We’re 5 months into 2025, and it has been a superb yr for tv. The Final of Us Season 2, Severance Season 2, Andor Season 2, White Lotus Season 3, The Righteous Gems‘ last season, The Studio Season 1, and Adolescence are all vying for the title of greatest sequence of the yr. But with all due respect, with how nice these sequence are, the most effective present of 2025 is The Rehearsal Season 2.
Debuting in July 2022 on HBO, The Rehearsal is a docu-series starring Nathan Fielder. It makes use of units and actors employed to recreate actual conditions to assist unusual folks rehearse for upcoming tough conversations or life occasions. But that easy plot abstract barely scratches the floor of what The Rehearsal is definitely about, and looks like a little bit of a lie, since in Season 1, the present rapidly goes off the rails into a completely completely different topic.
Season 2 takes this a step additional, as what initially begins as Fielder making an attempt to repair aviation security rapidly morphs into one thing far higher, and practically unattainable to explain. It really is a present that must be seen to be believed, and after the third episode of Season 2, it’s within the dialog for the most effective present on tv.
‘The Rehearsal’ Is an Absurdist Masterpiece You Aren’t Prepared For
Tuning into The Rehearsal each week is like the best thriller, as a result of the viewers by no means is aware of what they are going to get. That is the sequence that, in Season 2’s second episode, featured Fielder depicting the places of work of the Paramount Germany division as a Nazi army base, together with SS uniforms carrying the Paramount+ emblem on their armbands following the reveal that the streaming platform eliminated an episode of Nathan For You from its platform because of being seen as “doubtlessly anti-Semetic” when the episode eliminated was about elevating consciousness in regards to the holocaust. After that, there is not any telling the place the subsequent episode will go. Who would have imagined that 10 minutes into the third episode of Season 2, a pair who cloned their deceased canine could be the least bizarre factor in regards to the episode?
Within the third episode, titled “Pilot’s Code,” Fielder makes use of himself as a check topic of an experiment to copy the persona of heroic pilot Sully Sullenberger, reliving his life from infancy to the 2009 emergency touchdown within the Hudson River. Fielder shaves his complete physique and clothes up in a diaper, is swaddled and adjusted by a large terrifying marionette puppet meant to be his mom, earlier than an equally hysterical and disturbing scene of Fielder choking on milk whereas being breastfed by the puppet. If one hasn’t seen this episode, this in all probability sounds ridiculous and exaggerated, however this all occurs, and it solely will get stranger (and higher).
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The episode culminates with Fielder, because the grownup Sully, going by means of some extent in his life the place he was very into music following the discharge of the iPod. Fielder hypothesizes that Sully may need been listening to the hit track “Convey Me to Life” by certainly one of his favourite bands, Evanescence, when he landed within the Hudson, on condition that Sully’s 23 seconds of silence on the recording additionally matches up with the refrain of “Convey Me to Life” which occurs to be 23 seconds lengthy.
It’s an absurd conclusion, and one which, when Fielder postulates within the episode, one can not help however snigger at… but the framing of it feels solely plausible. Even when it is not true, you need it to be. Whereas one would possibly snigger on the thought, it is exhausting to not lean ahead when the conclusion comes over Fielder. When the refrain begins blasting, it’s a fist-pumping second that in some way makes Clint Eastwood’s 2016 movie Sully really feel incomplete with out it and likewise usurps 2003’s Daredevil because the definitive piece of media to make use of “Convey Me to Life.” Evanescence and “Convey Me to Life” won’t ever be the identical after The Rehearsal, which is how viewers really feel after watching the sequence.
‘The Rehearsal’ Is a Present About Anxiousness
The Rehearsal‘s preliminary pitch to the viewers was an analogous format to Fielder’s previous sequence, Nathan For You, which might be a comedic sequence of Fielder making an attempt to “assist” others in absurd methods, with the thought of rehearsing for all times’s huge moments seeming ripe for comedy. Nevertheless, as Season 1 progressed, it grew to become clear this was one thing extra, because it had a barely darker edge. Season 2 steps the premise up extra, with the seeming want to “rehearse life” being an exploration into residing with anxiousness. The start line of Season 2, airline security, rapidly turns into about educating co-pilots to confront uncomfortable conditions with fellow pilots and converse up, in addition to the worry that comes with it.
In Season 2, Episode 2, “Star Potential,” as Fielder is trying on the Nazi-coded Paramount+ workers (once more can’t stress sufficient how unusual and gutsy this visible is), Fielder narrates about what are seemingly his struggles with connecting to folks on a honest emotional degree, one that may converse to many people residing with anxiousness, or some other sort of neurodivergence. Fielder says:
“I’ve all the time felt sincerity was overrated. It simply finally ends up punishing those that cannot carry out it in addition to others. Some individuals are born nice performers. They’ve the expertise to effortlessly persuade others that they’re greater than only a quantity. However for the remainder of us, irrespective of how honest we’re inside, it would all the time be a battle.”
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The Rehearsal is, at the start, a comedy sequence. However as Fielder mentions within the Season 2 premiere, he desires to do greater than make folks snigger, and typically it’s exhausting to get folks to take you critically when all they ever see is a clown making jokes. Fielder visualizes this completely as a literal clown who’s trapped beneath a automobile, crying out for assist, and folks laughing at him till they understand it is not a bit… however in actuality, it was all a bit, as everybody from the clown to the pedestrians had been a part of Fielder’s rehearsal.
But by means of The Rehearsal, Fielder is doing what he got down to do, which adjustments and saves lives, even when the ultimate episodes do not see him fixing the pilot security disaster. Spoiler alert: One have a look at the information and all of the airplane crashes since Trump fired the heads of the Transportation Safety Administration suggests Fielder will fail in that endeavor, and the sequence itself is a device to vary lives. Beneath all of the absurd visuals, elaborate costumes, and awkward moments is a sequence about understanding oneself and others.
Why ‘The Rehearsal’ Flies Below the Radar
On condition that The Rehearsal airs on HBO and follows The Final of Us, one would think about it will be an even bigger sequence. For individuals who do watch it, it’s undoubtedly a high viewing expertise, and taking a fast have a look at The Rehearsal on Twitter and BlueSky reveals varied reactions of individuals seemingly responding in actual time to the insanity they’re seeing unfold. But it would not appear to have the identical maintain on the cultural zeitgeist that The Final of Us or different widespread sequence have had up to now this yr.
One would possibly say that as a result of The Rehearsal is a docu-series, it’s tougher to seize viewers engagement than a simple dramatic narrative like The Final of Us or White Lotus. Nevertheless, that did not cease sequence like Tiger King or Discovery’s Quiet on Set documentary from garnering important consideration from audiences and the bigger media.
It is perhaps that The Rehearsal is not for everybody, which is okay. It’s a very uncomfortable sequence to look at at instances, and for a lot of viewers, it’d simply be an excessive amount of. It’s an acquired style that one expects from a artistic thoughts like Fielder, who has delivered a sequence that solely he may make. Fielder has in some way gotten HBO and David Zaslav, certainly one of Hollywood’s most notable penny pinchers, to spend tens of millions of {dollars} for Fielder to assemble elaborate units to recreate absurd situations that make for nice comedy and seemingly partial immersive remedy.
There may be nothing like The Rehearsal on tv proper now. Hopefully, HBO will hold giving Fielder cash to create the sequence as a result of it’s each laugh-out-loud humorous and transcendentally transferring. The Final of Us is perhaps HBO’s huge Sunday sequence proper now, however for my cash, it’s the opening act for The Rehearsal. Stream The Rehearsal on Max.