The veteran television writer Jenni Konner knows how to tune out bad press. After all, she spent six seasons as the co-showrunner of HBO’s Girls, the lightning-rod series that was bashed as frequently as it was hailed for its brilliance. “Having been on Girls for so many years, we’re pretty hardened to the world’s criticism in a lot of ways,” she says.
But even if she’s more or less inured to critiques, that doesn’t mean Konner hasn’t heard them, which makes our conversation over Zoom one October morning an unusual one. Konner knows that I had some harsh words for the first season of Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, her latest project, which drops its second season on Oct. 23.
Konner didn’t work on the episodes where I detected a mean-spirited depiction of Jewish women. (The precise words I used, in a piece written for this magazine about their portrayal in the show’s first season, were “nags, harpies, and the ultimate villains of this story.”) She took on showrunning duties alongside her fellow Girls alum, Bruce Eric Kaplan, following Season 1. The series, loosely based on creator Erin Foster’s real-life romance with her husband, is a rom-com about the relationship between shiksa podcaster and Foster stand-in Joanne (Kristen Bell) and her rabbi boyfriend Noah (Adam Brody).
Now, Konner is eager to know whether I’ve changed my tune—“So did you like this season?” she asks early in our nearly hour-long conversation.
The truth is: I did.
Under Konner and Kaplan, Nobody Wants This has grown into a more settled and expansive show. Now that Joanne doesn’t need to learn Judaism 101, the narrative is more about the trickiness of relationships in their various stages than a non-Jewish person encountering the religion for the first time. This allows the writers to delve into Joanne and Noah’s dynamic beyond their butterfly-inducing makeout sessions, as well…
