B and I just binged this new show on Netflix, called Nobody Wants This. Most the Jews I know were excited for this show or already watching and posting about it on Facebook by the day after it came out. We love a good rom-com show or movie with Jewish overtones. We don't get them often but we also don't get them often with Adam Brody and Kristen Bell. Who doesn't want a little Seth Cohen reprieve?
***Spoilers below- so if you haven't watch, you probably don't want to read any further.
Ten episodes, about a half hour each. Definitely not enough time. I love a good quickie but there's definitely not enough time to flesh out characters fully and tell a whole story in either thirty minutes or ten episodes. However, this show does do a pretty good job because of the off-the-charts chemistry between Adam Brody and K-Bell. I do feel we are getting a little cheated. Sex and the City was a half hour but we got anywhere from twelve to twenty episodes a season. I really don't understand, aside from salaries, why the much shorter format on every new show. Goof on me all you want for still watching network Primetime shows, but I want more than ten a season. Anyway, Adam and Kristen have amazing chemistry. You can totally forget about Summer and Logan. #iykyk
I read an article by Evelyn Frick fact checking the Judaism through every episode of the show. I appreciate this because, while I am not religious in any way, I do know a little more than the basics, and it's annoying when a show totally disregards reality. At least do the research. Like, on Friends, Monica, Ross and Rachel were all supposed to be Jewish and there were so many bizarre Jewish errors or omissions there. I've written about this before, so if you're interested in that, just put Jewish in the search bar of my blog. I'm sure you'll find those entries. So, of course, I was waiting on Nobody Wants This for there to be some Jewish flubs.
To my shock and delight, especially fact checked by Evelyn in the article cited above, there doesn't seem to be too many glaring factual gaffes. Except one. I think it was episode 7, Noah tells Joanne that she'll meet his friends at the basketball game- ON SATURDAY. He had just made a big deal about Shabbat in a previous episode and now he's playing a basketball game- with other Jews, who I assume are the same level of Jewish, on a Saturday? Maybe they're reform. And we don't know if they were supposed to be playing against other Jews, but it just seemed odd to me when there are five other days of the week they could've played, where it wouldn't have stuck out to have the big game on a Saturday. Especially if he's going for this head rabbi position.
I've already read the other articles about this show, debating as to whether it plays into long told tropes of the whole boring Jewish girl vs hot blond shiksappeal. I'm not going there. I mean, Adam Brody, Kristen Bell, that's where we are and that's what the story is about. And I like it. A lot. I'm already annoyed that we watched it just as it came out so we'll probably have to wait a whole year for another ten very short episodes. We should've waited like eleven months so we'd be closer to that season number two.
I like that Noah surprised us. He didn't play into all the stereotypes, probably because there were only ten episodes. They had to move things along. He didn't just cave to his disapproving mom or his boss. He apologized as soon as he was called out for crappy behavior, like hiding Joanne at the Jewish camp. He actually talked about his feelings each and every time. I loved standing up for Joanne to his mom at the family meal. Raymond wouldn't have done that to Marie - not Jewish, but same kind of stereotype.
I did think it was weird that the family seems to be kosher, at least in the house, but then Bina ate all the prosciutto. I get that it was a leverage thing they were playing out there but are they kosher or not kosher? I would think that would be a really big deal if they're kosher in the house for her to just eat it like a racoon. I just didn't like that they chose that to make her a hypocrite over. Because it makes choosing to keep kosher seem like a throwaway thing, or not that big of a deal. Maybe I'm just being picky on this one. I just know people who are kosher and then people who are just kosher in the house and I feel like if you really keep kosher in your house, the thought of that would be really gross? One time my cousin's husband thought a restaurant put bacon in his food by accident and he freaked out. And they don't even keep kosher in the house or out but pig is strict no, in or out. I guess I just want to know what level of Jewish are they in the show. It's ambiguous I guess for story's sake and I don't like the ambiguity.
That brings me to the casting. Noah's parents are an odd choice for me. That first generation Russian thing with Bina is hard to relate to and she just doesn't seem like she'd be Noah's mom. While it does seem like they're not trying to play into every old stereotype so they didn't make her Paul's mom from Mad About You, Ross and Monica's Mom from Friends - American Jewish, miserable, etc, she just doesn't seem like someone Noah would think of as his "favorite person". They don't give her any warmth and with the lack of time, we never see any sweet moments between Noah and Bina. They just don't seem all that close or like they have much chemistry together. At least with Noah's dad, they had a genuine moment when they were all at the hospital to make sure Rebecca was okay after her fender bender with the bus. They made Bina so tough, it's also hard to understand how Noah wouldn't have anticipated the reactions.
I didn't think about this until I started writing but while I love Noah and Joanne together, I'm thinking they have to be playing younger since he's never married, no kids and is looking to do all that. Or, we have to be wondering what's wrong with this guy who is in his forties who has never been married, has no kids but is a rabbi. Realistically, or at least in my experience, he'd have like three kids, at least, by his age. A single woman in her forties in LA who has never been married and has no kids is more believable, because of the whole coastal elites thing of too many hot people, too little time, too much superficiality, etc. Except if they're supposed to be in their forties, I don't know how much it would matter about them being interfaith because of having non-Jewish children. Not that women in their forties can't have biological kids, but it certainly could be more difficult and it's definitely not a given. I read an article somewhere that they're supposed to be around forty, according to AB.
I didn't get the brother Sasha at first. He grew on me by the middle. I'd say it was the episode he was really high on gummies and had to help his daughter through a friend and boy problem while mom was out. I really loved the whole dad and daughter dynamic going on there. I also loathed Esther at first. I think she was supposed to be loathsome but she also grew on me. Especially in the last episode with the bat mitzvah dress. I don't like that they made her so harsh in the beginning though. I also wish they wouldn't have used her harshness in the trailer. It makes it seem like Jews are only funny or palatable on television as total stereotypes. Esther is actually nuanced, which, again, isn't easy in such a short time. She just didn't need to be introduced so harshly.
The truth is, while some of these stereotypes are true, and someone else wrote that it might just be an uncomfortable mirror to have to look into, which is also true, it's not the whole story, and I don't recall ever really getting to see the other side played out. I've definitely heard shiksas are just for practice, which is definitely not cool. I've also been asked, heard it asked of others, when mentioning a new romantic interest, is he Jewish? To be fair though, at least in my situation, it was because of the other side, which we don't see, where the problem is being the Jew, walking into a WASP house, or an Italian or Irish Catholic situation and feeling the total frost take over. I'll never forget a teen boyfriend of mine telling me his sister asked him, "did you tell mom she's Jewish?". Neither one of us understood why. But it was a thing. It's always a thing.
The writers made Joanne's family totally devoid of religion. They were written so kooky that Noah being Jewish and being a rabbi totally took a backseat to the idea that a serious boyfriend was making Joanne boring, less sexual, and therefore possibly ruining the podcast she and her sister do for a living. They also made Joanne, a single, dating, sexual being, in LA, so completely unknowing about anything Jewish whatsoever. She'd never been to a bar or bat mitzvah, didn't know basic Yiddish words, had no idea about Shabbat at all? So, in ALL her time in LA, she'd never encountered any Jews before? No Jewish friends? With all the sex she supposedly had and all the boyfriends, there wasn't ONE Jew in the mix? I have non-Jewish friends in the NYC metro area suburbs and they still know the basics. Even Carrie Bradshaw and friends didn't play as Jewish but they knew Jewish stuff because- NYC. Joanne clearly didn't go to Catholic school from her upbringing of no religion besides celebrating Christmas, so I just find it completely farfetched that she has no Jewish knowledge of basic things like the Sabbath.
All in all- it's a really good show because of most of the cast. I'm totally looking forward to a season 2, fingers crossed. I can't imagine it won't go forward, seeing that it seems to be a hot pick on Netflix. Even if you're not psyched about the subject matter, there has to be a little curiosity about a Veronica/Seth pairing. Maybe some of it could've come off as cheesy if it wasn't this cast, but you also can't help picturing Seth Cohen saying a lot of it and it comes off as total geek-smooth. I also love the idea of someone knowing they're too much, showing all their crazy as a defense mechanism, and finding the person that loves their brand of crazy. It's a very there's ass for every seat kind of romantic.
