Netflix know that a lot of somebodies want this. The second season of “Nobody Wants This” will premiere October 23. The show first dropped on the streamer last September to sparkling reviews, with IndieWire’s Proma Khosla praising the chemistry between leads Kristen Bell and Adam Brody.
The show, created by Erin Foster, finds Joanne (Bell, also an executive producer) and Noah (Brody) in a would-be conventional love story complicated by Noah’s position as a rabbi. Popular podcaster Joanne isn’t just not Jewish, she’s also unreligious generally — as is her entire non-traditional family. As Noah and Joanne attempt to acclimate to each other’s worlds, and Joanne explores converting, things get complicated — to put it lightly.
“Nobody Wants This” was renewed back in October, but the drop date was not revealed until the June 1 Netflix FYSEE L.A. Emmy event at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. The evening featured a screening of the pilot followed by a live taping of Foster’s “The World’s First Podcast” with Foster, Bell, Brody and fellow cast members Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, and Jackie Tohn.
Stephanie Faracy, Michael Hitchcock, Tovah Feldshuh, Paul Ben-Victor, Emily Arlook, Sherry Cola, and Shiloh Berman will also return for the next batch of episodes, and guests stars will include Miles Fowler, Alex Karpovsky, Arian Moayed, and Bell’s “Gossip Girl” co-star Leighton Meester.
Foster based the series on her own life. The actress, writer and podcaster converted to Judaism after falling in love with her Jewish now-husband, Simon Tikhman. Last year, Foster discussed her experience with IndieWire.
“There were about 23 people [in my conversion class] and only three were converting for marriage, which tells you there was 20 very interesting stories going on in that room!” she said. “And I thought it was just interesting. I hadn’t ever seen anybody explore that area, and I thought it’d be cool.”
Last month, Foster told IndieWire that Season 2 of “Nobody Wants This” would be “romantic and funny.”
“I’m not in the business of depriving people of what they want on a show like this, and making some like, artistic choice to rob you of what you want to see. I really tried to stay on point with Season 1, [it] was all these firsts, first kiss, first date, and this is going to be the next four to six months of the relationship what that looks like,” she said.