Nathan Fielder’s comedy can really feel like watching a slow-motion airplane crash. On semi-scripted exhibits akin to Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, the comic makes actual folks squirm together with his weird recommendations, which he gives with rigor mortis-level deadpan. A few of it’s best considered by the marginally parted fingers of a face-obscuring hand.
The second season of The Rehearsal, returning to HBO on April 20, isn’t any exception. Like its predecessor, the present once more makes use of elaborate role-play to recreation out troublesome social situations, solely this time the stakes are method increased. Season 2 focuses on the dynamic between copilots—and the way it can result in, or presumably forestall, airplane crashes. However whereas the subject could also be eerily timely, this season is really concerning the common expertise of standing as much as a superior at work.
In its first season, Fielder positioned The Rehearsal as a present the place totally different folks follow fixing a brand new interpersonal drawback every episode. Utilizing a fleet of actors and costly, movie-caliber units, Fielder created a reality-simulation approach that allowed its topics to rehearse, say, admitting to a pal they’d been lying for years about having a master’s degree. By Episode 2, nonetheless, the present pivoted to serving to one girl—and Fielder himself—rehearse what it could be wish to develop into dad and mom. The rest of the season was spent burrowing additional down that (usually uncomfortable) rabbit gap.
The second season as an alternative dispenses with any pretense of being an anthology and proclaims its aviation focus right away. As glimpsed within the trailer, the season’s opening moments encapsulate every little thing the present will spend this batch of six episodes unpacking. Inside a cockpit, the primary officer voices his disapproval of the pilot’s ways. The pilot ignores him, and their airplane crashes in a fiery wreck—just for the cockpit to be revealed as a movement simulator. Cue Fielder rising in entrance of a projected inferno, a Mona Lisa smile on his face.
As they used to say on infomercials, there’s bought to be a greater method.
Sooner or later after the primary season of The Rehearsal aired in 2022, nicely earlier than the recent spate of plane crashes and near misses, Fielder apparently grew to become keen on air disasters. Whereas studying by limitless pages of black field transcripts, he uncovered a definite sample. At any time when first officers appeared to sense an imminent drawback, they usually both fell in need of a full-throated warning or buckled below the slightest pushback. What if, Fielder questioned, he may assist first officers rehearse advocating for themselves extra successfully?
Disagreeing with one’s supervisor presents a traditional conundrum. Say something and the boss would possibly both overrule you or resent you for being proper. Keep it to yourself, letting the chips fall the place they could, and you could be the one getting thrown below the bus if there’s any fallout. This thorny communication difficulty carries exponentially extra urgency and threat, although, when it occurs at excessive altitudes, with dozens of lives at stake.
Although he understands he may not be the fitting individual to tackle this explicit communication battle, Fielder acknowledges a supply of killer materials when he sees one.
A number of the comic’s earlier work mined humor out of the best way folks talk. His breakout sequence Nathan for You, which ran on Comedy Central for 4 seasons within the 2010s, featured Fielder convincing small enterprise homeowners to check out wild advertising methods. Though the methods themselves had been the meat of the present—a yogurt store unveiling a poo-flavored option, as an example, to drum up publicity—a part of the cringy enjoyable was watching Fielder speak folks into going by with them.
He’d current every ridiculous thought with a straight face and a feather-soft voice, then the proprietor would snort nervously, not sure whether or not Fielder was critical. (Rule quantity one among these exhibits: Fielder is all the time critical.) Viewers may virtually see the gears turning within the proprietor’s heads, questioning whether or not the reward of getting a plug for his or her enterprise on a TV present shall be definitely worth the short-term ache of truly going by with a poo-flavored yogurt promotion. Invariably, they’d conform to no matter insanity Fielder had in retailer, often after a clumsy silence.
Within the second season of The Rehearsal, although, that equation has inverted. As an alternative of utilizing his authority as an envoy of tv to speak folks into doing one thing, he’s educating folks to speak somebody ready of authority out of doing one thing.
All through the course of the season, as with most Fielder productions, some profound—and profoundly uncomfortable—truths come tumbling out. Additionally as per traditional, the present is crammed with surreal meta-moments, creative tableaux, and the creator grappling with whether or not his personal communication points would possibly stem from having the aura of a company IT man with a darkish secret.
Whether or not the comic finally finds a sensible technique for making troublesome cockpit conversations simpler will stay unspoiled right here. Watching the present, although, ought to present some new concepts about the right way to talk with one’s boss—particularly after they’re about to make an enormous mistake.
