After bingeing the entire series of Nobody Wants This, the new Netflix rom-com series, Emma Clifton is convinced that this is the love story that a generation of burned out Millennial women have been waiting for.
UPDATE: This story was originally published on Sept 30 2024. We stand by our original thoughts that Season 1 was a doozy – we may never get over that first kiss scene. And now, team, in a stroke of extremely good fortune, Season 2 has just dropped on Netflix, so we all know what we’re going to be doing this long weekend. In the meantime, catch up the first season so your memory is fresh with this little reminder of what went on (and why it was so loveable!).
This story contains Season 1 gentle spoilers of a romantic nature
If you have been alive and well on the internet in the past 72 hours, you will probably have seen that the first kiss between Kristen Bell and Adam Brody’s characters in the new Netflix show, Nobody Wants This, is going viral.
The premise of the show is that a romance develops between two opposites: Noah is a Rabbi, potentially about to become head rabbi, coming out of a relationship with his long-term girlfriend whom everybody loved. Joanne is a very forthright podcaster, who is trying to sign the deal of her lifetime for the podcast hosted by her and her sister, which is all about them discussing being the “slutty single sisters” and their dating exploits in LA.
One night at a party, Noah and Joanne meet and pretty immediately fall for each other, despite being from very different worlds – and the very real issue that due to his high-profile job, Noah can only marry someone who is Jewish, which Joanne very much isn’t. The show is based on the life of writer/creator Erin Foster, who converted to Judaism for her real-life husband.
In Nobody Wants This, the pair grapple with their ‘are we only going to be friends?’ energy for a while, until there is The Big Kiss. And yes, it is a great kiss – starting off because Noah (Adam Brody, ageing like FINE WINE) asks Joanne (Kristen Bell, dreamboat) to put her ice cream and handbag down so that he can really get in there. It’s hot, it’s romantic, it’s so filled with on-screen chemistry that you may get a little butterfly in your stomach from watching.
But that is not the moment that had me squeal – like a tween – at the television. When they go on their first proper date, there is a moment where Joanne drops her cool girl attitude – after having “JUST BE CHILL” drilled into her by her sister – and admits how much she likes Noah, and how she is terrified she’s going to get hurt. With her back to Noah to cover how emotional she’s getting, Joanne reveals that she’s scared she “will become emotionally dependent on a guy who will one day realise that I’m too much and break my heart.”
In response, Noah tells her that he’s in – he wants all of it. And yes, it’s only in the early parts of the show and obviously more drama happens along the way, but it becomes a recurring theme – anytime Joanne does something that feels a little “too much,” Noah doesn’t push her away, he leans in. He likes her because of her complications, not despite of them.
We’ve written before on Capsule about Millennial women and the ‘I’m too much’ fear. It’s something we understand in a visceral way, because the pop culture furnace that raised us taught us to always aspire to be the chill girl, even though women like that don’t actually exist (unless they are written by a man).
We still live in a society where a woman being labelled “hard work” is an insult, where the question of whether or not women are “too emotional” is still used to keep us out of certain places. Add that to the unavoidable sense of cynicism that comes with being single in your 30s, and it’s little wonder that there’s a generation of women who feel burned out by dating.
So, having a generation of girls who fell in love with Seth Cohen from The OC, now be told by a middle-aged Adam Brody that it’s okay for them to be a bit difficult sometimes and still deserve love… it feels… healing?
It feels like antidote of the ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy’ speech that Julia Roberts gives in Notting Hill, where Hugh Grant rejects her for being famous and therefore difficult to love. Or how about all those rom coms we watched where the girl was only chosen by the guy after a complete makeover and/or she gives up her dream job or ambitions (Devil Wears Prada, She’s All That, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days).
If you enjoyed the prickly female protagonist and romantic chemistry of Starstruck, and the horniness of Fleabag, then you will love the messy Millennial-ness of Nobody Wants This. Also, if you were a Veronica Mars fan who refuses to acknowledge any of the reboots or movies, you will enjoy watching Kristen Bell finally date the leading man she deserves.