Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for The Rehearsal S2E1, “Gotta Have Fun” (written by Nathan Fielder & Carrie Kemper & Adam Locke-Norton & Eric Notarnicola and directed by Nathan Fielder)
The Rehearsal Season 1 began with a small-stakes episode that seemed fairly self-contained before spiraling out into a continuing narrative that just kept getting weirder. Reactions were mixed, but I loved it, and the buzz around the show was undeniable.
Still, I was somewhat surprised to learn that the series had been renewed for a second season. What would Nathan Fielder do this time? I’d watch a version of The Rehearsal that was structured by a client of the week, along the lines of Nathan for You, but Season 1 made it clear that this project was more ambitious than that. Can we expect Season 2 to lead us down a new rabbit hole where things get curiouser and curiouser?
Maybe, but S2E1 throws us into what seems like it will be the premise of Season 2 as a whole: airline safety.
We open with actors recreating a crash, and it becomes clear as Nathan talks with former NTSB member John Goglia that this scene pulls its dialogue from the actual flight log of the plane in question. Indeed, we get more examples as Fielder lists actual flight numbers of planes that crashed and reads the actual back-and-forth that occurred in the cockpit prior to each tragedy (which we also see re-enacted).
It’s serious stuff, and Nathan seems to genuinely want to use the ideas of The Rehearsal to help enable the role-playing idea that the NTSB suggested when Goglia was a member (which was shot down by the FAA). But he’s scared to tell Goglia that the money at his disposal is from a comedy TV series for HBO… I wonder if we’ll circle back around to that later.
The first true laugh in “Gotta Have Fun” comes when Nathan notes in voiceover that we’re 10 minutes in and there hasn’t been one yet. He lays out the problem of trying to get people to take you seriously when you’re a comedian as we see a clown stuck under a van asking for help, only to be met with chuckles.
Of course, that clown is a paid actor, and so are the people laughing at him. We’re back into the game of The Rehearsal.
Nathan arranges to meet with a co-pilot named Moody to further his project, but finds he can’t actually follow Moody through his work day to learn about how he interacts with the captain of the flight because of airport security. He calls United to try to get access (after first rehearsing the call with an actor on the other end), but is stonewalled.
So, Fielder uses that HBO money to build a model of the airport terminal and brings in 70 paid actors who have been trained in the Fielder Method. He has them shadow people at the real airport, including pilots, and then uses the set to attempt to recreate Moody’s experience.
What he discovers is that pilots don’t tend to talk to one another at all in their lounge prior to the flight. According to Moody, the first time he meets his captain tends to be in the cockpit, and he rarely works with the same pilot more than once.
It seems to me like that last part might get to the crux of the issue about cockpit communication, but Nathan focuses in on how emotionless the official PowerPoint presentation about the responsibilities of a co-pilot is.
He hatches a plan to use the dynamics between Moody and his girlfriend to help Moody better assert himself in the air, having noted previously that Moody seems to view himself as having no control over the trajectory of their relationship. He worries that she might leave him for some guy she meets while working at Starbucks, but he won’t even bring it up.
Nathan gets him to do so in the cockpit of a plane, with his girlfriend dressed as a pilot. It seems to go fairly well, but Nathan notes a weird vibe after the conversation, which does make me wonder if Moody’s fears will come true. Maybe raising his worries has wrecked his relationship?
It’s that kind of fear that is central to the problem Fielder has identified regarding cockpit communication, and it is striking the extent to which Goglia is on the exact same page—the co-pilot is right but intimidated, the pilot doesn’t listen, and then… plane crash.
Season 1 of The Rehearsal played with the line between reality and fiction in brilliant ways, and I’m sure Season 2 will do the same. Is Fielder serious about trying to lower the number of plane crashes that occur? Yes. Is this a comedy series on HBO? Also, yes.
I can’t wait to find out where we’re going. See you next week.
