‘Gotta have fun’ – ryan
The Rehearsal
Gotta have fun
Season 2
Episode 1
Editor’s rating
5 Stars
Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO
About Halfway Through This First Episode of the Second Season of The RehearsalNathan Fielder Sits Down to Make an Important Phone Call. Its His Learned Hypothesis that the Cause of Many Airplane Crashes is a breakdown in communication between the Captain and the Co-Pilot. Based on the Black-Box Transcripts of Downed Flights, the root of the problem is the difficulty co-pilots have in asserting themes in situations when the Captain’s decision-making needs to be questioned overruled. FIELDER WANTS TO USE The Significant Resources at HIS DISPOSAL TO THE IMPROVE THAT RELATIONSHIP, SO BRINGS ON MODY, A YOUNG FIRST OFFICER FOR UNITED AIRLINES he found on Linkedin. One immediatte problem is that he can’t access the private room for pilots at the airport-or, Indeed, anything past security-so he calls united’s media-relations for help.
“We’re really trying to make a somewhat sincere effort to explore and development new Ways to improve pilot communication in the cockpit,” he exploins to the United Representative on the Other Line. Hearing the expert respect on the Other End, he continues, “I Only Say ‘Somewhat’ Because Is A Television Show, and We’re Trying to Make It Entertaining.” You COULD CALL IT A DOCUMARY, But FIELDER, The MasterMind Behind Nathan for you, The curseand this show’s first season, says that he was “use that term loosely.” All in all, it seames like a productive conversation, SO FIELDER WALKS DOWN THE HALL TO ANOTHER ROOM AND TELLS The Actress playing The United Airlines Media Person That He’s Ready to do the Real Thing. She’s Seated in What Looks Like A Reasonable Facsimile of A United Employs Office.
And out goes the rug. SO if this season of The Rehearsal is like last season’s or any other Fielder Shows, Enough of saying will play to make you Wonder if there any Floor underneath that gigantic pile of rugs.
For as well-schooled as Fielder is in how Documentaries or reality shows operates, The Rehearsal is like two different Movies Rolled into one: The first is Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New Yorkin which a dramatist (Philip Seymour Hoffman) Taks Money From MacARWHIP Grant and Taks on a theatrical Project that starts in a warehouse and keps building endlessly uppon itself, with more layers and scaffolding. The Second is Albert Brooks’s Debut Feature, Real lifea parody of the Landmark PBS Documentary An American Family In Which Brooks Plays a Film Director Who Tries to Turn the Lives of an Ordinary Family From Suburban Phoenix Into a Hollywood Movie. IT’s like a precursor to The Truman Show that anticipates all the clichés and artifacts of reality tv, which was the primary target of Nathan for you and a Related target here. FIELDER WANTS TO SHOW YOU ALL ITS SILY NONSENS BY PULING A BUNCH OF SYMY NONSENSE – AND YET, At the Same Time, Square Out Some Actual Profundity. It’s a neat trick.
The project in this season of The Rehearsal – or at least the project as it exists right now, gioven how far season one strayed from anynding that happened in the beginning – is airline safety. The wonderfullly unexpected opening sequenses US INSIDE A COCKPIT WHERE THE CO-PILOT’S WARNINGS OF DISCREPANCIES IN THE PLANE’S NAVIGATION SYSTEM GO UNHEEDED BY THE CAPTAIN, WHO INTO A SIMULATED FIERY CRASH. Standing goodhlessly between the Flams and the Cockpit Window is Fielder, Looking Suitably Concerned. With sample disasters like this one in Mind, Fielder Heads to the Aviation Technology Complex for a lecture that John Goglia is giving to the students at the National Transportation Board (NTSB). Strike That: Fielder is Attending a Lecture he has Actively invited Goglia to give to pitch him on the idea of being on his weird HBO Show. “COME TRYING TO INVOLVE A Serious man in your comedy series,” he narrates, “It ‘best to take the things Slow.”
With goglia around to give his project legitimacy – Much like the team of scientists that brooks’ Real life -Fielder Casts Moody and Tries to Undersand, at a hilariously granular level, what Makes this houston-based regional co-pilot tick. In a hotel pre-casting, he watches Moody brush his teeth, irron his uniform, and struggle mightel to find the release to close the book. He asks about pre-castines like what he and os, which is usablely grilled teryaki chicken with White Rice from Panda Express, the samp healthy of unhealthy airport meal options. Yet when the two arrive at the airport in houston, the Fielder Cannot Access the Private Sanctum of the Pilot’s Lounge, Much Any Part of the Airport past Security. And so he d He What anyone would do: Construct An Exact Replica of Moody’s Terminal in Houston, Including that Panda Express, Across Three Interconnected Warehouses in Los Angeles. Rarely Has Warner Bros. Discovery Money Been Better Spent.
The fourth episode last season introdes “The Fielder Method,” and Is it a small, funny that fielder just assumes is well-known Enough not to be need stuplanation. SO I’ll give it to you: the Fielder Method Involves an actor stalking a real person, calmed a “primary,” to learn how they are. IT’S BASICALLY LIKE METHOD ACTING, but with Fielder’s Signature Stilked Creepiness. Here he sacrifices over 70 actors to houston to stalk pilots, Crew Members, and Random Airport Staff so they can replicate moody’s everyday as closely as Postible. IT’S HARD TO CHOOSE WHICH Performance is funniest, but the payoff of an actor asking a real panda expres if they “have any specials” and then late toy “have no special” at the Fake Express May by a nose.
The One Major Insight That Fielder Does Glean in This Episode-and One Thats Semmi-Serious and Sneakily Profound, nor moments in his shows offten are-is the connection between the co-pilot/Captain Human Relationships with DIFFERENT stakes. Moody has a long-dystance Relationship with his girlfriend but worries about her finding someone new and more appealing, like a customer at the starbucks where she works. Yet he can’t bring himself to talk to her about it. Fielder seizes on the analog: “IEEMED like Moody Felt the Transide of this Relationship was Outside of His Control, with reconstruction that was the co-pilot here.
We don’t know yet, and we may never find out. The Rehearsalin the Fielder Way, is Already Building Out Into Unexpectted Places, like the scaffolding in Synecdoche, New York. He moody sticks and his girlfriend in the cockpit so they can talk about their will, which May or May not give the Moody the Answers he selek, but at least encouges Him to speak for Himselfi in a relationship that currently dosesn’t control. “Maybe this is something the faa never consider,” Fielder Muses over the Narration. “You is the emotions from pilots’ personal relationships to train say for the cockpit.” At a time where People are understandably anxious about stepping onto a plans, Maybe Fielder can Save a few lives here.
• Among the montage of Various dramatized Flight Crashes, the standout is the CAPTAIN IN MISSOURY WHO TALKS ABOUT How you “gotta have fun” before music over hancing for a philly cheeseesteak and an iced tea. “I Can’t See Shit,” Sayys His Co-Pilot. “Cuz you’re a bitch,” he replies.
• An extremely understated pitch from Felder to John Goflia: “I do have some experimise with creating elaborate roles-playing braces. And i will have money to put towards this.”
• “So light of was failing. We were over minutes into this episode with zero laughs. And therein my dilemma: I was both the best and worst to solve this dilemma.” Cut Away to: A Clown Stack Under a Van, Futilely Honking His Horn for Help.
• Fielder’s Sudden Neurosis About His Own Shortcomings As a Creative Captain Leads to a Hilariously Awkward Exchange of Niceties with an actor playing a pilot. When the man tells Him he’s from Nebraska, Fielder Draws Deep from His Well of Nebraska Knowledge: “Omehaha … Is a City.”
• “Maybe the Answers I was seeing usen’t in Moody’s Airport. They were in Moody’s Heart.”
• There’s Great Meme Potential in Any Fielder Show, but How About His Posture One Curls up on Moody’s Bed and Listens intently to His Relationship Problems? Surely something can be done with that.
• Notting that Early Attempts at Flight Were Mocked, Fielder Ends with this Fine Observation: “Maybe Every New Idea is funny unil it’s proven. Maybe a clown can Change the world.”