“Nobody Wants That” Season 1 Episode 6 recap

Photo: Hopper Stone/Netflix

Joanne’s family is mentally unhinged and I’m obsessed with them. (Stephanie Faracy for everything!) Although it’s unplanned, Joanne and Noah’s relationship takes the next big step when Joanne’s parents, Henry and Lynn, and Henry’s new boyfriend Pat unexpectedly drop by Vanderpump Night with her daughters and Noah. What follows is easily the funniest episode of Nobody wants that So far (“This Ick” was written by Jane Becker and directed by Karen Maine) shows us exactly what this show can be when it’s firing on all cylinders: There are swoon-worthy but relatable romantic beats, pitch-perfect ensemble chemistry, and Adam Brody says “prego” in a crazy Italian accent. Honestly, what more could you want from a romantic comedy?

When Morgan starts complaining that Joanne’s relationship is ruining the podcast – downloads are down and the comments are brutal – Joanne decides it’s time for her sister to actually meet Noah. She will love him. Even though Morgan is convinced that they need to have “weird rabbi sex through a hole in the sheet.” It’s supposed to be an easy slope and the start is great – Noah even brings his own sheet with a hole in it. He’s funny! Morgan can’t hide the fact that she’s a little impressed.

However, when Henry and Lynn (and Pat) announce that they are on their way there, Noah’s entire attitude changes. He’s in “meet the parents” mode, which means the guy is stressed. He’s wearing his basketball gear! There aren’t enough snacks! He’s out to fix both problems before Joanne and Morgan can tell him to relax. “Nothing is less important than my parents,” Joanne tries to convince him. This is harsh, but they are agents of chaos. It’s clear from the start that Lynn is having a terribly difficult time seeing her ex-husband completely in love in a new relationship while trying to act cool. Her tense “Love is in the air!” really sent me. When Noah returns, not in a blazer but in a suit jacket – it’s really important that you get the terminology right – over his hoodie and a comically large bouquet of sunflowers, Lynn’s first words to him are: “Okay, a rabbi!” ” before informing him that he is handsome and looks just like Billy Joel, and didn’t you know that Billy Joel’s birthday is just three days after hers? When Henry tells Noah about his job and says, “Actually, podiatry is very stable because, you know, almost everyone has feet,” you’ll wish these people were in every episode.

You’d think that the fact that Lynn and Henry are mostly disasters would make Noah less nervous, but that’s not the case. He tries so hard! Well, not hard enough not to scream “Prego” in a terrible, perhaps Italian accent when Morgan says she’s going to put the sunflowers in an empty Prego bottle (no one in her family knows what to do with flowers , they don’t even know). actually knows what they are for), but he tries.

The funny thing is that he doesn’t really have to try with the parents. They seem to love him immediately. Lynn in particular is touched by him: Noah seems to be the only one who notices how difficult this all is for Lynn. Noah is alone in the kitchen after seeing Henry and Pat being affectionate with each other and Henry telling Pat he loves him. He wants to make sure Lynn is okay. She opens up to him immediately: she knows it must be hard for her girls to see their father so emotionally open to someone else since he was never with them, and she knows she should have moved on by now; She’s trying to hold everything together. “I think you’re doing a good job,” Noah tells her. They both know he’s lying, but it’s very sweet.

Now he has some problems with Joanne. Joanne sees that jacket, hears him call it a sports jacket, takes one look at that ridiculous bouquet of flowers, and the girl has, as Morgan calls it, “the ick.” You can’t hide the disgust for your sister, and even though Joanne tries to deny that she’s so turned off by everything Noah’s doing right now that she honestly might have to break up with him, it’s all over her face. It’s the Prego thing that really throws her off. And this thing about dumping a guy as soon as he does something heinous is just the way these sisters operate. Morgan saw a guy she was dating running with a backpack and watching it bounce up and down on his butt, and their relationship never recovered. The guy Joanne saw chasing a ping pong ball around the room? Dead to her. “You can’t miss something like that,” she says truthfully.

But just when Joanne seems to be resigned to ending things with Noah, something great happens, no matter how much we all scream at her to stop being so stupid. After his conversation with Lynn and the disgust written on Joanne’s face, Noah puts several things together and takes her aside to chat. First, he is very aware that he has done something or several things to cause her to panic. But he won’t apologize for trying to make a good impression on her family. Mostly because it’s normal to do that, but also because he doesn’t think her irritation really has anything to do with him acting a little crazy. It’s obvious that there’s a lot going on in her family and in her relationship with both of her parents, so “he understands why (she) should be on her guard.” He knows immediately that she’s responding to all of these intense feelings with self-sabotage . “Joanne, I’m on your side. I can handle you.” The way he says that one line should honestly get Adam Brody hired for every romantic comedy ever made for the rest of time. I’m weak!

I wish we had an official timeline to know how long these two have been together because Noah can read Joanne so well. This isn’t that surprising since he nailed her the first night they met on the long walk to her car, but it’s still pretty nice to see. Grand gestures are cool and all, but I love this Nobody wants that really shows romance by getting Noah to really see Joanne for who she is.

He tells her to get over this defense mechanism and act like she’s not into him or that she’s too cool for it. He really likes her and he knows she likes him too. And then he lets her say it about the jacket, because he never apologizes for that.

So Noah has won over Joanne’s family. As if there was ever any doubt. Obviously it will be much more difficult the other way around, since Noah’s mother…well, you met her. It’s certainly no coincidence that they catch the note that Noah can only marry people in his synagogue who are both Jewish or if someone has converted to Judaism – this will clearly be part of a larger discussion before the whole thing ends. But in the short term, there may be a new alliance between Joanne and Noah’s families that will prove useful.

How about the fact that Sasha still texts Morgan? It seems to be right in the friend zone, thank God, because no one wants to incur Esther’s wrath, but also because both Sasha and Morgan, our loser siblings, look like they could use a good friend. When Sasha spends the day with his father at the restaurant and, thanks to Esther’s urging, ends up asking for and getting a promotion at work, he texts Morgan to share the news. It’s sweet! It seems mostly healthy? We’ll see how or if this unlikely friendship comes into play with our larger story.