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I can recall certain TV kisses the way sports fans remember iconic plays. I know where I was and how it felt, holding my breath in the building anticipation. I can still hear the squeal that involuntarily left my body as the moment finally arrived. The best ones are those that really make you wait.
It took Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) 39 episodes of New Girl to passionately kiss – drunk but more clear-headed than ever – in the hallway of their shared loft, her then-boyfriend waiting on the other side of the bedroom door. We waited 28 episodes for Jim (John Krasinski) to work up the courage to confess his love to Pam (Jenna Fisher) at Dunder Mifflin’s casino night in The Office . The show may be the world’s favourite comfort watch but that stolen glimpse of their first kiss, through the blinds of an empty office before the season-two finale cut to black, was TV at its most electric.
There are plenty of great kisses on TV these days. Netflix romcom Nobody Wants This burst onto the scene in 2024 with one of the best. It was in the show’s second episode that hot rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) and sex podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell) locked lips on the street after rationalising they were “just friends”, her face cupped in his hand as bubblegum electro-pop swelled in the background.
But 25 episodes later, it’s a different couple that has my attention. In its just-released third season, this fun and fizzy series has landed something you don’t see so much any more: a proper slow burn. (Warning: spoilers below!)
Noah’s brother Sasha (Timothy Simons, Veep ) and Joanne’s sister Morgan (Justine Lupe, Succession ) have had a strange intimacy since the start. Sure, Morgan was literally repulsed by him (“The brother is brutal. Ogre emoji. Vomit emoji” she immediately texted Joanne in season one). But her barbs were always taken with jest and understanding. The next time they met they bonded over being the “loser siblings”, and by the finale of season one they were hiding their blossoming but awkward friendship from Sasha’s wife, Esther. There was undeniable chemistry. But it wasn’t clear – to the audience or the characters themselves – if that was platonic, weirdly familial or something more.
I love that it took us more than another full season, and the respectful dissolution of Sasha and Esther’s marriage, to find out the answer. And the resulting episode, well-earned after years of tension, stands alone as one of the best romcoms of the year.
Directed by Richard Shepard and written by Jenni Konner and Megan Mazer, the episode, titled Watch What Happens , ends with Sasha and Morgan’s Nick-and-Jess/Jim-and-Pam moment – an almost missed kiss at a bedroom door, landed on the crescendo of LCD Soundsystem’s iconically melancholic power ballad New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. But the entire episode is a triumph.
By picking up these characters from the most definitively LA show on television and dropping them in a New York hotel (visiting the city for Morgan’s appearance on Watch What Happens Live ), it allows for a more surreal and intimate dynamic to flourish.
Noah and Joanne’s phones are turned off back home – perfect sitcom high jinks in itself – and these supporting characters are free to be the leads, playing out whatever fantasy they have of themselves separately and as a potential couple ( Pretty Woman -style dress montage included). In the episode’s 25-minute run time they have reckoned with their feelings for each other, flirted with taking it further, decided against it and turned back with ease. And if that sounds like too much to handle in a 25-minute run time, you’re probably not familiar with the director’s previous work.
Shepard is the same man who helmed Lena Dunham’s iconic and impressively load-bearing standalone episodes on Girls including One Man’s Trash , American Bitch and The Panic in Central Park – that last one another romantic, surreal adventure through New York, featuring a would-be couple weighed down by the heaviness of their real lives. That same magic is present here, no doubt also thanks to Konner. A co-writer of this episode, and Nobody Wants This co-showrunner since season two, Konner was also Dunham’s key collaborator on Girls .
Watch What Happens may not go down in TV history as a “perfect episode” in the same way as The Panic in Central Park (though it might for romcom diehards who delight in seeing new spins on old tropes) but it is testament to how powerful it is when a series can cash in on long-term character growth and well-nourished relationship dynamics. And that’s something increasingly rare in a TV landscape where so many of our favourite shows drop only a handful of episodes every couple of years and sometimes disappear without a trace.
Almost every great TV romance was built in the pre-streaming era, when network and cable shows were given more than 20 episodes to play with each season – enough room to craft a full story arc without fear of cancellation – and audiences would spend almost half a year with these characters as new instalments rolled out each week. Cheers fans tuned in to watch Sam and Diane flirt for six months before they kissed in the season-one finale. Ross and Rachel took 31 episodes to kiss in Friends , and audiences were still hanging off the drama of whether they would or wouldn’t end up together in the series finale nine years later.
These are impossible standards to live up to in an environment where the longest season-run you can hope for is generally 10 episodes – all of which will probably drop on the same day and be largely forgotten the next. (Shout-out to Abbott Elementary , a rare show keeping the network dream alive .) But that makes it all the more impressive when something special and truly squeal-worthy slips through the cracks.
Nobody Wants This is now streaming on Netflix.
