Joanne’s Conversion & Relationship With Noah Explained

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Nobody Wants This season 2.Nobody Wants This creator Erin Foster and star Kristen Bell break down Joanne’s conversion decision and her relationship with Noah (Adam Brody) at the end of season 2. As Joanne and Noah continue to navigate their romance, she spends much of the season wrestling with whether she will convert to Judaism.

up during Nobody Wants This season 2’s ending, Joanne not converting contributes to the couple seemingly breaking up for good. This is only temporary, though, as Joanne realizes with the help of Esther (Jackie Tohn) that she does love Judaism and wants to convert, and the season concludes with Joanne and Noah back together.

While speaking with TudumBell explains that Joanne and Noah’s relationship can only work if Joanne converts to Judaism, but she wants to do it for the right reasons, and not just so she can change for him. Check out Bell’s comments below:

Noah cannot be with Joanne unless she converts but doesn’t want her to do it for him. Joanne doesn’t want to change for a guy but wants to be with Noah. So there’s an incredible amount of friction.

Foster discusses how Joanne has been questioning whether she wants to be or even can be Jewish. By getting too wrapped up in these questions, Joanne doesn’t realize until the season 2 finale that Judaism is giving her everything that she has been seeking. Read Foster’s explanation below:

Do I want to be Jewish? Can I be Jewish? Am I Jewish? Should I fake it? She’s trying so hard to see it that she can’t see it. She’s yearning for something to give her structure, purpose, boundaries, values, and traditions. Judaism can give her all of those things.

She’s enjoying all these different things about Judaism. But she keeps thinking God is going to just come down from the sky and be like, “And now you’re Jewish!”

Since Esther “rejects Joanne completely” earlier in season 1, Foster likes that Esther is the one who helps Joanne reach her epiphany in season 2. This development is also made rewarding by Bell and Tohn being close friends in real life.

It’s nice that it ended up being Esther. In the beginning of Season 1, she rejects Joanne completely. At the end of Season 2, she’s the one that’s like, “It’s so obvious you’re one of us.” And in real life, Kristen and Jackie are best friends. So that was cool.

Nobody Wants This season 1 ends with Noah running to Joanne, but this time, the season wraps up with Joanne running to him. Foster and her creative team wanted the parallel ending to focus more on romance than religion, as the true romance is Noah accepting her regardless of her faith, and Joanne knowing she’s going to convert was already made clear in the scene with Esther.

We wanted to end on romance, not religion. The romance is him saying, “I don’t care what you are, I’m choosing you.” We don’t really need to hear her saying, “Oh, my God, you’re not going to believe this. I’ve been Jewish this entire time,” because we know that’s about to happen.

The true inspiring story Nobody Wants This comes from Foster’s own life, where she converted to Judaism before marrying her Jewish husband. As such, it is unsurprising for Joanne to convert to Judaism, but season 2 does it in a way that makes the development feel earned.

From regularly attending Shabbat dinners with Noah and his family to analyzing issues from numerous perspectives, Joanne is gradually immersing herself in Jewish traditions and values. It is only when her relationship seemingly ends with Noah that she realizes how much she will miss these things, along with how much she connects with them.

Joanne wanting to convert is not what cements Noah’s love for her, though, nor is his love based on who she already is. This makes the romantic moment they share in the season’s closing moments all the more impactful. f Nobody Wants This continues with season 3, it will continue to balance the intertwined story of romance and religion as Joanne and Noah’s relationship moves forward, and she converts to Judaism.

Release Date

September 26, 2024

NETWORKS

Netflix

Showrunner

Jenni Konner, Bruce Eric Kaplan

Directors

Greg Mottola, Lawrence Trilling, Oz Rodriguez, Hannah Fidell

Writers

Lindsay Golder, Jane Becker, Barbie Adler, Neel Shah, Niki Schwartz-Wright