“Nobody Wants This” captured audiences with its heartwarming take on the unexpected relationship between Kristen Bell’s agnostic sex podcaster Joanne and Adam Brody’s hot rabbi Noah, with viewers latching onto every moment of their sweeping romance from their meet-cute to their idyllic finale kiss.
Creator Erin Foster kept leaning into the romance as she crafted Joanne and Noah’s next set of firsts for Season 2, moving the couple out of the arena of first dates and first kisses and into their first Valentine’s Day and other milestones as the pair begin to blend their lives.
“The romance really is a big thing that stood out to people, of course, and also,
dialogue about healthy love, and seeing a male lead who’s emotionally available but also confident and can hold his own against a tough, strong girl,” Foster told TheWrap.
“You have so much data from Season 1 — you know what people fell in love with, what they gravitated to,” EP Sara Foster added. “It was very important for us to keep the same tone, because the audience tells you what they liked, and what they didn’t, which honestly didn’t feel like there was a lot they didn’t.”
As the Fosters aimed to recreate the on-screen magic of Season 1, which debuted to strong viewership and rave reviews, there was some shuffling of responsibilities behind the scenes as “Girls” executive producers Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan came onboard to co-showrun Season 2, while Erin stepped back from showrunning, but remained on as an EP. The move, which was announced with the official Season 2 greenlight, lightened the load of the creator and first-time showrunner, who admitted “we needed a better process.”
“When you have one person like myself in charge of the creative and the process … it was clear that for me to focus more on the creative, I needed some people to come in and help out with process,” Foster said, which was accomplished with the addition of the new co-showrunners. “Jenni and Bruce obviously have such a good pedigree — they come from such good shows, and so I trust their taste … it made everything a lot easier.”
Just as Season 1 depicted some of Erin’s real-life experiences as she began dating her now husband, Simon Tikhman, and became acquainted with his Jewish family, Erin took inspiration from moments in her relationship for the second installment, including their distinct love languages when it came to Valentine’s Day.
“Valentine’s Day was very true to how Simon and I have navigated stuff like that, where he’s more sentimental and he would do things that he thought were romantic, but it was the idea of being romantic, it wasn’t the thing that was meaningful to me,” Erin said. “I think that’s so important in a relationship, to learn what’s meaningful to your partner, not what’s meaningful to you, so that you can do for them what they want you to do.”
Sara, on the other hand, said Season 2 is when “Nobody Wants This” “nailed” her in the Netflix romcom’s depiction of Justin Lupe’s Morgan, who was inspired heavily by Sara. “I finally said to [Erin] … at the premiere … ‘alright, you nailed me,’” Sara said. “Season 1, I was just like, ‘No, guys, Morgan is not me. Get that out of your head’ … There are little parts, but now Season 2, I’m like, ‘OK, her cadence is the same. It is my voice.’”
“She really nailed Sara’s vibe,” Erin said, while Sara noted that Lupe dressed up like her for the audition. “Justine is just really, really fun to write for, and the character has kind of taken on its whole own life that’s obviously very different than Sara — It’s more like Justine playing a heightened version of Sara … we wanted to give her more this year — we wanted to give her more layers to play with and she’s just always nails it every time.”
While Morgan’s Season 1 flirtation with Timothy Simons’ Sasha could’ve kickstarted into more of a romance between the pair, Erin decided to turn her attention to the rift that it caused between Sasha and Esther (Jackie Tohn), whose marriage was vulnerable to their connection.
“For these two characters, there’s a disconnect happening — we really wanted to flesh that out and and explore what is going on for Esther, how she’s handling that,” Erin said. “I do think it happens to a lot of people — You wake up and you’re like, ‘God, I’m not being fun anymore. I’m being my husband’s mother. I’m in charge of everyone getting to school on time, not being myself, the person that I used to love …’ having her try to get back to that or get to a new version of herself that she likes more.”
This time around, the main “Nobody Wants This” cast is joined by a handful of guest stars, including Leighton Meester, Seth Rogen, Miles Fowler, Alex Karpovsky, Arian Moayed and Kate Berlant.
“Having a successful Season 1 really put us in the position in Season 2 to get our dream guest stars,” Erin said. “These are the people we wanted — this was us shooting for the stars, and I couldn’t believe it when they said, ‘yes.’”
Erin said it was a particularly “surreal” experience having Rogen come on the series, and revealed they created a guest star role for him. Erin said the cameo happened right before “he went and stole the Emmy from us.”
“He needs to back off for Season 2,” Erin joked.
“Nobody Wants This” Season 2 premieres Thursday on Netflix.
