‘Nobody Wants This’ Season 2 Is Finally Here—But Is it as Good as Season 1?

We open season two with Joanne and Noah deeply entrenched in the “honeymoon phase” of their relationship, cooking together, supporting one another’s hobbies and planning their first dinner party as a couple. In the words of Joanne’s sister Morgan, “You’re in a psychotically annoying relationship—way to make all of our single listeners feel bad.” And it certainly seems that way at first. But of course, the issue of Joanne converting still looms large over the couple, giving all their wonderful progress a heavy twinge of sadness.

Throughout season two, I thought often of an article by Executive Managing Editor Catrina Yohay about how she considers the reality show Love Is Blind to be like free couples therapy. Nobody Wants This absolutely falls into the same camp. Joanne and Noah seem willing to have every difficult relationship conversation—about how being a generically good guy doesn’t make you a good boyfriend, how saying your angry or jealous thoughts out loud doesn’t make you a bad person, how telling your partner exactly what you want is empowering not belittling—except for the big one: how to navigate religion. Another couple willing to dive into the tough stuff? Esther and Sasha.

Esther and Sasha’s relationship gets much more attention in season two, giving us better insight into their love and connection, and providing Esther with a lot more depth of character. Esther feels extremely weird about Sasha’s friendship of sorts with Morgan, and isn’t afraid to get into it right off the bat. No, Sasha and Morgan never had an outright romantic vibe to their relationship, but their closeness is still strange and Esther clearly doesn’t quite know how to feel about it.

It’s really sweet to watch Jackie Tohn and Timothy Simons’s scenes together. They truly give you a feeling of two people who’ve been in a relationship for a very long time. Yes, Esther is still demanding and extremely blunt, and Sasha isn’t doing a ton to fight the allegations of being a pushover. But it’s a dynamic that seems to have worked for them thus far.

That said, not every character appeared to get the same attention to detail from the writers as our two leading couples. Ironically, Esther’s newfound depth seems to come at the cost of Morgan’s. I credit Justine Lupe’s talent as an actor as the only reason Morgan doesn’t feel like a caricature in season two, because she sure is written as one.

For every scene where I wanted to roll my eyes at Morgan’s over the top “I’m hot and I know it” act, it was balanced by a truly funny moment that felt real. Her absolute best moments in season two echo the ones from season one—namely, any time she interacts with someone entirely outside her normal orbit. It’s what made her friendship with Sasha so intriguing. And it’s why one of my favorite moments from season two involves Morgan and Bina having a heart-to-heart in the bathroom of the local high school (yes, really).

I will admit, however, that as much as I want to accuse Morgan of being a side-character prone to fulfilling tropes, I never could have guessed where she would end up in the final episode.

It’s no easy feat to follow a fantastic first season of a new show with an equally good second, but Erin Foster and the crew behind Nobody Wants This have done exactly that. Some plot points seem inevitable, and yet not entirely predictable. And many come out of left field in ways that really rock you, in both good ways and bad. If you loved season one, you’ll almost definitely find yourself equally charmed by season two.

Watch Nobody Wants This season two on Netflix now.

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