Heading into Season 3, Noah and Joanne were on much more solid footing. Based on the marketing, it was reasonable to assume that the season would focus on our central couple adjusting to cohabitation. As revealed in Episode 4, however, the show had been deceptively planting the seeds for Noah to surprise Joanne with a marriage proposal.
By season’s end, Joanne, who’d been attending Judaism classes, had proceeded with her mikveh, and she and Noah decided, then and there on the beach, to forget about their bickering families, who’d only made wedding planning more difficult. Instead, they had Rabbi Eden (Sarah Silverman) marry them on the spot. Honestly, it would have been a perfect ending for this romantic comedy.
Except “Nobody Wants This” went and embraced an even more compelling love story this season — one it had been toying with from the jump, and was only now fully able to explore with Morgan having broken off her engagement to Dr. Andy, and Sasha separated from Esther.
Even once they were living together under Lynn’s roof, Morgan and Sasha were denying what was obvious — and what Lynn pushed Sasha toward seeing: He and Morgan are really good for each other. She encourages him to step outside his comfort zone; he gives her the stability she needs when her impulsive nature threatens to get the best of her.
By the time Sasha wrapped a sunburnt Morgan up like a burrito at Noah and Joanne’s impromptu pool party, I was all in. Sure, the writers seemed to be racing toward the finish line here, but the chemistry was undeniable. Any previous notion I might’ve had that the show would be better off embracing this dynamite duo as one of TV’s rare platonic friendships between an adult man and woman went out the window. Then Morgan went and invited Sasha to New York for her taping of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” — not exactly the sort of invitation you extend to a platonic male friend while his arms are wrapped around you.
Katrina Marchinowski/Netflix
That brings us to Episode 7 — which, as the headline suggests, is among the most romantic episodes of television I’ve seen in ages. Thanks to “The Pitt” star Taylor Dearden (my TV universes colliding!), whose hotel clerk Molly embraces Morgan’s “make them” mantra and makes her boss upgrade their room, Morgan and Sasha wind up in a suite with just one bed, forcing them to confront the obvious sexual tension between them. Perhaps if this storyline had been relegated to the B-story, that would have been the crux of what they dealt with throughout the episode. Given the A-story, however, that awkwardness is tabled for the time being.
Morgan has a television appearance to prepare for — and thanks to Lisa Rinna, she’s forced at the last minute to find a new outfit for her big break. Thus begins the cliché-yet-winning story of Sasha taking the reins and insisting they run all over town to find Morgan the perfect dress, culminating in Morgan emerging from a dressing room in a stunning sage-green number, and Sasha, in that moment, falling even deeper in love with Joanne’s sister.
Better still is their night out on the town — an impromptu date that includes a stroll along the High Line and a meaningful conversation about how Morgan changed during her failed marriage. It’s something the show has never really delved into (we’ve never even met her ex-husband), which makes this particular admission, and Morgan’s vulnerability, all the more effective. The fact that she and Sasha almost kiss, before both acknowledge that there’s no turning back if they embrace their feelings for each other, is equally effective.
It’s all that mounting tension that makes the scene that follows even richer, as Morgan keeps finding reasons to bring Sasha more linens for his makeshift bed on the couch. She makes multiple trips back and forth across the long hotel suite, until finally, she gets up and opens her bedroom door one last time, only to find Sasha standing on the other side. At long last, the two give in to their desires — and I’m on my couch, applauding my television. Which makes what the rest of the season delivers incredibly frustrating.