Forget Joanne and Noah in Nobody Wants This – we need to talk about Morgan and Sasha

Should you ever befriend your brother-in-law's new partner if your best friend is his broken-hearted ex?

Is it actually possible to come back from the ick? Or is it indeed an irreversible curse, no matter how much you liked them before, and how much potential the relationship had?

Is it ever OK to spoil the ending of a book for someone, even if they are your enemy? Or is that breaking some sort of sacred readers' code, in turn provoking the ghost of Dickens to haunt you forever more?

But as debatable as all of those hot topics are, Nobody Wants This is most concerned with a question around which so many of the very best romcoms orbit, from Pretty Woman to Notting Hill: can two people from different worlds go the distance when literally everything and everyone says otherwise?

That is the dilemma faced by Joanne, a sex and relationships podcaster who doesn't subscribe to any faith, and Noah, who is no mere practising Jew, but a whole rabbi, and one who is on the verge of being promoted to head rabbi at his temple.

They're both acutely aware of the glaring divergences in their upbringings and worldviews, and there's no shortage of people queuing up to explain to them why they aren't one another's type on paper, to practice Love island parlance.

And yet, you root for them, willing the pair to defy their critics and lean into their feelings, expectation be damned.

But as invested as I was in the couple, I found myself more drawn to what was unfolding between their respective siblings, Morgan and Sasha.

They first cross paths outside Noah's temple when Morgan arrives to rescue her sister, who had snuck inside to watch the rabbi do his thing, from what she believes to be yet another mortifying situation involving an abysmal man.

But just before they're about to head off, Noah emerges after managing to extricate himself from a horde of Jewish mothers who were trying to pawn their single daughters off on him – with Sasha in tow.

Fast forward a minute or so and Morgan is driving the four of them to a bar, and so their very strange, yet alluring dynamic, that begins as one thing, but gradually morphs into another, is born.

Initially, Morgan actively loathes Sasha. Lest we forget when Siri reads her private messages to Joanne aloud in the car, messages that refer to him as "brutal", followed by the ogre and vomit emojis, just to emphasise her point.

She finds his "nonsense", as Noah puts it, excruciating, unable to disguise the repulsion rippling through her body while sipping their Casitas.

"No, no, no! Don't just leave me stranded with him," she says, physically pained by the thought of being alone with Sasha while Joanne and Noah head outside for a little one on one time.

But it's when they're talking about Sasha's lack of "husband energy" that something briefly flashes between them, a blink and you'll miss it detail that isn't one thing or another.

Read more:

• Netflix romcom Nobody Wants This ignores its USP
• Has Nobody Wants This been renewed for season 2?

"I'm wearing a wedding ring," he says in response to her initial slight.

"Yeah, well, I haven't been looking at you," she snarks back, except this time she is looking directly at him, and with an expression that's hard to pin down. It's both threatening and inviting; it's strangely intimate, even though they barely know one another and they've done nothing but bicker from the moment they first met.

But it seems to unlock something because when they're next alone together, this time at Noah's house, where she's getting some very important information off her sister's laptop ahead of a big podcast meeting, Sasha actually manages to disarm her, revealing a different, less combative side to Morgan.

After making a comment about the pair of them being the "loser siblings", he then says that it "doesn't make as much sense" with Morgan.

"You're cool as hell, you always have a witty comeback for everything. You're like a smoke show, you've got this hot earth mother vibe going on," he adds.

If they were on a date, that would be him hitting on her, except they're not, and Sasha says all of that in a way that doesn't feel inappropriate, but like he's genuinely appreciating what she brings to the table, which elicits a very specific type of laughter from her that we haven't really heard before.

Morgan, who so often gives off the impression of being all hard edges and judgment, suddenly lets her guard down, and in front of loathsome Sasha, of all people.

Before long, they begin texting and again, the expression on Morgan's face suggests that she's not at all mad about it. In fact, she appears to be really rather enjoying their correspondence and before she knows what's happening, he's weaselled his way into her subconscious.

"This is very weird, and kind of confusing. I had a sex dream about the brother," she confesses to Joanne over the phone.

And even though she describes it as "gross", she's smiling, giddy, even.

"I don't get it," she adds. "I'm not even attracted to him."

But even though she'd deny it to anyone who asked, there is something bubbling away, even if Morgan herself can't even articulate what, exactly, it is.

Of course, nothing will ever happen between them. It would instantly kill whatever it is they have got going on, and Sasha has zero desire to blow up his life for what would be a doomed – and intensely awkward – fling.

It's also not the vibe Nobody Wants This is going for, and I'm not sure anyone actually wants to see that, either.

But the ambiguity of it all, the teasing nature of their peculiar relationship, is deliciously fun to watch and adds an intriguing layer to the narrative.

"But we're friends, right?" asks Morgan when they're alone in his car.

Sasha hesitates.

"Well, um. Yeah. Yeah, no, we're friends," he says, with very little conviction.

Maybe if they were both single and indulged in one too many tequila shots after a chance meeting at a bar, something could happen. There's an air of playfulness between them that absolutely borders on flirtation.

Or could it just be that Morgan doesn't know what it's like to have male friends, with whom there is no expectation for more? With the men in her life falling into three categories – family, work and dates – this is new territory for her.

Sasha's "friendship", particularly in this post-divorce stage of her life when she's hitting the "desperate dating apps" hard, isn't a familiar, or even comfortable space for her, hence her own confusion. And I'm not even sure writer Erin Foster quite knows what they are to each other, or even wants to interrogate it. Sometimes, things are best left alone.

We all crave absolute certainty and security in every aspect of our life, including from the TV shows that we watch. We want answers. Everything needs to sit in a neat little box, wrapped up in a neat little bow.

But Morgan and Sasha's dizzying dynamic makes a case for embracing the ambiguity of life and all of its deeply weird, unexpected moments, out of which interesting, and even beautiful things can grow.

All ten episodes of Nobody Wants This are streaming now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.