Adam Brody as Noah, Kristen Bell as Joanne in 'Nobody Wants This.' Erin Simkin/Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text When Erin Foster's Netflix rom-com Nobody Wants This premiered last year, I discussed it through one of my favorite prisms: Is it good for the Jews? My answer was a mixed "Yes." The first season, in which a rabbi (Adam Brody's Noah) falls for a shiksa podcaster (Kristen Bell's Joanne) - "shiksa" being the show's oft-repeated preferred slur, not mine - aimed for laughter and swooning, but simultaneously took a serious-minded approach to interfaith relationships and a specific and detailed approach to Judaism. I appreciated that effort, especially in a television landscape in which any expression of religion, much less Jewishness, is decidedly rare. Related Stories TV Everybody Wants This! How a Netflix Rom-Com Went From Near Implosion to Cultural Obsession Movies Box Office: 'Black Phone 2' Dials It in for Blumhouse With $27.3M U.S. Opening and $43M Globally Nobody Wants This The Bottom Line Not a shanda, but not quite a mitzvah either. Airdate: Thursday, October 23 (Netflix)Cast: Kristen Bell, Adam Brody, Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, Jackie TohnCreator: Erin Foster I still expressed serious concerns about the show's lack of generosity toward its Jewish female characters - particularly Tovah Feldshuh's Bina and Jackie Tohn's Esther - and I was perplexed by why both Joanne and her sister/podcast partner Morgan's (Justine Lupe) lack of knowledge or curiosity about Jewishness so frequently resembled playful antisemitism. Was the show itself also, you know, good? Well, my answer was similarly a mixed "Yes." The appeal of Nobody Wants This hinged primarily on the chemistry between Bell and Brody, which isn't uncommon for a rom-com. That the chemistry was palpable helped Nobody Wants This overcome its predictable reliance on genre clichés, while the supporting cast, especially Timothy Simons, Lupe and Tohn, helped elevate underwritten roles (though with Lupe's performance, I was stuck pondering uncomfortable questions like, "If an actor is so charming that she makes you ignore that her character borders on antisemitic ... is that GOOD?") Anyway, the show was a sensation, earning Golden Globe and Emmy nominations and reminding Hollywood pencil-pushers that the appetite for a proficiently made rom-com very much exists. The second season of Nobody Wants This, then, is a reminder of why television prefers, whenever possible, to give its rom-coms a procedural coating. Moonlighting? A mystery-of-the-week procedural (but really, at its best, a rom-com). Castle? A mystery-of-the-week procedural (but really, at its best, a rom-com). Bones? A mystery-of-the-week procedural (but really, at its best, a rom-com). It just helps for your characters to have other things to do in addition to falling in and out of love. Otherwise, a distinct risk of repetition and exhaustion sets in. Nobody Wants This doesn't fall off a creative cliff in its second season, but a lot of the charm is diminished. The new creative team takes evident pains to adjust some of the character-based problems from the first season, but in the process of expanding the profile for several supporting players, Brody and Bell are left playing often identical beats of uncertainty and insecurity to the ones that worked well in the first season. In the process, the chemistry and overall appeal dwindle dramatically. The new season, boasting Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan as new showrunners, picks up fairly soon after the first - though time generally doesn't matter much in the world of Nobody Wants This, except for when people want to complain about things being "too soon" or "too slow." Noah and Joanne are basically living together, except for when the show wants to remind us of Joanne's insecurity that they're not formally living together. The whole "Joanne isn't sure she's ready to convert to Judaism" thing remains their primary bone of contention, though the writers give Noah a contrived professional crisis so that they have things to talk about other than why Joanne can't commit to converting or not converting. Adding to the rom-com hijinks are extended storylines with Simons' Sasha, whose professional life has vanished entirely along with father Ilan (Paul Ben-Victor, almost totally absent); Esther hitting bumpy patches; and Morgan embarking on a romance with Dr. Andy (Arian Moayed), an accelerated love story that Joanne disapproves of but the show seems to find amusing rather than ultra-disturbing given its origins. We spend more time with Joanne and Morgan's parents (Stephanie Faracy's Lynn and Michael Hitchcock's Henry). The season premiere, written by Foster and featuring the return of Noah's rec league basketball team, again positions Feldshuh's Bina,