After just six episodes, the first season of Nathan Fielder's latest show, The Rehearsal, has regrettably come to an end. On the bright side, though, it's proven successful enough for HBO to renew it for a second season, which ensures there will surely be more awkward, hilarious, and oddly heartbreaking episodes for fans of Fielder's offbeat humor and honest exploration of difficult emotions.
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It's an unusual but captivating show which sees Fielder helping people through difficult situations in their lives by thoroughly rehearsing difficult events with all sorts of variables to prepare for every possible obstacle and outcome. It becomes about a whole lot more as it goes on, though, and while it's impossible to list all the moments and scenes that made the first season great, some stand out.
Sneakily Cheating at Trivia
The show's first episode introduces us to Fielder's first client, Kor. He's a man who's passionate about quiz/trivia nights but is anxious about coming clean to his trivia team about his lack of a master's degree, which he lied about years ago by saying he had one.
Fielder realizes Kor won't be able to focus on confessing to one of his teammates if he's focused too much on trivia. Therefore, he finds out what the questions for the night will be and orchestrates a series of events that will spoonfeed Kor the answers without him realizing he's cheating, as Kor would strongly oppose that. The way Fielder gives Kor the answer to a question about who invented gunpowder is particularly hilarious and may be the season's funniest moment.
Kor's Confession
After most of the first episode is spent rehearsing, we see Kor finally come clean to his teammate, Tricia. Despite preparing for the worst, things seem to go relatively smoothly, and it's genuinely nice to see Kor get a weight off his chest, as it was clearly something he felt he needed to do.
The natural, non-rehearsed conversation is perhaps the longest time Fielder is off-screen in the first season. We sit with Kor and feel his anxiety as we see him agonize over when to come clean, and it's an emotion very rarely captured in film or television. It's a long, drawn-out scene and only captured from one real angle, but as the episode's climax, it's captivating television.
The "confrontation" with Fake Kor
While Kor comes away from The Rehearsal's first episode on top of things, the last scene we see with Fielder isn't so optimistic. At first, he appears to be confessing his lie to Kor (about how he rigged the trivia by stealthily revealing the answers), but it's revealed he was talking to "Fake Kor": an actor who Nathan himself used to rehearse his interactions with the real Kor.
It's a jarring and deflating moment. The episode ends with Fielder unable to come clean to the real Kor, which casts a shadow over the rest of the series regarding Fielder's motives and capacity, to tell the truth when needed. Kor's storyline concludes in the first episode, but the dark and unsettling ending when it comes to Fielder reveals that his "story" for the season has only just begun.
Robbin
The second episode sets up a storyline that plays out for the rest of the season. Angela is a woman who enlists Fielder to help her practice raising a child from birth to adulthood, as she wants to be a mother but is unsure whether she'd be able to deal with all the challenges that come with being a parent.
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But inevitably, it's a side character, Robbin, who inadvertently takes the spotlight for the show's second episode. He's an unusual and hilariously unpredictable figure who sees odd patterns in numbers, argues with his roommate, and won't stop talking about the time he totaled his Scion TC at 100mph for some reason. Whether you want him to or not, he all but steals episode 2.
Searching for Gold
In the show's third episode, Fielder is worried that Patrick—who wants to rehearse a conversation about his grandfather's will that he needs to have with his brother—isn't getting into his rehearsals enough. Fielder believes something has to be added to the rehearsals to better practice something with significant stakes.
He ends up getting the actor playing Patrick's brother to introduce Patrick to another actor, playing the actor's grandfather. This involves searching for gold, which Patrick finds with this fake grandfather, who then has a fake inheritance split between Patrick and the rehearsal brother to make Patrick feel more on edge during the rehearsals. It's outrageously funny and complex, but unfortunately, Patrick suddenly leaves the rehearsal process before any conclusion can happen.
Nathan's "Fielder Method"
Nathan Fielder takes a detour in episode 4, away from Angela, and launches a strange, unorthodox acting studio in Los Angeles. His so-called method is to learn how to act from observing strangers and nailing their mannerisms, which one student (quite rightfully) points out sounds a bit like stalking.
Things take a turn when Nathan introduces a fake Nathan who sets up a rehearsed Fielder Method studio, wherein Nathan plays the role of one of his students from the actual studio's student body. Things keep spiraling and becoming stranger and more meta, making for perhaps the most head-spinning, dizzying episode of The Rehearsal's entire first season.
Teenage Adam
Eventually, in episode 4, Fielder realizes he's been spending too much time on his acting studio project. He returns to Angela and her rehearsal son, Adam (who Fielder said he would start living with at the end of episode 2), only to find enough rehearsal time has passed for Adam to have "reached" his teenage years.
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Teenage Adam brings a whole other level to the show, and the actor playing him during the rehearsal is also genuinely good. Things get shocking and dark by the end of the episode, at which point Fielder decides he wants to "go back in time" and effectively reverts the rehearsal child—Adam—to his six-year-old self, meaning the rehearsal goes back to using a child actor.
Dr. Fart
Nathan Fielder settles into life with the six-year-old Adam in the fifth (and penultimate) episode of The Rehearsal. Gone is the difficulty and tension of living with a teenager, and in its place is a more carefree child with whom Nathan seems to genuinely bond.
They even play a doctor/patient game, whereby Adam becomes Dr. Fart, whose medical advice is questionable at best. But for as funny as the scenario can be, it leads to some of the episode's heavier moments, as Nathan clashes with his rehearsal co-parent, Angela, as she's offended by the toilet humor, Nathan and Adam otherwise enjoy.
Nathan's Parents
Nathan Fielder's real parents appear in the show's dramatic fifth episode. They offer a perspective on what Nathan's doing—being understandably confused and alarmed about certain things—and help add to the episode's main topic, parenting.
This is because Angela and Nathan—as co-parents rehearsing the raising of Adam—get into several surprisingly tense arguments (including the Dr. Fart debacle) about their parenting styles. It's enough for Angela to decide she wants to opt out of her rehearsal, at which point Nathan decides to continue on his own.
Nathan and Remy
The Rehearsal's final episode isn't devoid of laughs, but the more serious moments end up being the most memorable. Much of the episode deals with one of Adam's child actors, Remy, and how he's become attached to Fielder and struggles to differentiate the real Nathan from the Nathan within the rehearsal.
It explores the consequences of Fielder's ambitious child-raising rehearsal and all the themes the show had touched on throughout its first season. It's an understated yet dramatic finale where everything about the show seems to collapse, making the prospect of it being rebuilt for a second season all the more intriguing.
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