S01.E10: Bat Mitzvah Crashers

[AnimeMania]

(Season Finale)

Miriam's Big Apple-themed bat mitzvah sets the scene for even greater life changes when Noah and Joanne confront questions about their future.

Premiere Date: September 26, 2024     Netflix     

[iMonrey]

I binged this whole series in a couple of days. It was cute, and innocuous. An easy watch, nothing profound. I don't know where it goes from here. If Noah has wanted to be a rabbi his whole life he's eventually going to resent giving that up for a woman who isn't of the same faith, in all likelihood. I know the gesture seems romantic but in reality it doesn't seem like that's going to turn out so well.

If there's a second season it will probably be a lot more angsty. His family was already mad about Joanne as it was. Wait until they find out about this. 

[Dminches]

I do think that Bell and Brody have some good chemistry.

They can get away with using common rom-com stuff in the first season but the next season would definitely need to have some meat. A storyline which puts them together but exposes the challenges they both face would be interesting but I am not sure how many people would tune in.  Of course, if there were enough scenes with Sasha and Morgan that would help. Also Joanne and Noah's mom have the potential for some cringeworthy moments.

[chitowngirl]

We just binged this in two evenings and we never do that. That’s how much we liked it!

[jmonique]

A season 2 really needs to include someone, anyone telling Esther she really needs to go fuck herself and then get her own life. Yeesh.

Also, I really enjoyed watching Kristen Bell getting a chance to act like a functionalish adult. I loved Eleanor Shellstrop, but Joanne is way more like a person.

[Laurie4H]

This show was entertaining but I just wish writers would tone down the cutesy, clever dialogue in some of these movies and shows.  People don’t always have one liners for everything and know exactly what to say at every given moment.  It just not natural.  

[Lsk02]

5 hours ago, jmonique said:

A season 2 really needs to include someone, anyone telling Esther she really needs to go fuck herself and then get her own life. Yeesh.

I think Esther was very much a Bina-In-Training. I was hoping she’d figure that out with the dress cutting scene, but I doubt it. 

[Cementhead]

I binged the whole thing yesterday and really enjoyed it.  I almost gave up on it 2 or 3 episodes in because all of the "podcast this!" and "podcast that!" talk was driving me crazy.  They must have said the word podcast 100x. 

Great actors, well-written characters and a pretty good script.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. 

[Dminches]

I did not remember that Jackie Tohn (Esther) was in The Good Place and House of Lies. Must have had something to do with Bell wanting her to be in this as well.

 

[AriAu]

Good dialogue, good acting but the real key is GREAT chemistry between the 2 leads. I really do believe that the two of them are falling in love and genuinely care about each other. 

I get why Joanne cut and ran. She is written as a little selfish and snarky and overly critical and sometimes a little mean...i.e. not inherently an all around good person so I can see how the idea of being a good example to others would scare the crap out of her! It came across that she was really concerned about how her actions would reflect on Noah and ran because she really didn't want to hurt him. We hardly ever saw that level of personal growth out of Carrie Bradshaw, on whom this character HAS to be at least slightly based on.

Willow (sorry Justine Lupe will always be Willow to me) was terrific and really played the character in a very funny and truly consistent manner. On the other hand, our other sidekick, Sasha, was all over the board and it was hard to figure out what to expect out of him. Was he charming, was he stupid, was he just a doofus, was he spoiled, was he a good husband, was he cheating.....never knew and any of those things were possible.

There are so many things wrong about the attempts to introduce or explain Judaism that I am not even going to try and list here, but it would be nice if they started by pronouncing things correctly and then explaining things in a way that makes it matter and is correct.

Edited October 1 by AriAu

[Jillybean]

59 minutes ago, AriAu said:

I get why Joanne cut and ran. She is written as a little selfish and snarky and overly critical and sometimes a little mean...i.e. not inherently an all around good person so I can see how the idea of being a good example to others would scare the crap out of her! It came across that she was really concerned about how her actions would reflect on Noah and ran because she really didn't want to hurt him. We hardly ever saw that level of personal growth out of Carrie Bradshaw, on whom this character HAS to be at least slightly based on.

Hmmm...I didn't get any whiff of Carrie Bradshaw from Joanne. I did think of Charlotte, who converted to Judiasm for Harry. I do agree Carrie had no personal growth throughout that series (and beyond).

I loved this and hope for a Season 2!

[peachmangosteen]

4 hours ago, AriAu said:

We hardly ever saw that level of personal growth out of Carrie Bradshaw, on whom this character HAS to be at least slightly based on.

The show was created by Erin Foster and is based on her relationship. She married a Jewish man and converted.

Edited October 1 by peachmangosteen

[AheadofStraight]

I also saw an interview where Erin said she wrote the role intending to play herself but Netflix wouldn't let her play the part and pushed for Kristen! 

[peachmangosteen]

I saw that, too. Kind of embarrassing for her lol.

[Paloma]

On 9/28/2024 at 12:02 PM, iMonrey said:

I binged this whole series in a couple of days. It was cute, and innocuous. An easy watch, nothing profound. I don't know where it goes from here. If Noah has wanted to be a rabbi his whole life he's eventually going to resent giving that up for a woman who isn't of the same faith, in all likelihood. I know the gesture seems romantic but in reality it doesn't seem like that's going to turn out so well.

My husband and I also binged this in a couple of days. With what's going on in the world we really needed something light and with a happy ending (for now), especially as a "palate cleanser" after watching the first two episodes of Yellowjackets on Netflix.

One thing we liked about this was that Noah and Joanne faced some real challenges and for the most part dealt with them as adults. It wasn't all just predictable rom-com dialogue.

Regarding Noah's future, it's true that he can't become head rabbi if she doesn't convert, but he could probably remain as the assistant rabbi at this temple or else go to another temple that may not be so strict. (Just guessing here--my husband and I are non-observant Jews so don't really know the rules.) 

I agree that this is not likely to turn out well in the long run, especially with his mother's hostility to shiksas. And I'm not even sure that the chemistry between Noah and Joanne will be enough for a lifetime commitment.

[buttersister]

I binged. Then immediately gave it thumb down. Did they miss a trope? Nope. 

Man who dreamt of being head rabbi gets the nod and walks away for woman who offered to convert until she realized the life of a rabbi’s wife was more than an afternoon’s worth of effort. 

I was hoping for a fun rom-com. I’ll give them this. The title says it all. I vote one and done.

[General Days]

On 10/1/2024 at 1:23 PM, AriAu said:

Willow (sorry Justine Lupe will always be Willow to me) was terrific and really played the character in a very funny and truly consistent manner. 

[...]

There are so many things wrong about the attempts to introduce or explain Judaism that I am not even going to try and list here, but it would be nice if they started by pronouncing things correctly and then explaining things in a way that makes it matter and is correct.

Will you give some examples of mispronunciations? (Not doubting you, just didn't catch them.) Did the Jewish characters mispronounce, or were they mostly from Joanne and her crew?

On 10/2/2024 at 1:12 PM, AheadofStraight said:

I also saw an interview where Erin said she wrote the role intending to play herself but Netflix wouldn't let her play the part and pushed for Kristen! 

Aww. I looked up Erin Foster and saw that her life inspired the series. I didn't read any interviews, though. She's a very pretty woman (and I think she's a couple of years younger than Bell), but Kristen Bell will bring in viewers. I can see why Netflix wanted Kristen. 

13 hours ago, buttersister said:

I binged. Then immediately gave it thumb down. Did they miss a trope? Nope. 

Man who dreamt of being head rabbi gets the nod and walks away for woman who offered to convert until she realized the life of a rabbi’s wife was more than an afternoon’s worth of effort. 

I was hoping for a fun rom-com. I’ll give them this. The title says it all. I vote one and done.

I feel like the show has been decent at zagging when I was afraid they'd zig. 

I don't think this first season was intended as a stand-alone series, so I don't feel that the Noah throws away his lifelong dream storyline is resolved. I feel like season one gave us Act I of that story.

One thing I like about it is that nobody is as bad as they're made to seem at first. (Okay, Noah's not made to seem bad at first -- I mean everyone else.) Joanne, Bina, Esther, Morgan -- they start out as trope characters, but they're being fleshed out beyond the trope.

I just hope that, if it gets a second and/or subsequent seasons, that Foster is allowed to tell us a complete story. As much as I miss shows like This Is Us, The Good Place, and Ted Lasso, I like that they were successful enough that it was the executive producers/writers who got to say, "This is where we end, and this is how we're ending it."

[possibilities]

The relationship is too new for her to decide about converting. They haven't really talked about it at all. And so my take is that he decided that he couldn't take the promotion at the expense of their relationship getting more time to develop, not that he decided not to be a rabbi anymore. 

I also don't think this is fully resolved.

A synagogue I was part of had the rabbi's wife die, and then (a few years later) he became romatically involved with a congregant. They fired him because it was a violation of ethics to get romantically involved with anyone who has had a pre-existing relationship with you in the position of authority -- that means nobody who is a member of the synagogue wher eyou are the rabbi (same kind of wrong as a therapist marrying a patient). He gave up his career for his relationship. And the synagogue gave up their rabbi for their ethics. 

I personally think it's a tough position for a rabbi or anyone in a similar role, to find a partner, because on the one hand you want someone who shares your values, but on the other hand, you ethically can't have that with anyone you know from your primary community. It doesn't seem like the synagogue on this show shares that ethical viewpoint, but it's something I and many others do take very seriously. 

So, in some ways, it's actually better for him to meet someone who converts than to "fish in the pre-existing pond". 

I do think the story had the feeling of part 1, not and endpoint, and I hope we do get to see the next phase as it develops.

I also want to see him talk to the rabbi at the camp, the one who was so welcoming. Jews are not a monolith. We have a whole lot of controversies, different branches with different rules and traditions, and a lot of variation in what is acceptable, just like how Christianity has a lot of denominations with some common values but also some differences.

[mledawn]

I binged this and was entertained.

I thought Esther was a trope and not enough was done to temper that although an effort was made. Mina started out to be a trope but I think she was fleshed out a bit more that we could relate.

Did Noah not tell his family why he broke up with Rebecca? Rebecca herself doesn't seem to acknowledge why they broke up.  I mean, she took her own wedding ring out of his drawer and then started planning the wedding with her mother in law. That's WILD. Aside from that, what we see of Rebecca makes her seem pretty cool, tbh.

I'm not religious but it does seem reasonable for a family of strong faith to want their child to have a partner who is part of that faith. And if the child has dedicated their life to being part of the leadership in that faith, it is reasonable to be frustrated with that child's sudden obsession wth someone outside that faith.

It's clear that Noah loves being a rabbi, loves helping people, and loves being a part of his community. Joanne has no concept of being in a community in that sense and is a liiiiiittle bit selfish.

I like all the characters, I like the rough storyline, but I genuinely have no idea how this story continues. Learning here that it's based on the writer's own life is very interesting!

 

[Bruinsfan]

On 10/5/2024 at 4:51 PM, Paloma said:

Regarding Noah's future, it's true that he can't become head rabbi if she doesn't convert, but he could probably remain as the assistant rabbi at this temple or else go to another temple that may not be so strict. (Just guessing here--my husband and I are non-observant Jews so don't really know the rules.)

Noah seems a little young to me to be so focused on becoming head rabbi to a congregation that includes his parents, his domineering sister-in-law, possibly his ex girlfriend, and likely a lot of other people who have strong opinions about how he should live his life since they watched him grow up. Even removing Joanne from the equation entirely I don't see him being able to command the respect from that group of people that he would need to in order to be an effective moral/spiritual leader. If being head rabbi is his ultimate goal in life, I think he needs to do it further afield, with people who first meet him as an adult authority figure.

[Lola82]

This would’ve been a fun show if I could get past how inaccurate they showed a rabbi’s life - driving on Fri night (coming back from camp), playing basketball and having drinks on Sat…they portrayed his role like it’s a regular 9-5 job, I couldn’t get past it to enjoy the show.

[possibilities]

It didn't seem like he observed Shabbat at all, really, His brother said something like "but we never do that" [referring to Havdalah] when they were setting it up as part of the campaign to sell Joanne on Judaism.

Fundamentally, you have to accept the premise that a rabbi who couldn't marry a gentile would date one. 

I was raised for the first part of my childhood in a Conservative synagogue and then we switched to Reform when I was a little older. As an adult, I've been more surrounded by Reconstructionists and "Jewish Renewal" movement members. And there is quite a variation in which rituals are observed, and things like who is observing Kashrut, or Shabbat, who will intermarry and who won't, etc. So I kinf of rolled with it for the tv show. But I do think it's a little bit inconsistent-- they don't eat pork or shellfish, but they also don't observe Shabbat? It doesn't offend me, but I do have questions.

Edited October 10 by possibilities

[DrSpaceman73]

I enjoyed it. Just didn't think it was as great as I'd heard. 

It's like sex and the city crossed with the thorn birds for jews. 

I very much get a carrie Bradshaw vibe from Joanne.  In fact i often kept thinking it was her while watching. 

The whole edgy sex and relationship based podcast is very LA. unrealistic fantasy for women as a job. 

And really being the head rabbi at this synagogue is the ultimate life goal for Noah?  If he's the junior rabbi he won't be as happy?  Seems happy now.  

In terms of Kristin bell shows and movies this isn't near the top of the list of things she's done in my opinion. 

They kind of breezed over Noah breaking up with Rebecca. I know that the show isn't about their break up but would have liked more about it seemed rather abrupt.  

[possibilities]

16 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

The whole edgy sex and relationship based podcast is very LA. unrealistic fantasy for women as a job. 

Call Her Daddy is the most watched by women podcast in the USA (several million per episode) and the woman who does it makes a very hefty salary. It might not be common, but it's as realistic as any other tv contrivance.

[DrSpaceman73]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

Call Her Daddy is the most watched by women podcast in the USA (several million per episode) and the woman who does it makes a very hefty salary. It might not be common, but it's as realistic as any other tv contrivance.

That wasn't my point. 

I know such podcasts exist. 

The successful ones are just rare, except on tv.  Every la character based tv show is full of podcast producers and writers and producers and onlinle any 'cool' job you can think of.   And they all make it look easy to be wildly successful at the jobs when it is in fact rare, and hard and time consuming I'm sure

As realistic as any other tv contrivance is faint praise.  Oh look at my rich easy low stress life talking about sex and dating. !

At least on sex and the city it was based on a real writer

And a rabbi dating i will grant you is at least original. 

[MissLucas]

I'm not sure what to make of this show. It's very charming but it swerves from comedy to rather serious issues at breakneck speed and that's not always working for me. And some of the comedy - especially the stereotypes - were overdone IMO.

I was also annoyed at how clueless Joanne was about Jewish culture and how little of an effort she made to learn. Invited to a your Rabbi boyfriend's family for the first time? Play it safe and order that Charcuterie board from a Jewish delicatessen. I know that this is playing for the audience (the reference to SATC is spot on) but it makes your main character look like an idiot.

And I agree that we did not know enough about Rebecca and the break-up to really understand what was going on. That said, I'm glad they gave Rebecca that speech at the end. I'm also glad we got to see another side of Esther - both characters deserved better.

[buttersister]

Quote

know that this is playing for the audience (the reference to SATC is spot on) but it makes your main character look like an idiot.

Indeed. I can’t watch SATC for that reason. This shtick stank.

[MamaMax]

I also had to handwave some of the cluelessness about Jewish culture - but I live in NY... would LA people who are relatively worldly people really have no idea?  Like, Kosher food?? Duh.

That said, its a cute show and ill still watch.

I don't think Noah will have to choose --  I think we are looking at a show about how she not only falls in love w the rabbi but also falls in love with the faith. 

[hoodooznoodooz]

On 10/13/2024 at 8:07 AM, MissLucas said:

I was also annoyed at how clueless Joanne was about Jewish culture and how little of an effort she made to learn. Invited to a your Rabbi boyfriend's family for the first time? Play it safe and order that Charcuterie board from a Jewish delicatessen. I know that this is playing for the audience (the reference to SATC is spot on) but it makes your main character look like an idiot.

Never mind that. A woman her age doesn’t know that prosciutto is ham?

 

On 10/13/2024 at 9:12 PM, buttersister said:

Indeed. I can’t watch SATC for that reason. This shtick stank.

We should be friends. I hate Sex and the City, too.

I don’t believe Noah would like Joanne  as much as he supposedly does. She comes across as very self-involved and shallow. 

[hoodooznoodooz]

Okay, I can’t believe I didn’t realize this sooner, but this show IS really trying to be Sex & the City.

But I did post, when I first started watching this, in another thread, that it feels like this show was written and filmed 20-30 years ago.

Everyone is really trying to SEEM cute. Or jaded. Or playfully childlike. Or overbearing. Instead of just embracing the character and the flaws or insecurities.

 

Except Sasha (and the actor). The best thing about this show is Sasha. 

[springbarb]

I liked that Morgan and Joanne made up, but was annoyed that it wasn't acknowledged that even though Morgan wasn't lying...what she was saying wasn't the truth. Like a "I'm sorry I didn't believe you, but also I knew that wasn't true!"

I'm interested to see where this is going. I like that we got some nuance to Esther.

[DrSpaceman73]

Just read renewed for season two. If we didn't already know that. 

 

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/nobody-wants-this-season-2-cast-release-date-news

 

Guess the article is a couple weeks old

[TomGirl]

On 10/7/2024 at 2:52 PM, General Days said:

Will you give some examples of mispronunciations? (Not doubting you, just didn't catch them.) Did the Jewish characters mispronounce, or were they mostly from Joanne and her crew?

Ok, this may be nitpicking, but shouldn’t a show featuring a Jewish rabbi know how to pronounce Hebrew words?  Noah pretends to bless the snacks to make them kosher and says “Hava Nagila”, but pronounces it “HAH-va NIG-you-la” instead of “HAH-va nah-GEEL-ah.  And in the previous episode, the brother pronounces the camp name as “HAH-va-rim” instead of “Hah-vah-REEM”.

Also, no one as worldly as Joanne would not know the meaning of “shalom” or “Shabat.”

[arc]

Really minor note on Miriam and her friends doing a heart hands -- yeah, that's the ways Gen Z prefers to do the heart hands. Totally different from the Millennial way.

I was mostly against Bina steamrolling her grandkid's bat mitzvah. I'd get steamrolling her own sons' bar mitzvahs, but if it can't be Miriam's theme, it should be Esther and Sasha's preference. But then again, Bina and Ilan were paying for the thing. But on the first hand, shouldn't Sasha have the money to pay for this, even if he is working for his dad? Anyways, even if this episode was pretty focused on Joanne and Noah, at least Miriam got to have a little bit of standing up for herself and Esther took her side, which is nice.

On 9/30/2024 at 2:26 AM, Laurie4H said:

This show was entertaining but I just wish writers would tone down the cutesy, clever dialogue in some of these movies and shows.

<shrug> It's a show. I get more than enough stumbling around and imperfect dialogue from real life.

On 9/30/2024 at 12:55 PM, Cementhead said:

I almost gave up on it 2 or 3 episodes in because all of the "podcast this!" and "podcast that!" talk was driving me crazy.  They must have said the word podcast 100x. 

So this is based on the show creator's real life, where she not only was/is a shiksa who married a Jewish guy, but has a podcast. Even if she didn't in real life though, it is the sort of shiny, glamourous, and not-9-5-y kind of job that's perfect for a romcom protagonist.

On 10/7/2024 at 11:52 AM, General Days said:

I just hope that, if it gets a second and/or subsequent seasons, that Foster is allowed to tell us a complete story.

Well, this is Netflix. I'm surprised they even got a second season but Netflix has trained its viewers not to expect renewals for all but the most prestigious or most watched shows. That is, I hope she doesn't end s2 on a cliffhanger.

[Milburn Stone]

On 9/30/2024 at 2:55 PM, Cementhead said:

Great actors, well-written characters...

I agree. I totally expected a complication with Joanne's decision to convert, because how else could there be a cliffhanger, but I did not expect such an emotionally truthful and moving scene. 

And a word for Justine Lupe. Every time she delivered a laugh line in ten episodes, I laughed.

[ahpny]

On 10/20/2024 at 10:04 PM, springbarb said:

Like a "I'm sorry I didn't believe you, but also I knew that wasn't true!"

The sister's positions did essentially require - from what they knew at that time - that either the sister was lying or Noah was lying. Joanne reasonably dismissed the possiblity that the ex was lying because neither Joanne nor her sister knew that the ex knew who the sister was, and without this knowledge, the ex would have no reason to lie. Joanne pretty much said that.

On 10/26/2024 at 10:25 PM, TomGirl said:

On 10/7/2024 at 2:52 PM, General Days said:

Will you give some examples of mispronunciations? (Not doubting you, just didn't catch them.) Did the Jewish characters mispronounce, or were they mostly from Joanne and her crew?

Ok, this may be nitpicking, but shouldn’t a show featuring a Jewish rabbi know how to pronounce Hebrew words?  Noah pretends to bless the snacks to make them kosher and says “Hava Nagila”, but pronounces it “HAH-va NIG-you-la” instead of “HAH-va nah-GEEL-ah.

Noah's blessing over the candles - one of the most commonly recited and well -known Hebrew prayers - was a bit mangled. One would think that even if Adam Brody didn't know that prayer before filming this - a real possibility given his admittedly less-observant upbringing - he would have learned to pronounce the words better than he did. It's not that hard, the prayer is short, and he is, you know, playing a rabbi. 

[chaifan]

I did a slow binge, about a week, on this show.  I just finished a re-watch of The Good Place, so it was fun to have a little bit of Eleanor Shelstrop back on my screen. 

I did think there was a little Eleanor in Joanne.  But, as a few mentioned above, I was also getting some SJP/SATC vibes from Joanne, especially in the last few episodes.  A few times, KB sounded like SJP, and a few times KB looked like she could be SJP's younger sister. 

I may be at a table of one here, but I liked Esther.  I liked that she was very open about her feelings for Joanne, her allegiance to Rebecca, and how that got messy at a certain point.  I liked her relationship with Sasha - yeah, I know, it's a bit over the top sit-commy snarky at times, but it was a very adult to adult relationship.  She wasn't his second mommy. 

Sasha was my favorite character.  I like how he adopted the "my brother loves this woman, so I will love this woman, and her crazy sister, too" attitude.  And that he fully acknowledges that men and women can be friends with nothing else to it.  He's very loyal to people he loves.  That's nice to see in a character. 

Joanne was the weakest though.  As others said, I can't believe you get to your 30's and don't have a clue about kosher food, that prosciutto is pork, or not to even ask your boyfriend about just general (not even religious) dietary issues before walking to someone's home with a plate of meat. 

If they had a few more episodes to play with it would have been nice to see Joanne go consult with the female rabbi from the camp about conversion or "the rules". 

Rabbi's dating congregants...  obviously, this isn't an issue for that Temple.  He was dating Rebecca.  All the women were trying to fix him up with their daughters.  I get why it may be a rule some places, but I also get why it may not be a rule in the less conservative temples. 

Rebecca/Morgan scene...  how did Rebecca know who Morgan was?  I've blanked on any scene that explained that. 

Nice that it's been renewed for Season 2, but I hate having to wait a year for these things. 

[possibilities]

Everybody googles everybody these days. I think it would be pretty easy to research your ex's current gf and family thereof, and get names, pictures, and other info.