My Controls

A genuinely jaw-dropping social psychology experiment.

An emotionally insightful search of the self.

A top-flight documentary production making full use of considerably deep corporate pockets.

Critical hyperbole can feel like a gamble with Nathan Fielder projects. Their sincerity and reality often seem to exist in an uneasy comic superposition: potentially wry trickery or earnest objectivity at any given moment.

Nathan first explored the entertainment value of this tension as a former awkward tween magician.

Now, as a greying and adult, that tension informs most all of his comedy/television work, and it also courses through everyday life, in many social contexts, presenting as anxiousness. A nervy worry that you're not reliably apprehending the state of play. Season 2 of The Rehearsal synthesizes these threads into an absolutely audacious six-episode skyward odyssey of public service and comedy art, culminating in this all-encompassing capstone of a finale.

It's not hyperbole. It's the Pilot's Code.

Nathan has done it once again, I will not go into spoilers here but somehow Nathan manages to surprise you every episode and this is no different. Whatever you are thinking he might do next you're almost always certain to be wrong. I don't really know what more to say, this is the peak of TV.

Wake me up inside (I can't wake up) wake me up inside (Save me) call my name and save me from the dark (Wake me up) bid my blood to run (I can't wake up) before I come undone (Save me) save me from the nothing I've become

wake me up inside (I can't wake up) wake me up inside (Save me) call my name and save me from the dark (Wake me up) bid my blood to run (I can't wake up) before I come undone (Save me) save me from the nothing I've become.

After a relatively disappointing S02E05 (still entertaining but not at all up to the standard set by S02 overall) I was a little nervous going into the finale, but right away I knew this was going to be different and back to what made this season so great. The extra run time made this more like 2 episodes in one and for that I'm grateful as well, since it's likely going to be another few years before we get a new season of this, if at all.

I will keep this spoiler free, but I really love the absurdity of this all but also the true commitment to making something special. The amount of time and effort put into making this work is something I don't think I've ever seen somewhere before except for maybe a couple of YouTube series or other Fielder projects.

A really interesting exploration this season of the inability of humans to communicate during the highest and the lowest stakes moments of life, as well as the fact that it's not a level playing field. As Nathan says (paraphrazing) "I always found sincerity to be overrated, since it rewards those who are able to perform it better." While that's just a hilarious line in the context of Nathan's character, there's also some real truth there, and I loved the tangents related to this with Wings of Voice & Sully. We are all pilots or co-pilots in many aspects of our lives, and these same social barriers lead to issues on a daily basis - from tragic airline disasters to the inability to discuss your Starbucks girlfriend's "special friends" openly with her haha.

I don't throw the world around freely, but Nathan Fielder is a genius, at least from my POV. I know he doesn't do this alone, but he's the driving force behind more brilliant work than just about anyone else creating right now outside of a few directors and writers. I might get downvoted for this, but I hated The Curse (and yes, I understood it, and I enjoyed it until about 75% of the way through, at which point I felt more and more that I had just wasted 10hrs of my life, which the ending confirmed), so I'm extremely happy to see that Fielder hasn't lost what makes him special and unique (I applaud the swing on The Curse, but it felt like something that had been done much better by many others, while NFY/Rehearsal are pretty singular and def in his voice), and I can only hope there's a S03!

Season 2 of The Rehearsal is some of the best television I've ever seen. It was a complete blindside in the sense that I couldn't see the show taking this turn, but the signs were there. While the absurdity of season 1's plot line had its moments of helping Nathan grow, it also featured a heavy overtone of a strong message to leave the viewers on, and that's where season 2 comes into play but on a whole different level.

I've been watching Nathan for You and while Nathan is obviously very talented, the jump from that show to this is substantial, which is impressive considering how amazing the former is. Mixing comedy with shining a light on corruption and taking DIRECT action while keeping the nature of this series in tact is much easier said than done. He had no reason to go through what he did. He could've easily left episode 5 and said that's enough, I've made my point. But he took the step that no one ever would in his position and created something greater. If you told me after episode 5 THIS is the direction he'd go I'd tell you you're insane.

But Nathan was the insane one... until he proved he's not. He proved so many points but above all showed that anything is possible, as cliche as it sounds. Labeling is a very toxic trait that's growing worse over the years, and I think Nathan combated that in a way that shatters boundaries. As someone who's going to be driving soon and has anxiety over it due to the potential dangers of it, this episode really connected with me and it makes me happy to see that I'm not alone, even if obviously the stakes here are much different. Safety is so important yet can be completely dismissed by some for illogical reasons. Nathan and his team shined a light on these issues in an obscure yet brave way that I can't imagine being done to this degree ever again. I feel like saying thank you doesn't do this justice but nonetheless, I'm very thankful for this.

I never write reviews but it is impossible not to say something, when you witness the limits of human imagination in a piece of art that should be celebrated as an achievement for everyone who consider themselves human.

Nathan truly breaks the medium of what televesion, cinema, or anything captured with a camera is. He breaks down the human condition to its atoms and then reveals to us it is not a puzzle to be solved. We are not bigger than life and no amount of rehearsal is going to gives us the control we so desperately crave.

The last episode automatically makes all the other episodes a 10, because as we should have guessed, this show was never as linear as it might have seemed initially.

Nathan Fielder's biggest trick is to convince you he doesn't exist while pointing a mirror directly at you.