Nobody Wants This Season 2: Did Joanne actually convert at the end of the series? Details explored

Nobody Wants This Season 2 has a perfect combination of closure and mess, which is exactly what viewers wanted to see in Erin Foster's sharply written romantic dramedy. The finale throws the viewers directly into the world of faith, love, and identity and makes them wonder whether Joanne and Noah can survive the differences in their core.

At the very first glance, it is obvious that Nobody Wants This Season 2 is not a fairy-tale romance. It is an exploration of compromise, faith, and what transpires when two people in different worlds attempt to create a similar one.

Joanne and Noah's compromised relationship in Nobody Wants This Season 2

The heart of Nobody Wants This Season 2 is a push-pull between Joanne (Kristen Bell), a non-Jewish podcaster, and Noah (Adam Brody), a devout rabbi. They are in a relationship throughout the season, with the issue of whether Joanne would turn into a Jew hanging over their heads and the impact that will have on both.

At the end, Joanne has not made the official conversion. It is not about love but about being true to herself; she does not want to switch her religion only to hold on to her partner. Meanwhile, Noah is going through his crossroads: he is offered an opportunity to pursue his dream of becoming head rabbi but starts to wonder whether ambition and love are something that go hand in hand.

Joanne temporarily moves in with Noah when the podcast tensions cause her to be evicted. The resulting closeness exaggerates all they have been evading. At the end, they separate temporarily when Noah thinks it just won't work.

However, they eventually reunite, after Joanne realizes that she may be ready. The season ends on a kiss, which is more of a starting point than a finishing one, not a conclusion, but a renewal.

The lie, the faith, and the choice

The most powerful thing about Nobody Wants This Season 2 is that it does not idealize religion or love. Noah tells people that Joanne is taking her time to make the decision but is surely planning to convert. This shows the extent to which he desires to be accepted by his own religious community.

On her part, Joanne makes her decision after having a heart-to-heart talk with Esther (Jackie Tohn). Esther reminds her that the whole time she was living Jewish, because she was good and kind and not because of rituals. That is what makes Joanne discover her own faith, of a kind, and she is rather silent but determined enough to take the next step towards conversion.

The two characters go through a lot of changes throughout the series. Joanne is not converting in the interests of Noah; she is doing it on her own. And the fact that Noah did give up his career is an indication that love, finally, does not necessarily mean giving up.

Helping arcs in Nobody Wants This Season 2: Morgan, Sasha, and Esther

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Although the story centers around Joanne and Noah, the supporting cast of Nobody Wants This Season 2 is accorded a decent amount of attention. The sister of Joanne (Justine Lupe) Morgan spends the majority of the season juggling between her profession and her love life problems.

The relationship between her and Dr. Andy does not work, as she finds out that she has been holding onto comfort instead of actual happiness. At the end, she is depicted walking off, which is a tiny yet significant self-conscious moment.

Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Esther (Jackie Tohn), in their turn, are another emotional truth. Their relationship is destroyed not due to infidelity but rather due to fatigue. Sasha desires a second child, and Esther wants to be independent. They decide to part ways in one of the most mature and grounded scenes of the finale.

However, their relationship is not caustic, but affectionate, which preconditions potential reconnecting and reinvention in Nobody Wants This Season 3.

Real-life inspiration of the creator

The real-life story of Erin Foster gives another meaning to Nobody Wants This Season 2. Foster herself has not been shy in revealing how she was influenced by her marriage to Simon Tikhman, who is Jewish, and this led to the idea of the show. As per Today, she said,

"It's not always like tangible things I can point to. The emotional journey, I would say, is very accurate to my experience of meeting my husband."

Similar to Joanne, she had to find her way through issues of faith, family pressure, and self-identity amidst an interfaith relationship. The autobiographical aspect makes the series so real. Instead of making religion look like a plot gimmick, Nobody Wants This Season 2 uses it as a commentary on how individuals bargain the matters of love and place in contemporary relationships.

The resolution does not lie in what is right and what is wrong, but in whether two individuals will be able to tolerate the imperfection and nonetheless proceed to live together.

The bigger questions left unanswered in Nobody Wants This Season 2

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Although the emotional kiss that ends Nobody Wants This Season 2 is final and seemingly closes the case, there are still some lines in the air:

Joanne's conversion: She is not yet an official convert. She is ready, but we are never shown how she proceeds through the official procedure.

Family resistance: Noah's mother still hasn't accepted Joanne completely. That tension is obviously not resolved and is ready to be explored in Season 3.

Morgan is independent: Morgan has separated from Andy, and her trajectory is that she is destined to be rediscovered (or to have a new romantic orientation).

These hanging questions provide the denouement with its permanence.