Nathan Fielder has seemingly never met a challenge he couldn’t overcome. With Nathan for You, Fielder tried to help struggling small businesses in increasingly wild and hilarious ways. In 2023’s The Curse, Fielder tried his hand at scripted comedy, starring alongside Emma Stone and managing to hold his own in a series that was absurd even for him. On the first season of The Rehearsal, which aired in 2022, it almost felt like Fielder had reached his pinnacle — a show where he could experiment, do unbelievably odd things, and with the added benefit of an HBO budget. In the first season, Fielder tried to prepare others for the uncertainties of life, which, more often than not, led to humorous results. But in The Rehearsal Season 2, Fielder has once again upped the ante for what he’s capable of in one of the most astonishing and hilarious seasons of TV you’ll see all year.
What Is ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2 About?

In a weirdly apropos topic for our time, Fielder actually tackles airline safety in this new season of The Rehearsal. In the first episode, “Gotta Have Fun,” Fielder asks how he can be taken seriously when he’s seen as a clown. Of course, this attempt at self-seriousness is in itself pretty funny, especially when he calls out that the first ten minutes of the first episode haven’t had any laughs. Fielder is attempting to revolutionize airplane safety by trying to open up the communication between pilots and copilots, since he posits that many accidents happen because the copilot is too afraid to speak up in moments of emergency.
As Season 1 showed, that’s just the jumping off point for the unexpected directions Fielder will take viewers in, from massive recreations and rehearsals for any inevitabilities, seeing if any human quality can be learned, to testing himself and his capabilities to a level we’ve never seen before. The more serious Fielder attempts to be, the more humorous the show becomes, but in some ways, he’s also at his most earnest at times throughout the season.
Fielder Is the Focus in ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2, and That’s Why It Works

Image via HBO

Maybe even more than almost any of his previous projects, Fielder is the main focal point of The Rehearsal Season 2’s story. While, as with his previous shows, there are odd characters that he meets along the way, who get their time to shine, in this season, the best moments entirely center around Fielder. A previous episode of Nathan for You strangely becomes an important point, as does Fielder’s involvement with The Curse, and trying not to fall into the same mistakes people were critical of in The Rehearsal’s first season. In one episode, Fielder conducts his most unsettling and deep rehearsal yet, and it’s the type of thing that seems like it could be a Charlie Kaufman nightmare. Without spoiling any of the steps of this journey, it all leads to the most unbelievable scenario Fielder has concocted so far.
Part of what has always made Fielder so entertaining is his love of extremes. While he’s mild-mannered on the outside, inside, he’s concocting elaborate schemes and scenarios that keep building and building off each other until we can’t believe where the hell we’ve ended up. In that regard, The Rehearsal’s second season is Fielder at his most brilliant, and as is the case with every new project, it’s hard to imagine how he could possibly go further in the future.
The People Nathan Fielder Finds Along the Way Are Still Brilliant in ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2

Part of the beauty of Fielder’s projects is the people who provide unexpected moments that could never be scripted, and The Rehearsal Season 2 truly delivers on that front. Even among his larger ambitions, Fielder finds time to explore the lives of these individuals, from a pilot who’s too shy to a pilot who should probably keep his mouth shut, and dives into how far actors will go when given the opportunity. It’s the instances that couldn’t ever be recreated that make Fielder’s shows so ingenious, and they’re in abundance here. If there’s any criticism to make of Season 2, it’s that we don’t get more of these people, and where their stories inevitably end up.
The Rehearsal’s second season is also just an incredible production in and of itself. The series is written by Fielder, Carrie Kemper, and Eric Notarnicola, who all wrote on Season 1, and Adam Locke-Norton, who joins this season and previously worked with Fielder on Nathan for You, as well as Who is America? Fielder directs all six episodes of Season 2, and considering how much is going on and how many variables there always are, it’s genuinely incredible that this all comes together as well as it does. One would think The Rehearsal would also need a rehearsal to ensure everything in The Rehearsal works as well as it does.

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It also remains unbelievable just how intricate and impressive this series is — in the construction of these sets, the levels to which these rehearsals go, and how fantastic the actors (all trained in “The Fielder Method,” of course) are at pulling this off without any irony whatsoever. Even if The Rehearsal wasn’t one of the funniest shows on TV, it would be a marvel nonetheless, simply because of its ambition.
If this all sounds a bit too vague, it’s because The Rehearsal is a show where the beauty comes in seeing where the hell Fielder takes us on the journey, and to spoil any of that would ruin the incredible directions this story goes. But if you’ve been a fan of Fielder’s brand of humor over the years, or just want to see a comedy unlike anything you’ve seen before, this new season of The Rehearsal is for you.
The Rehearsal premieres April 20 on HBO and Max, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

The Rehearsal

With Season 2 of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder outdoes himself once more.

Release Date

July 15, 2022

Writers

Nathan Fielder, Carrie Kemper, Eric Notarnicola

Pros & Cons

Nathan Fielder continuously proves himself to be a comedic genius and pushes himself in absurd directions.
The people we meet in Season 2 are particularly lovely and great additions.
The levels to which Season 2 goes have to be seen to be believed.

It’s a shame we don’t get a bit more follow-up on the people we meet this season.