What Happens in ‘Nobody Wants This’ Season 3: An Episode by Episode Recap

Just in time for a cozy fall binge-watch, “Nobody Wants This” season three is now out on Netflix!

Over the course of the first two seasons, viewers have watched agnostic dating podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell) and extremely hot rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) fall in love and navigate their exceedingly different lives. They’ve negotiated the usual early relationship bumps alongside Noah’s skeptical and chilly family and community and Joanne’s lack of clarity about whether she wants to convert to Judaism. At the end of season two, Joanne had finally decided that she was ready to make the plunge, while Noah’s brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Esther’s (Jackie Tohn) relationship fell apart. At the same time, Noah had started a job at the less-than-stellar Temple Ahava.

So, will Joanne actually convert to Judaism? Would that mean Noah and Joanne are end game? And how will Noah survive Ahava? Will Sasha and Esther work things out? Or will Sasha and Joanne’s sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) just get together already?

Read on to have all your questions (and more) answered. It should go without saying that this article includes many, many spoilers.

Episode 1: It’s Perfect

Joanne and Noah move in together, and it’s blissfully perfect until they start annoying each other: Joanne leaves every cabinet open (“I love closing every cabinet. It’s my passion,” Noah tells Esther later) and Noah looks over Joanne’s shoulder at her screen while she reads celebrity gossip and asks, “Do we know her?” This annoys Joanne so much (as it should, ew) that she starts having her morning coffee with Morgan at her house under the guise of “recording podcast ads.” Once Noah figures out what’s happening, he asks Joanne, “Why didn’t you just tell me to get lost?”, tells her she loads the dishwasher like a psychopath and carries her back home so she can try her morning routine in subpar conditions (aka in the backyard under an orange tree).

When Noah and Joanne are listing each other’s bad habits, Joanne tells Noah he’s got to stop leaving his mail out. “Either go to Brian’s wedding in Napa or don’t go to Brian’s wedding in Napa,” she says, but just get the invitation off the counter. Brian’s wedding isn’t just any wedding, Noah tells Joanne, it’s a wedding he’s officiating — and he wants Joanne to come with him.

Meanwhile, Sasha and Esther officially separate (we even get a glimpse of their elusive daughter Miriam when they break the news to her), and the newly sort-of-single Sasha moves in with Morgan and Lynn. (Platonically! He’s tall and can help them reach stuff!)

Notes:

• At one point, Noah says he would have liked to have been head rabbi at Temple Chai but “that’s not the way the rugelach crumbles.” I’m taking a poll: Have you or any Jewish person you know ever said that phrase?
• I’m kind of into their bright yellow kitchen, which is a positive development in my journey of trying to quit millennial grey.
• Noah is team top sheet, Joanne is team no top sheet, which confused my husband because he grew up with his parents insisting that “Jews don’t use topsheets.”

 

Episode 2: Daddy’s Home

Episode 2 opens at Joanne’s conversion class at Temple Chai, where she meets her nemesis, Sebastien, who is deliciously catty for literally no reason. The teacher, Rabbi Eden (played by Sarah Silverman), opens the class on a cheery note by saying “Don’t worry — the guilt doesn’t happen all at once, it just happens gradually. You barely feel it until one day you’re strangled and dead.”

While Joanne is in class, Noah roams the halls of Temple Chai and learns that everyone hates Big Noah, the rabbi who got the senior rabbi job he wanted. Noah vows to get his job back and schedules a meeting with the board who offer him what is basically an audition sermon at Rosh Hashanah services.

Joanne tells Morgan that she’s getting the sense that no one thinks she’s cut out to be a rabbi’s wife. Morgan suggests Joanne ask Bina for advice, which Joanne decides she must do immediately, leaving Morgan alone to record the podcast. Morgan convinces Sasha to let her interview him on the pod, where he brings up the once-viral advice self help phenomenon “Let Them.” Morgan counters with her own advice, which she makes up on the spot: Make Them.

At Bina’s house, Bina is up for the challenge of making Joanne into the perfect woman for Noah. “Let me make you into a rebbetzin,” she tells Joanne. Cut to: Joanne walking into Rosh Hashanah services dressed like… Bina.

“Oh, babe, you look awful,” Noah tells Joanne when he sees her, which makes me like him far better than anything he said in season 2 did. 

Joanne isn’t the only one in danger of getting caught by the fashion police. Morgan shows up in a slinky sparkly dress. To be fair, Joanne did tell her it was the Jewish new year.

Sasha and Esther whisper-argue about dating apps as the congregation chants Zochreinu. Noah, of course, crushes the sermon, which he starts by using a line Joanne wrote: “I know what you’re thinking: How did I get even cuter?”

When they get home, Joanne and Noah discover that someone has left their trash cans in front of their driveway. It’s their neighbor Travis — who happens to be Joanne’s ex. 

Notes:

• Do other people address rabbis as “Rabbi First Name?” I’ve never heard this and something about it feels infantilizing, like we’re all preschoolers about to make a grogger out of a paper plate and beans.

 

Episode 3: Housewarming

Joanne and Noah are throwing a housewarming party that doubles as a hanukkat habayit — a tradition Noah says is too Jewish even for him. No one in Joanne’s conversion class wants to come to the party, and Rabbi Eden seems especially averse. 

On the night of the party, everyone is distracted: Joanne not-so-subtly hinted to ex-boyfriend/neighbor Travis that they were having a party, and now she’s hoping he’ll show up so she can make him jealous. Noah is anxious that Rabbi Eden won’t show up. Sasha is trying to keep his parents from finding out that he and Esther are separated (at first he tells them she has a headache, which quickly spirals out of control in a hilariously Jewish hypochondriac overprotective parent kind of way) and Morgan can’t stop talking about her “Make Them” theory, which has gone viral.

Miraculously, some of Joanne’s conversion class does show up: Sebastien (who walks in, looks at the house and says “Uh, on a rabbi’s salary?”) is all in on “Make Them” and gets Morgan a meeting with his literary agent aunt. One of Joanne’s conversion classmates flirts with Sasha, leading Bina to realize that Esther and Sasha are separated. Rabbi Eden stops by and clarifies why she’s being weird: No, she isn’t upset about Noah drinking coffee on Yom Kippur like he thought — she’s jealous that she was passed over for the head rabbi job. (Which… come on, Noah, are you that dense?)

As Joanne and Noah perform the central ritual of the hanukkat habayit, hanging the mezuzah, Joanne notices Travis walk in and, in an attempt to make him jealous, goes completely off the rails.

Meanwhile, Bina has taken to bed in the face of the news of Sasha and Esther. “You have ruined my last years on Earth. Oy,” she says. A parade of guests tries to console her but nothing — not even Morgan’s “make them” speech — helps. 

On his way out, Travis warns Noah that Joanne is nuts. “Don’t ever talk about Joanne like that to me or anyone else,” Noah shoots back, and is adorably proud of himself afterward.

Notes:

• The mezuzah that Noah and Joanne hang at their hanukkat habayit appears to be this one.
• Because I know you were wondering: Yes, Sasha is wearing the $1800 Ridgeline Stripe Crew sweater from The Elder Statesman. Sasha’s taste in clothing has fascinated me since the beginning.

Episode 4: Brian’s Wedding

At a nail salon, Morgan and Joanne are arguing. Morgan will not shut up about her chance at a “Make Them” book proposal, eventually leading Joanne to storm out with only three fingers painted.

But Morgan’s book proposal meeting with Sebastien’s aunt is a disaster — despite borrowing the most literary glasses she could find, Morgan is completely unprepared. (Has she ever read a book? Unclear.) 

It’s time to go to Brian’s wedding in Napa, and Joanne and Noah play out a highly relatable couple argument about when to get to the airport. Noah, a classic Jewish-dad type, wants to get to the airport four hours before the flight leaves. Joanne says, “But then we’ll be at the airport for three hours!” (For the record, I’m on Team Should Have Talked About This Like, At Least the Night Before.) At the airport, chaos ensues in a way that cannot be summarized in the words I have been allotted for this summary. In a nutshell, Joanne gives away her ticket to an overzealous fan with space buns, Joanne gets her ticket back, and Noah takes a Bloody Mary to the chest and narrowly avoids being put on the no-fly list.

Meanwhile, Sasha is wearing a Kangol on an awkward date with a woman named Poppy.

Against all odds, Joanne and Noah arrive at the rehearsal dinner for Brian’s wedding, with no time to change. They’re playing Joanne’s favorite Taylor Swift song, the venue is decorated with her favorite flowers, they’re serving her favorite wine and, wait, Noah is down on one knee and there IS no wedding! There is no Brian! It’s a proposal! Why am I actually crying?

Notes:

• BRB while I pull together a Joyce Quaker Oates Halloween costume.
• I screamed at the reveal that Joanne’s full name is Joanne Elizabeth Williams, making her initials… JEW. Do I hate this detail or think it’s so ridiculous that I’ve come around to loving it?
• Nicole, the overzealous fan of Joanne, is played by Erin Foster, who created the show and based it on her life. So when she says things like, “I am Joanne, Joanne is me” she really means it. 
• The episode closes to the song “You” by Miley Cyrus, and as the screen fades to black we hear Miley Cyrus sing “I don’t need Jesus, ’cause baby you saved me” and I can’t decide: Is this funny? Eye-roll worthy? Poignant?

Episode 5: The Love Card

Joanne and Noah are engaged! Bina has made it her mission to plan her perfect wedding, a massive backyard affair with everyone she’s ever met. Joanne wants a lowkey “Julia Roberts wedding.” Noah just wants to make them both happy.

Esther gets her real estate license and, naturally, her first showing is a massive home with a killer view. Her client is Julian (played by Stephen Weber), a handsome older man who is so rich he has a private chef. Their banter is top notch. Sparks fly.

Speaking of sparks flying, Morgan and Sasha are (platonically) hanging out all over the city, and their (platonic?) chemistry is palpable. Sasha encourages Morgan to go to a writer’s group, but she bails at the last minute and gets her tarot cards read next door. In a scene that almost makes me believe in the power of Make Them, she basically forces the tarot reader (played by Sadie Sandler) to tell her what she wants to hear: That she’s a writer. Morgan grabs a random card to (platonically) bring to Sasha as a souvenir, which Lynn later tells him is the most powerful love card in the deck. 

Notes: 

• Previous seasons of this show were criticized for their portrayal of the Jewish female characters. The writers seem to have mostly softened those characters’ edges, but Bina remains awful. As is her right! God forbid a woman fake cry over her son’s wedding!
  

Episode 6: Heatwave

Joanne and Noah are looking at a wedding venue in a heatwave and of course, Bina is there, too, wearing a long sleeved button down shirt and insisting that the space is too small. (How will they invite distant cousin Irv?) Joanne loves the venue, and she and Noah have 24 hours to decide whether they can cut their guest list.

Against all odds, Morgan has written an appropriate book proposal. After Sasha tells her it’s great (Sash, why are you lying??) she fires it off to Sebastien’s aunt Eleanor and poses for an awkward photo with Sasha that her mom insists on taking. When Morgan leaves the room, Sasha whisper shouts to Lynn that the only possible remedy for his now-obvious crush on Morgan is for them to avoid each other.

Joanne and Noah try to get a table at Phil Rosenthal’s insanely popular restaurant Max and Helen’s for dinner. I live in Minnesota and even I know it’s impossible to get a table, and sure enough, the hostess (played by Lily Rosenthal, the actual owner of Max and Helen’s/daughter of Phil Rosenthal) shuts down any hopes they have of eating there — until Esther coincidentally shows up with mysteriously rich and well-connected Julian, who gets them into the restaurant. Noah, ever loyal, refuses to eat a meal with his brother’s ex’s new boyfriend.

The next morning, still sweating, Joanne has the bright idea to get in their pool while they try to cut their guest list. Why haven’t they been in the pool the whole time? Great question. But Morgan is already in the pool (well, on a float, and again, why aren’t these people cooling off IN WATER), and then Sasha arrives and suddenly Joanne and Noah are trying to have their conversation in the middle of a pool party. They set a series of arbitrary rules about who can and can’t be invited, have some difficult conversations that honestly could have waited, and deal with unwanted visitors like ex-next-door Travis and — surprise! — distant cousin Irv (played by Phil Rosenthal). In the end, Joanne admits that they can’t possibly whittle down their guest list.

Morgan is having a real rollercoaster of a pool party — she’s riding the high of submitting her book proposal, then languishing in a pool of despair once Sebastien arrives and tells her his aunt passed on said proposal, and then perking up again when she gets a DM from THE Andy Cohen inviting her to be a guest on “Watch What Happens Live.”

Notes:

• Can ANYONE shed light on why no one was cooling off IN the pool?
• Spotted: “Dining In” by Alison Roman on Noah and Joanne’s counter. (Try the roasted beets on page 33)
• My husband, who is a stickler for food safety in a way that he believes is somehow Jewish, claims that no Jewish man would ever risk opening the refrigerator during a power outage. He’s available for anxiety consulting in season 4! 

Episode 7: Watch What Happens

Morgan brings Sasha with her to New York (platonically) for her “Watch What Happens Live” taping. At the hotel, they are faced with one of the greatest romance tropes of all time: There’s Only One Bed. Lanky Sasha offers to sleep on the couch, so that’s settled, and they definitely will not be sleeping together.

Back in Los Angeles, Joanne and Noah have decided to turn off their phones for the night for a truly inspired Shabbat plan: smoking weed and tasting wedding cake. They are the B plot of this story, so nothing truly groundbreaking happens except that they choose a cake flavor (I can’t even remember which one, I was too invested in whether or not Sasha and Morgan end up in the same bed).

Morgan puts on the showstopper outfit she’s packed, only to discover that Lisa Rinna has already worn the exact same one — and the WWHL audience will notice. Cue a New York shopping montage that ends with Sasha buying Morgan a $15,000 Valentino dress. (As Sebastien might say, on a rabbi’s brother’s salary?)

Morgan absolutely kills it on WWHL (alongside guest stars Andy Cohen and “Summer House”’s Ciara Miller) and Sasha takes her out to celebrate. They eat and drink and talk and get vulnerable in a way that we haven’t seen Morgan do before. Throughout it all, they’re texting their siblings — who have their phones off — for advice. They almost kiss, decide they don’t want to ruin their friendship, and head back to the hotel where, need I remind you, there is only one bed.

Sasha and Morgan say good night, and after a very satisfying game of will they won’t they, Morgan decides to go to Sasha. She opens her bedroom door to find him there, about to knock. They kiss (not platonically) and the screen fades to black.

Note:

• With deepest apologies to Esther Roklov, this was a very satisfying episode. 
• Kirsten Dunst wore Morgan’s Valentino dress to the Toronto International Film Festival last year. Who wore it better?

Episode 8: One in a Million

Sasha wakes up in the New York hotel room, but Morgan is gone and won’t answer his texts. Noah and Joanne wake up from their phone-free Erev Shabbat to the text messages Morgan and Sasha sent the night before, plus one more from Bina telling them that they will be getting married in her backyard. (Lesson learned: Go phone free for the full Shabbat. Or maybe forever?)

Elsewhere in LA, Esther is “actually so chill” after learning that Julian has a date with another woman. But after staking out Julian’s house to investigate whose car is parked in his driveway, Esther realizes that maybe she isn’t actually all that chill with Julian dating other people. She tries to break it off with him, but he reveals that he canceled his other date and wants to be with Esther exclusively. 

In conversion class, Joanne and Sebastien (who are apparently friends now) are scrolling through pictures of Bina and Ilan’s home. “It looks like a Cheesecake Factory,” a horrified Sebastien says. “You can’t get married here.”

Joanne and Noah intend to tell Bina that they will under no circumstances get married in her backyard, but Joanne has a change of heart. Bina is thrilled and moves on to the next order of business: practicing the mother/son dance, which, naturally, will be to “How Do I Live” by Leeann Rhimes. Joanne apparently has never been to a single wedding in her entire life, because she is horrified by the thought of such a thing.

Joanne and Noah are hosting Joanne’s family to watch Morgan’s WWHL appearance, but they’re not done arguing about dancing. Joanne is adamant about not dancing with her dad — it’s just not their vibe! Later, Noah pulls Henry aside to get his take on the father daughter dance. (His take is “We barely even hug.”) 

Morgan arrives at the watch party and Joanne drags her into the bathroom to rehash the Sasha situation. Joanne quickly realizes that Morgan might actually have feelings for Sasha. “You have to tell him,” she says, and Morgan leaves the party to find him at work (which, apparently, involves parking garages). Sasha isn’t as moved by her grand gesture speech as she thought he would be. “Morgan, you left me,” he says. “I don’t know if I can. I’m sorry.”

When Joanne finds out that Noah went behind her back to talk to her father, their argument escalates into one about boundaries and culminates with Joanne saying “I’m sorry you can’t fuck your mom.” Shockingly, no one likes her joke! “Good lord! I would not have said that if I were you,” says Henry.

Joanne and Noah don’t want to go to bed angry and Joanne says those eleven words we’ve all had to say at some point in our relationships: “I’m really sorry that I said you wanna fuck your mom.” Joanne concedes that Noah should do the dance with his mom, and they both can finally fall asleep — until Joanne tells Noah that Sasha and Morgan had sex in New York. 

 

Episode 9: Last Christmas

In lieu of a big Jewish holiday celebration a la season two’s Purim party, this season we get… a Christmas episode! I’m excited for “Nobody Wants This” to teach me the meaning of Christmas beyond — as Noah says later in the episode — “all the obvious stuff I’ve learned from Coke commercials and Macauley Culkin.”

It’s Joanne’s last Christmas before converting, and Noah wants to send her off with an epic celebration. But no one else in Joanne’s life is playing along. Morgan is lovesick, Lynn is possibly trapped in a mattress store and suddenly offended that Joanne is acquiescing to Bina’s many wedding demands, and Henry is oblivious to anything and everything.

The episode is interspersed with flashbacks to previous Christmases, where we see glimpses of Joanne’s relationship with Travis, spot the *actual* first time Noah and Joanne cross paths, learn about the genesis of the sisters’ podcast, and find out why exactly Joanne believes so much in Christmas magic: Because no matter how bleak things felt, no matter how dysfunctional her family was, at Christmas they felt like a normal family and everything was OK. 

Noah begs Joanne’s family to get it together and give Joanne a perfect last Christmas. And in the end, it does all come together, but by then Joanne has learned an important lesson (as one must do in any piece of Christmas media): She doesn’t need Christmas anymore! Christmas made her feel cozy once a year, but now Noah makes her feel cozy every single day.

Other notable moments from this episode are Noah agreeing to let Lynn be their flower girl (a desire she revealed to him at the aforementioned mattress store), Morgan telling Sasha she doesn’t want to be friends anymore, and Morgan telling Noah she won’t be at his wedding if Sasha is there (this happens right as Joanne’s parents reach the crescendo of a karaoke version of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow”).

Notes:

• But seriously, did we ever get any explanation as to why Lynn is in a mattress store for the majority of this episode?

 

Episode 10: The Plunge

Bina is wedding planning again! On today’s agenda: ugly flowers, butterflies released from bags, and a band called The Champagne Society. When Noah (too) kindly tells her they’ve already hired a DJ, Bina is upset and Noah reminds her that this isn’t her wedding.

Morgan tells Joanne she will not be attending her mikveh ceremony because Sasha will be there. “What even is this thing?” Morgan asks, then hangs up on Joanne in the middle of her explanation. 

Sasha gets his own place, and Esther stops by in a great pair of pants to drop off a hypoallergenic pillow for Miriam, who still exists but is apparently not invited to any family events which is maybe fine because they all end up being kind of toxic? Sasha gives Esther a tour that ends in Miriam’s room, which Sasha decorated using Olivia Rodrigo’s Architectural Digest house tour. This obviously makes Esther want to jump his bones. Fade to black. 

At conversion class, Joanne and Sebastien are comparing mikveh plans — “Finneas is scoring mine,” Sebastien brags — and Joanne tells him that Morgan is refusing to come to hers. “Take a page from her book. Or her attempted book,” Sebastien advises with a smirk. “Make her.” And that’s a wrap on the season for Sebastien, my new favorite person.

Back in Sasha’s bedroom, Sasha and Esther decide to keep what happened a secret. Esther is now two for two on house tours that end in sex.

Joanne and Noah trick Sasha and Morgan into getting into their car together to drive to the beach for Joanne’s mikveh. But Morgan makes a run for it and Joanne has to chase her along the beach, ultimately arriving extremely late for her own ceremony. When the four of them finally arrive, they are greeted by chaos: Noah’s parents, Joanne’s parents, Esther and Rabbi Eden are already at the beach house the family rented and Lynn has just dropped the bombshell that Sasha and Morgan slept together. As the families trade insults, Rabbi Eden sneaks Noah and Joanne onto the beach to complete her conversion, which goes off beautifully and without a hitch. As they’re about to walk back to the house (which is still in chaos), Joanne and Noah decide to get married right there, alone, with just Rabbi Eden (who has a ketubah in her trunk, like all good rabbis should) and a random passerby who, thankfully, happens to be Jewish.  

Notes:

• The DJ Noah and Joanne hire is DJ Simon Tikhman, which is the name of series creator Erin Foster’s husband — the man who inspired her to convert, which ultimately led to the creation of the show. 
• Sadly, there is no Olivia Rodrigo Architectural Digest home tour, but there is an Olivia Rodrigo 73 Questions where she pulls Leonard Cohen’s book of poetry off of her shelf to recommend to viewers. 
• I personally need a fourth season, if only just to see Bina’s reaction to the surprise wedding. 

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