It’s hard to describe The Rehearsal to people. It started with a simple premise: Nathan Fielder uses HBO’s unbelievably large budget to stage immersive replicas of social situations so members of the public can prepare for difficult conversations no matter what goes wrong. That lasted about a single episode in Season 1, before the show was derailed by Nathan’s own “rehearsal” of parenthood, the development of his own acting technique, and an uncomfortable realization of how his rehearsal affected the child actors involved.
Now, in Season 2, Nathan is setting his sights to the skies by trying to help pilots assert themselves and prevent crashes. So far, that has involved creating an old environment for a cloned dog, creating a fake singing contest, and matchmaking a lonely pilot. In Season 2, Episode 5, “Washington,” Fielder tries to be the best aviation safety advocate he can, and along the way, we get an uncomfortable look at what really goes behind the scenes of this series.
