Season 2 of the Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” was released on Oct. 23 and has the internet talking.
The series follows controversial podcaster Joanne and a young rabbi named Noah who begin a relationship which sparks tension between both sets of families.
The Netflix original series launched last year and had the internet flooded with mostly positive opinions. I believe that the initial positive feedback was because of the realistic relationship and brief cliffhanger at the end.
I finished Season 1 in one day because it was something fresh and somewhat comforting.
The storyline highlighted the hardships that follows a Jewish rabbi creating a relationship with a non-Jewish woman who has little to no interest in converting. Noah’s family and the church did not approve of his relationship with Joanne and became increasingly more frustrated with him as time went on.
Noah was being considered for the head rabbi position at his temple because the standing head rabbi was getting ready to retire.
In Season 2, we see that the temple decided to go with another rabbi for the position, strictly because of Noah’s relationship with a non-Jewish woman.
Personally, I was excited for this season to come out because I was intrigued to see if Joanne would convert considering she knew what was on the line for Noah in his career.
Considering the storylines that the producers of the show chose to use in season two, I am both let down and quite frankly confused by all of it.
It felt like the producers and writers of season two completely disregarded what had already happened along with the style of how it happened in the previous season.
The turnaround time for the season was extremely fast for Netflix, which tells me the producers saw the attention from the audience and focused on quickness rather than good dialogue.
The second season is only ten episodes and feels extremely repetitive of the first season. It seems like the production team was too eager to put something out for the excited viewers rather than give them a good story.
In Season 1, the couple dramatically broke up, which was rooted in Joanne not wanting to convert to Judaism. The breakup only lasted for an hour or two.
The exact scenario is repeated at the end of Season 2 and the result is the same. The writing for this scene felt lazy and repetitive to me and many others on social media.
The feedback I have seen on TikTok and Instagram was mostly negative. People were initially excited that we were getting a second season so fast. That excitement quickly vanished as the fandom watched each episode.
The obvious product placement was also frustrating and felt unnecessary to me and people reviewing the season on social media.
Weirdly enough, the show is hard to look away from. I found myself rewatching Season 1 after finishing Season 2.
It’s witty, clever and somewhat relaxing to watch due to the music and lack of distracting action.
A third season is already in the works. My hope for the next season is that the writers of the show will consider that the audience wants to see a different storyline between the two main characters without drastically changing the footprint of the show itself.
