What To Know About Romcom Return

It’s true that romcoms have been on the back burner for, oh, at least a decade. Perhaps audiences got burned out by too many shirtless McConaugheys, but more than likely, people simply decided that it’s so much easier to simply stream these stories (versus tentpole movies) rather than head to the multiplex. That is, unless the romcom in question happens to star Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell because c’mon, audiences are only human.

In the streaming realm, Netflix has dominated the romcom game with titles like The Kissing Booth and other teen-geared movies, but a more adult romcom series (starring Kristen Bell as sex-friendly podcaster Joanne and Adam Brody as rabbi Noah) went stratospheric last year for Netflix when Nobody Wants This took off to a degree that surprised the stars.

Well, there will be more of this show after Nobody Wants This scored a speedy renewal, so let’s gather up what has been disclosed thus far.

Release Date

Late last year, Brody revealed that filming would start in February, and the second season would be on Netflix “by September next year.” Whereas Jackie Tohn (who portrays Noah’s sister, Esther), recently updated Deadline on filming moving to March 3, but that still makes it possible to return within a year after the first season streamed in Sept. 2024. (And Netflix’s new sizzle reel does confirm the 2025 window.)

Adding to that momentum, creator Erin Foster, Bell, and Brody suggested to Deadline that four or five seasons would be an ideal duration for this series.

Plot

As viewers are surely aware, Nobody Wants This is a semi-autobiographical series from creator Erin Foster and inspired by the formerly agnostic Foster’s own experience of falling in love with her Jewish husband, Simon Tikhman. The series spices things up considerably with Kristen Bell’s agnostic character, Joanne, also being frozen out by Noah’s Jewish family. That friction contributed to a season finale in which Joanne cut the relationship short after realizing that she’s not prepared to convert to Judaism. Of course, the cliffhanger ending revealed that Noah attempted to convince Joanne to give coupledom another shot, and they kissed, presumably ready to try again.

Why did this show carry so much appeal? As Adam Brody told Variety, this success can be partially explained by audiences wanting to leave their stress behind, “and there doesn’t seem to be many romantic comedies, period.” Kristen Bell echoed that sentiment: “There was a ton of really great, intense, hardcore television that ‘Breaking Bad’ inspired… and something lovely in the rom-com space hadn’t been felt by the masses in a while.”

To complicate matters, Noah finished the season while poised to become a head rabbi, meaning that Joanne needs to get with the program if she wants this to work, so what has Erin Foster revealed about the next season? She confirmed to Deadline that Joanne and Noah’s love story is happening much slower than initially planned. Foster also hints that the story is “just more or less a continuation” because the first season worked well, so why mess with success? The audience clearly enjoyed the show’s drip-drip approach as a “real-time”-type story, so there will be more of the same:

“Netflix, I have to give a lot of credit, because they pushed us to go as slow as possible in Season 1. Like you said, originally they ended in getting engaged, they ended in getting married, maybe. It was way too fast. We slowed it all down. When you watch the season, it feels like you’re really with them in real time, dating. It spans the course of what, three months in Season 1 maybe? You really feel the weight of each moment because experiencing it in real time as opposed to lots of time passing, so we’re going to continue going on that slow trajectory … All the big, romantic moments that you want to feel in that first year of a relationship, we want the audience to be able to feel. I know now what hooked people and what sunk in and what stood out, so the goal is to give people that and not make some weird artistic choice and rob them of the joy they want to feel.

Cast

For sure, Kristen Bell and Adam Brody will be back as Joanne and Noah. Netflix hasn’t breathed a word about additional casting, but presumably, their borderline intrusive fams will be back, including Morgan (Justine Lupe), Sasha (Timothy Simons), Esther (Jackie Tohn), and Bina (Tovah Feldshuh).

Trailer

In lieu of a trailer, it’s worth watching Adam Brody blowing away expectations in FX/Hulu’s Fleishmann Is In Trouble. His character debuted as a straight-up finance bro but blossomed into so much more.