Nathan Fielder's new HBO series The Rehearsal has drawn countless takes, but in many ways is one of the best explorations of anxiety on TV.
In a world in which isolation has seemed to seep somewhat unknowingly into our existence, tough conversation seems tougher and big decisions are approached with increasing trepidation. In a lot of ways, we’ve traded human experience, the good and the bad, for comfort undisturbed by outside forces. When those moments do arise, we’re often so distracted by the myriad of possible outcomes that we lose rationality in place of wanting to be in total control.
Nathan Fielder’s newest endeavor, The Rehearsal, is about just that, total control. Fielder seeks out individuals who have made it to a point in life where difficult conversations need to be had. Then, he recreates the scenarios of his “patients” to microscopic accuracy in order for them to get the feel of what the conversation will look like. It would be impossible and incomplete to try and narrow this show down to one thing. It’s quasi-therapy, character introspection, and social experimentation that television has just never seen. Its plot, much like its nature, is also ambiguous and ill-defined.
The first episode follows a pretty straightforward, episodic approach as thematic preparation for the psycho-public reflection that will unfold later. It revolves around Kor, a Brooklyn native and trivia guru who contacts Nathan about a white lie that's snowballed amongst his friends. See, all of Kor’s friends think he has a master’s degree, when in reality all he has is a 'lowly' bachelor’s unlike the other members of his trivia group.
While not fully revealing the show's true colors, this episode does a lot to establish the theme of anxious thinking and how it can often lead to overreaction. Not only do we see Kor rehearsing his confession to his hired peers, but Nathan also seems to be doing a bit of rehearsing of his own. While he’s built a to-scale, wholly accurate model of the bar that Kor’s final confession will take place at, Nathan has also built a replica of Kor’s own house for his own preparations into the project, something like an in-world attempt at Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. It’s here we see the practicalities of Nathan’s anxieties unfolding, but also how his need for control affects his own sentiments of authenticity.
After this first episode, Nathan’s divulgence into the delusion of control seems to spiral into something unrecognizable on cursory exposure, which each further analysis seems to reveal itself as having a different mission statement. Is it a documentary? A memoir? Some kind of benignly twisted social experiment? Whatever the case may be, Nathan himself doesn’t even know. The show begins to act less as a mockumentary of absurdity and instead delves into the thoughts, the anxieties, in Fielder's mind.
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The second and third episodes delve into Nathan’s own character as we’re given a version of the master artist stepping into the painting. We’ve already seen the version of Nathan rehearsing for his own means, but it isn’t until he’s thrown into his own experiment that his true colors and outright lack of intention for any one goal is revealed from this whole whirlwind of convolution.
As his next subject, Angela, is having a hard time finding a stand-in for a father in her elaborately detailed simulated motherhood, Nathan steps into the position and proceeds to wreak havoc on more than just the process for Angela (although somewhat unknowingly at first). Their “son,” Adam, (who is actually several children due to child labor laws) grows up to be a resentful and angry man toward his father, who was too busy trying to be the puppet master in others' lives that he neglected the needs of the one life this version of Nathan should be concerned with molding.
See, it's in Adam that we really begin to see Nathan’s master plan sort of unravel in spectacular fashion. Once he’s entered his own arena, his quirks start to read as more like burdens of detriment on his psyche. Not able to handle the outcomes presented to him by an 18-year-old Adam, Nathan has him reverted to an age of impressionability, hoping to rekindle a more controlled relationship than the one he earned.
This is our first look into Nathan’s unyielding craving of control over the situation. Nathan’s anxiety, for him, is something of a gift if it is learned to be controlled. The gift in question, Nathan’s ability to read other people, a trait designed by a socially awkward individual ever-wishing for the kind of connection he perceives others as possessing, yet unattainable by his own means.
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Here lies perhaps the most prominent of the many faces of Fielder and his grand psychology test. Nathan is a man whose existence has carried the burden of awkwardness with him wherever he goes. We see it in his previous program Nathan For You, as he comes across as a subversive but draining business promoter whose ideas seem to solve his own sense of humor (and inability to connect with others) rather than any fiscal crisis. The Rehearsal doubles down on that sense of control being a taste of comfort for Nathan, as it takes center stage amidst the half a dozen rehearsals our puppet master is working on throughout. Simplified though at first, the more he piles onto his plate, the more wobbly and unpredictable that walk from the kitchen to the dining room becomes.
The fourth episode showcases this in hilariously unsettling fashion, as Nathan tries to acquire students in which he can imprint “The Fielder Method” into their acting wheelhouse. What we get, however, is a perceptive look into the very idea of lying to people for the sake of comfort, and the worry about interaction and impression that has taken control of Nathan thus far. It's only until he takes the place of one of his students that he first realize the kind of cruelty that comes from preparing for our basic interactions with such intensity.
Nathan lays this central conflict in the first episode, telling Kor “when you reveal your true self, people don’t always like what they see.” That said, Nathan begins to question if his awareness of that is more of a curse than a gift in the level of meta-commentary the season seems to be entering into. Is unanimous acceptance really worth the turmoil Nathan seems to be putting others, as well as himself, into?
As of right now, The Rehearsal seems to want to reveal as much about Nathan’s own identity with social anxiety as it does those he sits in the director's chair for. The whole idea of “I should’ve said this instead” is one that Fielder reads as preventable, but is it worth the awareness (or lack thereof) of those key interactions, the microscopic detail of a situation being fully understood to get the desired outcome? Is that really the solution to anxiety?
Filmmakers' ultimate hope of getting the perfect scene in one take is put to the test for the sake of people’s lives made personable. Nathan might just be dissecting communication and the toothpaste in the tube metaphor in one of the most perplexing ways ever set to screen. In the words of philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, a master of anxiety, “life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,” and Nathan just might be coming to this realization.