This episode begins the tumultuous journey to the end of the season, fraught with relationship troubles, friendships in disrepair, and an elusive, manipulative Dr. Andy.

Be warned: spoilers ahead.

This episode starts with Noah and Joanne in a park enjoying some quality time together. Gabe, the man who set Noah up at his new temple, runs into them. He tells Noah and Joanne that he’s divorcing Abby Kaplan. Noah offers Gabe some counseling, seeing as he’s now Gabe’s rabbi. After Gabe leaves, Joanne quickly takes out her phone to try to set Abby up with someone new. Noah says to hold off because he believes their marriage could still be saved. Joanne has her doubts, but obliges.

Noah meets with Joanne’s mother, Lynn, to discuss her conversion to Judaism further. The rabbis at Ahava have a much more lenient conversion process than Noah is used to, taking only 6 months instead of the usual year. Lynn is excited about this expedited process, but proves her commitment by showing off her knowledge of Jewish trivia.

Morgan and Dr. Andy walk through town after lunch. Dr. Andy tells Morgan about a patient he’s seeing, which Morgan questions the ethics of because of doctor-patient confidentiality. Midway through their walk, Dr. Andy and Morgan run into Dr. Andy’s ex-patient and ex-girlfriend. Dr. Andy assures Morgan that it’s nothing to worry about and that they only dated for a short time, but Morgan gets very anxious, rightfully so.

Morgan runs over to Joanne’s house to drop off some of her stuff without Joanne noticing her, because they’re still fighting over Joanne’s lack of support for Dr. Andy. Morgan bumps into Fabrizio, the landlord, and asks him to drop off the stuff for her. She also tells him to check out the new podcast episode because Joanne shouts him out in it. Morgan forgets that Joanne also confessed to causing $3,000 worth of damage to her pool.

Esther meets a friend for lunch. This friend is a single woman who is still going out on dates. Esther says how jealous she is of this friend and hints that if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Sasha’s kid, maybe they wouldn’t be married. Sasha sits at home and receives a call from Morgan. Morgan tells Sasha about her interaction with Dr. Andy’s ex-girlfriend, and the two come up with a plot to steal Dr. Andy’s phone and see if he’s been doing anything else mysterious. At the Genius Bar, the tech help tells Morgan that the fact that she’s even trying to break into her fiancé’s phone proves that he shouldn’t trust her.

Joanne confronts Noah about Ahava, having a hunch that he doesn’t actually enjoy his work there. Noah admits it and says that he didn’t even want to accept that himself. Noah asks Joanne about Morgan, and Joanne tells Noah about their fight and break from podcasting.

After their plot with Dr. Andy’s phone, Sasha and Morgan get ice cream. Sasha tells Morgan about how distant Esther has been. Sasha changes the subject to the podcast, telling Morgan how much he enjoyed hearing Joanne talk about the pool. Morgan realizes that she told Fabrizio to listen to the podcast and to Joanne’s confession.

Joanne and Noah walk back to their house. Noah tells Joanne about how he’s been helping Gabe look at his marriage, thanking Joanne for making him a better rabbi. Before getting to their front door, Joanne notices an eviction notice from Fabrizio. Then, the episode ends.

Compared to the previous one, this episode is host to all sorts of relationship drama and the confrontation of conflicts that have been boiling all season. Esther and Sasha’s relationship seems on the verge of collapse after a rocky few episodes. Dr. Andy becomes more and more of a red flag with every interaction we get. Morgan and Joanne’s fight escalates after Morgan tells Fabrizio about the incriminating podcast episode.

These past few episodes have also devoted considerable time to Temple Ahava and its congregation. The Judaism practiced at this temple is unlike much of the Judaism portrayed in popular culture. It’s progressive and plays against many stereotypes that other depiction of Judaism capitalizes on. Especially in comedies, the easy jokes are ones based on stereotypes around religion, race, and sex. Nobody Wants This rarely punches down in this way, and Temple Ahava is a perfect representation of that. It’s a depiction of one way Judaism is practiced, especially among younger, new-school Jews, and the comedy lies more in the classic relationship mishaps than in overused Jewish stereotypes.

Rating: 8/10