Performers of the Week: Kristen Bell and Adam Brody
THE PERFORMERS | Kristen Bell and Adam Brody
THE SHOW | Netflix’s Nobody Wants This
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THE EPISODE | “Bat Mitzvah Crashers” (Sept. 26, 2024)
THE PERFORMANCES | Bell and Brody are so effortlessly charming in Nobody Wants This that it’s easy to overlook just how much skill went into their performances. But as any fan of romantic comedies knows, nailing the chemistry, laughs, emotional beats and swoon-y moments of the genre is a very difficult task. So we must give props to the duo, whose courtship as agnostic podcaster Joanne and rabbi Noah was wonderfully endearing, relatable and funny, not to mention hot. (That first kiss? We’re still fanning ourselves.)
The pair really shone in the finale, which played to their strengths: Bell’s ability to jump between comedy and drama with ease, and Brody’s innate likability and sensitivity. As the episode began, Bell was in funny mode, with Joanne cheerily declaring that she’s going to convert to Judaism like she’s picking up a new hobby, and telling her sister, with hilarious seriousness, that she can’t kneel and beg for forgiveness because she just washed her jeans, making them too tight. But all the fun and gleefulness turned emotional after Joanne realized what it would truly mean to convert and possibly marry a rabbi.
When Joanne broke up with Noah, telling him that she wasn’t ready to convert (possibly ever) and she would never make him choose between his faith and her, Bell crushed our hearts right along with sweet Noah’s. Noah couldn’t argue with Joanne’s logic that there was no way for their relationship to work, and Brody conveyed all those torn emotions and conflicted feelings about wanting the impossible as Noah took in Joanne’s words.
In the aftermath, Bell’s expression glinted with a glimmer of hope every time Joanne checked to see if Noah had followed her, even as she softly cried. But thankfully, her tears didn’t last long because Noah did eventually show up at Joanne’s car, planting another magnificent kiss on her and cementing Brody as a top-tier TV boyfriend.
Scroll down to see who scored Honorable Mention shout-outs this week…
HONORABLE MENTION: Patrick John Flueger
It’s often the most traumatic installments of Chicago P.D. that inspire the most impressive performances from the show’s cast. Case in point: The tragic death of Detective Martel in this week’s episode sent her partner, Ruzek, on a harrowing journey that showcased portrayer Patrick John Flueger‘s intensity. As Ruzek attempted to track down Martel’s killer in the immediate hours after she was shot, adrenaline and shock coursed through Flueger’s shaking, bloodied hands and heavy breaths. When Ruzek remembered cradling Martel’s lifeless body in his arms, Flueger’s words took on a broken quality, and the actor looked like he was going to be sick at the awful memory. After Ruzek and Officer Cook finally caught the killer, Flueger transformed his character into an exhausted, broken man hit by the reality of what happened as he finally stopped and sat on the sidewalk — Vlada Gelman
HONORABLE MENTION: Cooper Koch
The subject matter of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story was so dark and horrifying that a good deal of the season was hard to watch. But inarguably its most painful — and most impressive — episode was its fifth. Shot in a single 36-minute take, “The Hurt Man” stayed focused for the duration on Cooper Koch’s Erik as he detailed for his attorney the mental, physical and sexual abuse that was inflicted upon him for years by his father. To say that the relative newcomer was superb would be an understatement. In a stunningly well-calibrated performance, he showed us piece after piece of Erik’s defenses falling away as he was forced to give up pretending that what he’d suffered had been somehow normal and that perhaps his mother hadn’t been complicit. Ultimately, Koch rendered us speechless as Erik imploded on himself and tearfully concluded that “I’m a broken person. I am not a real person.” Heartbreaking doesn’t begin to cover it. — Charlie Mason
HONORABLE MENTION: Harry Lawtey
The Season 3 finale of Industry allowed Harry Lawtey to deliver some of his best work and shatter our hearts in one fell swoop. After a roadtrip gave Robert hope that he and Yasmin could end up together, Yas decided to marry Henry as a means of escaping the aftermath of her father’s scandal. After the bandaid was ripped off (brutally, in front of a room full of dinner guests) Lawtey’s stunned, brokenhearted stare spoke volumes of his devastation. Yet, his soft smiles and generous understanding of her predicament yielded a sea of conflicting emotions. But we’ll always remember the couple’s good times, from Lawtey’s enamored eyes and soft-spoken mannerisms, to their admission of love after a romantic garden sexcapade. If this is the last we ever see of Rob, Lawtey surely went out in top form. — Nick Caruso
Which performance(s) knocked your socks off this week? Tell us in the comments!
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