The Rehearsal Season 2 Is Bonkers, Obsessive, and the Most Personal Thing Nathan Fielder Has Ever Done: Review

The Pitch: At this point, Nathan Fielder’s work is almost a genre of its own. From his beloved Comedy Central series Nathan For You to his work behind the scenes on shows like How To with John Wilson and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America?, his public appearances to the first season of The Rehearsal, Fielder’s reality-bending, absurdist meta-humor is instantly recognizable and always engaging.

And it’s not just Fielder’s trademark awkwardness or knack for finding some of the most interesting people you’ll ever see on television. There’s a uniquely surreal, ever-heightening nature to his creative approach. Even his recent bout with scripted fiction, last year’s The Curse, carried with it the kind of narrative progression that makes the audience wonder, They aren’t seriously taking it that far, are they? But if Fielder has committed his career to anything, it’s indeed taking it that far.

Which brings us to his latest project, the second season of what may prove to be his magnum opus: The Rehearsal. Once again following the comedian as he elaborately role plays various scenarios in the name of helping people, Season 2 is yet another labyrinth of the human psyche populated with stupidly expensive sets, sexy laptop harnesses, and an army of actors trained in The Fielder Method.

If you’re familiar with the show, you’ve likely been excited about The Rehearsal Season 2 ever since HBO announced it had greenlit another batch of episodes. At the same time, you probably asked yourself an important, existential question…

How the Fuck Do You Make a Second Season of The Rehearsal? Good question. Great question, actually.

Unlike the episodic structure of Nathan For You, The Rehearsal Season 1 indulged in more linear storytelling: While each episode introduced rehearsals, from Episode 2 onward there was an underlying constant in the form of Angela, a woman rehearsing motherhood, and Adam, Angela and Fielder’s fictional son. By the climax of the season, it seemed as if the entire conceit of the show had both fully consumed Fielder and completely collapsed around him. He had taken rehearsing as far as it could possibly go.

Don’t get me wrong, it was an incredible journey getting to that point, and the finale ultimately tackled profound ideas of entertainment, morality, and identity. Still, if Fielder were to start over and deliver a set of one-off stories of assisting random Craigslist users like in “Orange Juice, No Pulp,” it would feel a bit off, no? So as the premiere nears, it’s worth asking once again, how the fuck do you make a second season of The Rehearsal?

Well, by implementing the lessons you learned in Season 1.

For one, The Rehearsal wastes no time establishing its season-long goal — making air travel safer. “I’ve been studying commercial aviation disasters as a hobby,” Fielder lays out in both the first episode and the trailer, “and I started to notice a disturbing pattern in the causes of these crashes.” From there, it’s six full episodes prioritizing that singular goal (plus a few brief related detours).

Then, there’s the issue of the protagonist. While Fielder was omnipresent throughout Season 1, a majority of the episodes focused on the people he was coordinating the rehearsals for — the trivia fanatic Kor, the religious Angela, the bandana-wearing Patrick. Likely a holdover from Nathan For You, a show largely built off of Fielder’s interactions with the general public, it wasn’t until the final episode or two that Fiedler’s story became the main focus. Season 2, however, smartly positions Fielder at its center throughout, resulting in an even deeper level of thematic development. (This is true to such an extent that, upon a rewatch after finishing the series, the first few episodes of Season 2 feel entirely re-contextualized.)

Finally, The Rehearsal Season 2 does what any good sequel does — it further expands upon the original ideas. While the heightening of stakes, absurdity, and narrative tension in Season 1 was truly baffling, Season 2 manages to be even more bonkers, and for the sake of spoilers, that’s where we’ll leave it.

A Clown Trapped Under a Truck: The safety of airplane passengers is no laughing matter, and that’s something that Fielder is acutely aware of. On its face, there’s nothing overtly funny about the topic, and even attempting to make it funny seems like a dangerous idea. As Fielder asks himself on-screen, is this all really a good idea? Is he the one who should be meddling in such high-stake affairs?

Fielder’s relationship with authenticity and sincerity has always been tumultuous. Because of well-known antics like “Dumb Starbucks” or his Jimmy Kimmel Live! anecdote, even when his expression is gravely serious, you’re never quite sure if you should take him at his word. He’s the boy who cried wolf or, to borrow a visual metaphor from the trailer, a clown trapped under a truck — everyone watching assumes it’s all part of the bit.

The first season of The Rehearsal collided with that fact head-on, leading to open-ended questions and enough think pieces and video essays to fill a library. Season 2, however, is born from that dissonance. Not only is it an overarching idea, it’s consistently and explicitly brought up throughout the season. As a result, by the finale, The Rehearsal Season 2 may prove to be the most genuine, personal artistic statement Nathan Fielder has come through with yet.

Nathan for Nathan: As previously mentioned, Fielder made a name for himself by putting the spotlight on people who either were desperate for fame or had no interest in notoriety whatsoever. He found ways to inject his own personal journey into certain projects, notably in instances like Nathan For You’s feature-length series finale “Finding Francis,” but it always remained a subplot to someone else’s story.

The Rehearsal Season 2, though, commits a much greater proportion of its time to Fielder. It’s his goal to prevent aviation disasters, after all, so the emotional core of the season lies within his successes and failures. Of course, there are more than a few quirky and memorable plucked-off-the-street characters along the way, but more than ever before, The Rehearsal Season 2 is Nathan Fielder’s show. Luckily, if there is anyone who can carry that weight, it’s him.

The Verdict: Thanks to its finer focus, more personal point of view, and  — yes — incredibly outrageous set pieces, The Rehearsal Season 2 clears the extremely high bar set by Fielder’s past work. It’s everything a fan of the series could want from a second go-around, not only answering the question posited at the top of this review (how?) but a far more important question as well: Should they make another season of The Rehearsal?

While it may have been hard to conceptualize how the answer to that question could possibly be yes — outside of the devoted trust of Fielder’s cult-like fanbase — now that it’s here, it couldn’t be clearer. If Season 1 was a mindfuck, stirring controversy and leaving viewers’ jaws on the floor, Season 2 is a gut-punch; an artful knock-out blow that further defies all classification, expectation, and logic.

Where to Watch: The Rehearsal Season 2 airs on HBO starting Sunday, April 20th. Each episode will also be available on Max.

Trailer: