It’s the big Nobody Wants This betrothal we’ve all been waiting for. After two seasons of twists and turns, of blending families and figuring out life goals, Noah (Adam Brody) pulls off a memorable proposal to Joanne (Kristen Bell). It comes complete with a double fake-out that keeps his fiancée — and viewers — guessing until the very end.
“We wanted this couple to be moving in a forward motion together and having all these big romantic moments you want to see — but finding ways to do it so that it feels new and real and full of surprises,” says creator Erin Foster, who has a surprise cameo in the engagement episode.
As it turns out, Foster used her real life as inspiration for Noah and Joanne’s big engagement. In the episode, Noah tells Joanne they’re headed to Napa County for a wedding, but all the while, he has a plan cooked up for an elaborate proposal — pulled almost directly from Foster’s own love story.
“I thought I was going to [another couple’s] vow renewal, and I wasn’t. I was going to my own proposal,” Foster explains of her August 2019 engagement. “All roads lead back to me every time.”
Foster — and co-showrunners Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan — explains how the team took her romantic experience and reimagined it for Nobody Wants This.
In the run-up to the engagement, Noah and Joanne have moved in together and settled into a lovely little routine. “It was really important to us after the ups and downs of Noah and Joanne in Season 2 to be like, ‘OK, let’s let them have their moment now of settling in and having fun,’” says Kaplan.
But now that Joanne is in a stable relationship, she’s worried she is no longer relatable or interesting enough to connect with her listeners. She thinks she won’t have as much messy material from her own life to gab about. Will her relationship be too happy to be fodder for gossip?
“The internet notoriously hates people who are happy,” she tells Noah after finding out that she lost 1,000 followers since her last podcast. “Joanne’s story workwise is that she fears she has nothing to offer her audience because she used to be a chaotic girl and related to all of her listeners,” says co-showrunner Konner. “Her fear is that now she doesn’t have anything to offer.”
Little does Joanne know that Noah has a plan to sweep her off her feet. But before this big romantic moment can even happen, the duo has to survive the airport. There, they meet an unexpected obstacle in Nicole — played by Foster herself in her first onscreen cameo — a random, and slightly messy, fan of Joanne’s podcast who approaches her at the airport.
Nicole is on her way to Northern California herself, hoping to reconnect with an old flame. But she fails to snag a standby ticket. Charmed by her story — and perhaps determined to feel closer to her listeners — Joanne offers Nicole her own seat on the plane. It’s a deliciously meta moment, with a character who essentially mirrors Joanne. “Nicole really represents this sort of single, scatterbrained, crazy version that Joanne used to see herself as,” says Foster.
Once Nicole admits that the guy she’s chasing is actually her brother-in-law, Joanne snaps back to reality and takes her ticket back. When she and Noah arrive at the vineyard wedding venue in Napa, Noah in a stained shirt and Joanne in ratty sweats, there are no other guests there. There’s just the vineyard employee welcoming them to the “wedding,” and she has an answer for everything. “The other guests are just taking a tour of the property,” she says, using lines Noah has fed her.
Foster confirms this is pretty much what happened in her own life — although she made it to her proposal in a much more camera-ready outfit, which you can see here. “In mine, when we got to the hotel, the front desk of the hotel said, ‘Oh, are you here for Carolyn and Chief’s vow renewal?’ They had a script,” says Foster. “They [even] handed me an envelope [with] dress rehearsal times. It was just so real.”
In Joanne and Noah’s version of the proposal, Taylor Swift’s “Lover” is playing in the background, and Joanne slowly starts to realize that something isn’t quite right. The biodynamic orange wine she loves is waiting for her. There’s an abundance of her favorite flower, tulips. And then, finally, Noah gets down on one knee. “You are just my absolute favorite person,” says Noah, popping out a perfect ring in a classic little red jewelry box. “And I want us to spend the rest of our lives together if you’ll have me.”
Joanne says yes. The two seal the deal with an ultra-romantic kiss amid the rolling hills of Northern California. Foster was equally surprised when her own future husband kneeled in front of her. “As soon as he got on one knee, I was like, ‘Are you OK? We are literally at someone’s vow renewal.’ He was like, ‘No, we’re not. That’s all fake. It’s all a lie,’” says Foster. “I felt like I was on a prank show or something.”
For Joanne and Noah’s proposal, Noah has covertly flown in their respective siblings, Sasha (Timothy Simons) and Morgan (Justine Lupe), to take part in the big day — a detail that was inspired in part by Foster’s life. In Foster’s proposal video, you can hear her sister Sarah’s off-camera advice, such as, “Get up. Take off that sweater.” The Nobody Wants This team watched this clip while writing the episode.
That same playful energy made its way into the show, Konner notes. It showed up in the fun dynamic between Simons, Brody, Bell, and Lupe.
“There’s just such a giddy, cute energy between friends that I think it’s almost like a little Easter egg for everybody,” Konner says. There’s footage of the entire crew running out at the end of the episode — a particularly sweet moment, say Konner and Foster.
Stream Season 3 of Nobody Wants This exclusively on Netflix.
Additional reporting by Ariana Romero.
