S01.E02: A Shiksa Walks Into a Temple

[AnimeMania]

Joanne and Noah get to know each other, but reality hits when she learns about his romantic history and he deals with an interrogation from his family.

Premiere Date: September 26, 2024     Netflix     

[Dminches]

This episode had a little of the "Keeping The Faith" feel with a Rabbi considering being in a relationship with a woman who isn't Jewish. However, I think it manages it better despite the family intervention.  Also, there isn't a third party involved creating a love triangle. The goodbye kiss at the end was a hot one. At least I felt the passion.

Joanne doesn't want her podcast pigeon-holed into being a sex-cast. It is deeper than that and she doesn't want to lose that part.

[Boofish]

Her sister is gross. She has a lot of nerve talking about the brother. I could do without her. 

[Bruinsfan]

In the hypothetical future of this show 20 years down the line, the sister will NOT be dealing well with no longer having the privilege that goes with being a young and pretty blonde.

I was really wanting Noah to tell off the whole damn family for that "intervention" they staged over him showing interest in a woman they hadn't hand-picked for him. Particularly the sister-in-law trying to play Barbie with living human beings.

[surfgirl]

More meh on this epi. I mean honesty, a young rabbi going for a blond gentile atheist is just a dumb premise IMO. It's very unlikely so it just reads to me as a stupid premise. Also, walking into a Synagogue in a red dress with a midriff bearing top, to gawk at a rabbi you're hot for came across as gross to me.

[arc]

This is petty of me, but honestly I think both Adam Brody and Kristen Bell are a bit too old for the roles as conceived. It's weird because now I'm researching for this thread reply and I find it was written by Erin Foster based on her own real life relationship which (doing the math) she started at 36. And certainly both Brody and Bell could pass for mid to late 30s, maybe not so much literally 30 years old, which is apparently what they wrote Joanne and Noah as.

And the show is so rooted in this particular life stage -- for example, Noah, engaged but not sure in his mind and not ready to marry -- that wouldn't play as well if the characters were mid-40s*. To be sure, people in their mid 40s don't necessarily have things figured out either, but there's a different flavor to how they fuck up.

Anyways, this age dichotomy between the actors and their characters bothers me in many scenes.

* TBH, a generation ago, generally people got married much younger and Noah and Joanne probably would have had to be mid 20s.

On 10/10/2024 at 7:42 PM, surfgirl said:

It's very unlikely so it just reads to me as a stupid premise.

Well, Foster is a shiksa who married a Jew, but her real life husband isn't a rabbi. I guess the difference here does make the whole thing more unlikely. Maybe this is part of turning a real life story into fiction: they presumably wanted to heighten the tensions. (Foster says the actual relationship with her in-laws is fine and not anything like the show.)

I did enjoy the marriage counseling Noah did with that one year married couple.

Super minor detail: when Noah texted Joanne, he misspelled "up" and "everything" and let autocorrect fix it. I don't know if that was scripted or just happenstance, but it gave a real bit of reality to a tiny moment. On the other hand, it feels almost too neat that she's "Joanne" in his phone and not "Joanne (dinner party)" or anything more descriptive.

I really liked everything from the dinner Noah and Joanne had onwards. Mainly it's because there's really great chemistry here but also those situations didn't really highlight how 30 year old the characters are. Sorry, I just had to rant about this age thing one time, I'll hopefully leave it at that.

[Uncle JUICE]

Couldn't agree more with @arc on the age thing. Since I picked this show up with the wife a few days ago, it's been bugging me, neither one of these characters look under 35, and I think even that's a stretch. It's not a criticism of the gorgeous Kristin Bell, but she seems less like a person learning how to navigate adult relationships.