When Main Couple Syndrome Is Actually Great

Main couple syndrome is when the central pair in a romantic comedy turns out to be the least interesting couple on screen. Usually, that’s a problem. But in the third season of Nobody Wants This, the main couple, Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody), are great. Their chemistry still crackles, their storyline mostly holds up, and after three seasons, I’m invested. I’m rooting for them.

But they’re not the best couple in season three of Nobody Wants This, and it’s not even close. Joanne and Noah have taken a backseat in their own show, not only to Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Morgan (Justine Lupe), but to whatever still smolders between Sasha and his estranged wife, Esther. It’s not quite a love triangle, but it is the best reason to keep watching Nobody Wants This on a streaming platform that routinely bleeds viewers between seasons. In other words, if Joanne and Noah drove you away in season two, Sasha/Morgan/Esther is the reason to come back.

Part of why things have cooled between Joanne and Noah is that creator Erin Foster and showrunners Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan have wisely scuttled the will-they/won’t-they. They will. The premiere dispatches last season’s big hang-up — why Noah balks at living with Joanne — almost immediately. They move in together, and by midseason, in one of the most genuinely romantic moments of the series, they get engaged. The rest of their arc isn’t about whether they’ll get married (that’s never in doubt) but about what the wedding will look like, because Joanne has a vision, Noah’s mother, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), has a competing one, and the only real question is whose vision prevails. I won’t spoil it, but it’s lovely.

What really drives season three, though, is Sasha and Esther’s (Jackie Tohn) separation. Sasha is wrecked by it, but he’s willing to wade back into the dating pool. Morgan serves as his guide, while Sasha steers Morgan through a career detour: she goes solo on her podcast and riffs her way into a new life philosophy, which snowballs into a potential book deal and a booking on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live.

You can probably guess where this is headed. Sasha and Morgan’s best-friend chemistry has always been off the charts, but season three somehow cranks it up another notch. They’re terrific together, though not without complications: Can they become a couple without torching their friendship? Can Sasha, freshly abandoned by his wife, trust the commitment-phobic Morgan? And where does Esther fit into all of this?

Because Sasha and Esther are only separated, they still share kids, and Esther remains firmly embedded in the friend group. She’s dating, too, and honestly, her romance with Steven Weber’s Julian is more interesting than Joanne and Noah’s. But this is a romantic comedy, and nothing ever runs smoothly. Obstacles pile up — some contrived, some earned — not least of which is how Esther starts to see her husband once he’s rediscovered his confidence. The pull is real, and Sasha’s feelings for his wife never fully faded. But he’s also falling for Morgan, and the two of them are kind of perfect together, never mind that their respective siblings are about to get married.

It’s fun, it’s funny, and season three recaptures much of the magic of the first season. It’s simply shifted that magic from one couple to another. Throw in Sarah Silverman as a rival rabbi angling against Noah and Andrew Rannells playing a hilariously petty Andrew Rannells type, and Nobody Wants This is back in top form.