes him, too. And then he makes her say it to the sport coat because he’s never apologizing for that.
So, Noah has won over Joanne’s family. As if there was ever a doubt. Obviously, the reverse of this is going to be much more difficult since Noah’s mom is … well, you’ve met her. It’s certainly not an accident that they manage to slip in that note about Noah can only marry people in his synagogue if they’re both Jewish, or if someone has converted to Judaism — this is clearly going to be part of a larger discussion before this whole thing wraps up. But in the short term, perhaps there is a new alliance between Joanne and Noah’s families that will come in handy.
How about the fact that Sasha is still texting Morgan? It seems squarely in the friendship zone, thank god, since no one would want to incur the wrath of Esther but also because both Sasha and Morgan, our loser siblings, seem like they could use a good friend. When Sasha spends the day at the schvitz with his dad and finally, thanks to Esther’s prodding, asks him for a promotion at work and gets it, he texts Morgan to share the news. It’s cute! It seems mostly healthy? We’ll see how or if this unlikely friendship comes into play with our larger story.