On Embracing Your Partner’s Madness
Why the mutual acceptance of “crazy” is a key step towards any successful relationship.
On the fourth episode of Netflix’s buzzy hit series, “Nobody Wants This,” Kristen Bell’s character, Joanne, visits a sex shop with Adam Brody’s Noah, aka the “hot rabbi,” in search of a vibrator called “The Obliterator.”
Of course, they unexpectedly run into a board member of Noah’s synagogue with a woman who is not his wife, adding to the stand-out episode’s frivolities and conflicts.
Plot machinations got us to this point in the series about an agnostic “shiksa” podcaster (Bell) who falls hard for the rabbi.
And vice-versa.
As a Jew with a warped sense of humor, I found the episode — and the first season of the series itself, which has been renewed for a second season — to be largely charming and hilarious despite its contrivances.
The episode reaches its conclusion with a heartfelt conversation between the characters as the rabbi assures an insecure and guilt-ridden Joanne that he embraces every bit of her “crazy.”
“I want this,” he says. “All of this.”
In my own romantic life I’ve had both similar conversations and reassurances.
