Nobody Wants This Recap: Courting the Youth Vote

Nobody Wants This
My Friend Joanne
Season 1 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★
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Listen, I’m all for Joanne and Noah having to face the disdain of youths at camp — a true test for any budding relationship — but the contrivances made to get those two into that situation are ridiculous. In what world would the woman who has repeatedly made sure people understand that her podcast is important and deep and empowering, the woman who has vehemently disagreed with her sister’s interpretation of what they do, the woman who has placed all of her career eggs in one basket and might finally see it pay off, blow off what is possibly the biggest meeting of her life to go away with her new boyfriend? And, like, not even a good away! To a Jewish camp in Ojai full of teenagers where her boyfriend has to work and there aren’t even plush bathrobes? It’s not like they booked some lavish vacation they can’t reschedule. You can reschedule this! Sure, Joanne comes to the conclusion that she is being cuckoo for coconuts here eventually, but it takes way too long to be believable. And it’s not just Joanne, either. Both she and Noah make some choices in “My Friend Joanne” that feel out of step with their characters thus far. 

What Nobody Wants This wants us to believe is that Joanne is so wrapped up in this honeymoon phase of her relationship that she doesn’t mind bailing on work. Sure, she and Noah are very cute in the little montage we get of them at the top of the episode in which they cannot seem to get out of bed or remove their lips from one another. I would, admittedly, watch an entire 30 minutes of this. And yes, we’ve established that Joanne can become obsessive, but wouldn’t she also be obsessive about her work? They still haven’t closed the deal with Spotify, so when Ashley reiterates how important this meeting is, even if the two execs are lower level, you’d think Joanne, someone who Morgan says never lets her bail on work, would focus on the big picture. At the very least, Morgan being so adamant that she wants to do this on her own might give Joanne pause; she has shown us she has very little faith in her sister, especially when it comes to work.

There are so many questions related to this that boggle the mind: why doesn’t Ashley fight harder for Joanne to make this a priority? Can’t she both go to camp and come back for dinner? Drive two cars! And why does not one person bring up that their romantic weekend away got changed to youth camp because it was important for Noah’s job? Where’s your female empowerment now, Joanne?! Characters are allowed to make bad choices, but at least let those bad choices have some internal logic. Nevertheless, there are a few great moments at Camp Haverim. The whole reason Noah was cool with bringing Joanne along while he filled in for his boss, Rabbi Cohen, was because no one remotely related to his temple would be there, so he and Joanne could freely walk around without him worrying if word would spread as to who he’s dating. This doesn’t stop him from introducing Joanne as his “friend” when his old camp counselor, Rabbi Shira (a great Leslie Grossman — seriously, the casting on this show is so good), appears. Shira couldn’t care less and she and Joanne actually seem to hit it off. While the “friend” moniker doesn’t seem to bother Joanne much at first glance, when a whole gaggle of teenage girls — teenage girls who refer to Noah as Hot Rabbi because they know what’s up — make it crystal clear that even they can see Noah is trying to hide her, it plants a seed.

Noah spends a lot of time recounting his glory days as the camp stud around here. Sure, he was super into Beanie Babies, but he also landed a girlfriend by the end of every summer, which was of the utmost importance. Joanne is lapping it up. When Morgan calls to tell her that now the director of the podcast department — the top guy — will be at this meeting but it’ll be totally cool and fine, Joanne is panicked enough to write up some additional notes for her sister but not panicked enough to head home to ensure the future of her career is safe. Again, they literally could go on a much nicer weekend getaway next weekend. Why torture yourself?! 

Things go downhill from there: Just as Noah is gathering up some food for a romantic picnic, Rabbi Cohen appears; his schedule changed and he thought he’d come up to see Noah’s Torah study. Noah gets real weird real fast, and as he’s closing the curtains, trying to sell the idea of an indoor picnic, and explaining that Rabbi Cohen holds the future of Noah’s career in his hands, it doesn’t take too long for Joanne to realize that it would be a problem for Rabbi Cohen to see her and Noah together because she’s not Jewish. 

With a bagel in each hand, Joanne resumes her favorite pastime of emotionally spiraling. She runs into Rabbi Shira, who’s making Shabbat candles for that evening and can see this woman is going through it. Shira is so calming and very cool. More of her, please. And yet it’s actually the mean gaggle of teen girls that put a few things into perspective for her while she makes her own candles. “Joanne’s like 50 and she’s being a pick-me girl,” says one, noting that when she’s middle-aged she wants to be “empowered and confident,” not sad and pathetic like Joanne. And then Joanne finally remembers that “empowered and confident” is supposed to be her “whole brand.” “Wow, you girls harshly judging me really helped,” she tells them before she heads home to take care of business. 

The first thing Joanne notices when she rolls up to the big Spotify meeting is that it’s going extremely well. Morgan is crushing it. And of course she is — she got valuable advice from none other than Sasha (he had to let her into Noah’s place to grab Joanne’s computer). Sasha informed Morgan, who talked a big game to her sister but is surprisingly open with Sasha about being nervous, that a hostage negotiator — not a typo — once taught him the “mirroring” technique, in which you repeat the last few words of whatever the person you’re speaking with said to you as if they’re really smart or interesting and it keeps that person talking. It works! It works with Sasha, who doesn’t even realize Morgan’s using it on him for a while, and it works with the Spotify execs. Sasha does mention one other rather perceptive thing to Morgan: He refers to the two of them as “the loser siblings.” Morgan denies it, but something tells me it actually cuts to her core. Sasha is as confused as she is about how that happened with her since Morgan is “a smokeshow” with a “hot Mother Earth vibe,” and Joanne is way too short, but he can tell it’s the truth, and he gets it. I love this budding weirdo friendship. 

Back at the meeting, Joanne realizes she has nothing to worry about with Morgan, and she (poorly) attempts to apologize in a subtle way. It leads to the two of them bickering, but it’s Morgan who pulls the squabble back and uses it as more evidence of why their podcast works so well. Then there’s one other distraction: Noah shows up. 

Can you believe this man? Okay, this is supposed to be very swoony and romantic, but I’m sorry, this is outrageous. The mean teens at camp are the ones who inform Noah that Joanne left because he’s sus and “treating her like a slam piece,” and she obviously doesn’t want to be his friend; she wants to be his girlfriend. “Are all guys medically stupid?” one of them asks. I worship her now. This tear-down is paired with a very lovely conversation with Shira. Noah fills her in on the whole situation and wonders if he could ever be promoted to head rabbi if he were with a non-Jew. She thinks he’s asking the wrong question; instead, he should be asking how Joanne makes him feel. “Honestly, I’ve never felt like this in my entire life,” he says, and admittedly, I did put my hand on my heart. Well, there’s his answer. You don’t give up on something great just because it’s difficult, she tells him, reminding him that nothing is set in stone, and sure, “change is a process” — and maybe one of them changes, or maybe both wind up changing to make it work, but you don’t give up. It’s a great speech, and I understand Noah’s impetus to find Joanne and apologize for treating her the way he did as soon as possible, but … could he not have waited until after her super-important meeting?

Their love is real, I am 100 percent onboard, I cherish it and even I was like, Oh no, sir, please don’t when he interrupts this big dinner. He’s the one who keeps telling her this job is important! He saw how stressed she was about it! Ahhhh! These people are outside of their minds in this episode. It feels very much like something Noah would not do. He’s the kind, considerate one.

Anyway, he does it. And yes, sure, he is romantic as hell here. He doesn’t want to lose her. When she tells him how hurt she was when he called her a friend in front of the teens whose opinion she cares about most, as she puts it, he agrees, “That was sus.” And when she tells him she’s mostly disappointed that all of this means she missed her first Shabbat, he sets up a little makeshift version of the ceremony, a pop-up Shabbat, if you will. And then, like any good camper, he asks Joanne if she would like to be his girlfriend. Yes, okay, he is very cute when he yells out, “She said yes!” I want to be mad at him, but I just can’t do it for very long. Is this how Joanne feels? It’s exhausting!