Review: The Rehearsal (S2) – Take two

Created by Nathan Fielder
Featuring Nathan Fielder
Network: HBO Max

8.5/10

With the first season of The Rehearsal, it felt as if Nathan Fielder was feeling his way towards a meaning to all the theatrical carnage he had caused. But with the second season, he makes his goal immediately apparent: to make airline flights safer. But he also makes another goal immediately apparent: make sure this comedy series remains funny, despite the serious subject matter. It’s safe to say he’s succeeded with at least one of these goals.

Nathan recognises a recurring problem that may be the cause of most commercial air-flight crashes, and that’s communication. With his theory being that first officers can feel too reluctant to speak up to their captain, he engages in a number of very elaborate rehearsals to find a solution, including very impressively recreating a real-life airport boarding terminal—filled with extras. There’s also a singing talent show involved (an actual one made just for this show), oversized lactating puppets, and a fascistic streaming service, but you’ll have to watch the show to see how that fits into it all.

Quite a lot of the show’s humour comes from the ridiculousness of these rehearsals, from both the elaborate recreated sets and the unusual practices with actors and non-actors. Yet it seems that Nathan’s seriousness makes this all the funnier—though he is truly and earnestly trying to accomplish something with this show, this only goes to make the utter absurdity of the comedic moments all the funnier.

It’s great to see how well Nathan can handle himself with presenting what may be such an important message, yet not come across as a blowhard for it—in fact, he still often makes himself the butt of the joke. Some of the humour, particularly in the middle episodes of this season, features some particularly ballsy gags, namely Nathan’s own grievances with a streaming company (not HBO Max), which he ridicules in such a comical yet sharply satirical manner, using his own ridiculousness to expose the ridiculousness of media streaming censorship.

Nathan Fielder has always had such an excellent sense of comedy, knowing how to be funny in both the most subtle and most flagrant of ways. As a performer, his awkward demeanour hides the willingness he has to take any chances he has, no matter how reality-breakingly bizarre they are, just to make his psychological experiments all the more funny and fascinating.

DAVID MORGAN-BROWN