Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Rehearsal, S2E6, “My Controls” (written by Nathan Fielder & Carrie Kemper & Adam Locke-Norton & Eric Notarnicola and directed by Nathan Fielder)
I noticed recently that HBO’s TV schedule website categorized The Rehearsal as a Documentary, which I thought was funny but also fair. However, when I checked it again this week, I found that now, last week’s episode, “Washington,” is listed as a Comedy, while the season finale, “My Controls,” is categorized as Offbeat, whatever that means. I’m not sure that’s a genre.
I’m not trying to be mean to whoever pushes these buttons. If anything, I wonder if some boss poked their nose in. Documentary was as good as anything else for a series like The Rehearsal, which doesn’t so much defy genre as play with the lines between one and another. Perhaps it’s as much of a documentary as work produced by Werner Herzog, or a comedy like The Curse, or an offbeat reality series like Nathan for You.
One undeniable thing is that Nathan Fielder has a knack for producing incredible finales. The Season 2 finale of The Rehearsal brings together the various elements of the previous five episodes in ways I could not have seen coming, but which feel perfect in retrospect.
This season has been focused on airplane pilots, but it’s not until “My Controls” that we learn that Nathan Fielder is one. He started pilot training a couple of years ago, and the episode begins by exploring the struggles he had in completing it. In particular, he couldn’t land the plane. We repeatedly see his instructor take control in order to do so, for safety, as Nathan tells us in voiceover that he was basically told that he was the worst at this ever. Most students are able to do it after a dozen or so hours of flying; Nathan still couldn’t after 120.
This led to Nathan being passed off to various flight instructors, who tried to figure out why he was struggling so much with landing the plane. It also led to him engaging in an exercise where he simply sat in a chair imagining that he could do it. Indeed, after he witnessed the crash of another student’s plane, this chair exercise became Nathan’s sole practice for months, until he was finally able to return to the cockpit and successfully land a plane.
All of this is relevant for reasons related to what happens later, but I also think it’s noteworthy that Fielder was engaged in all of this training for years before The Rehearsal Season 2 came to fruition. Further, though, from the point of view of the season of television, it’s brilliant that this information has been withheld. Nathan has been working with pilots throughout Season 2. Now, we learn that he is one.
The plan: Pilot a 737 full of actors playing passengers with a real first officer as co-pilot, in order to show the issues pertaining to cockpit communication that Fielder has been worried about all season. John Goglia is intrigued, but he’s hesitant to endorse this idea. From what we see in The Rehearsal S2E6, it’s not entirely clear if he ever does.
Regardless, Nathan notes that he’s exploiting a couple of loopholes to make this happen. He wouldn’t be qualified to fly a commercial plane because he hasn’t logged enough hours, and he wouldn’t be qualified to fly a non-commercial plane the size of a 737 if the passengers were real passengers. It’s important, legally speaking, that they will be actors.
But the actors who have been involved in The Rehearsal to this point seem happy to get on board. Fielder tells them they should feel free to opt out if they feel uncomfortable at all, and he won’t hold it against them, but we don’t see anyone opt out.
Nathan does have a bit of training to do before this flight can happen, which it turns out will be entirely in a flight simulator located in Henderson, Nevada. So, he’ll have never flown a real 737 before he flies one for the show, but apparently the same thing holds for real commercial pilots, who train entirely through the simulator. I’m not sure whether to be disturbed by that or not.
Nathan enlists a first officer named Aaron to be his co-pilot, because Aaron—who has been involved in Wings of Voice—has Hollywood aspirations. Goglia had worried that Fielder’s status as a newbie would throw a wrench in the cockpit dynamics he was interested in exploring, but if Aaron is concerned with how Nathan could be his door into the entertainment industry, maybe that creates the kind of worry they want.
First, Nathan has to complete a medical form, and he notes in voiceover that lying would be a felony. He gets hung up on a line that asks about mental conditions, including “anxiety, etc.”—What exactly does “etc.” mean here, and does his anxiety fit the bill of something he should report?
Nathan visits Dr. Jordan, who helpfully tells him that a lot of people experience anxiety; the question is whether it gets in the way of one’s ability to function. Dr. Jordan offers an fMRI, which he claims can help to diagnose not just anxiety but also conditions like autism. Nathan isn’t sure how that would work, exactly, but agrees to go along.
After the test, he’s informed that he won’t get results for weeks, and his planned flight is in mere days. Given the difficulties in securing a plane to use and so on, delaying would mean cancelling the plan.
Seeking advice online, Nathan mostly finds pilots questioning why a pilot would risk an autism diagnosis when receiving one could mean losing one’s license to fly. So Nathan decides to fill out his form based on what he knows in that moment—nothing is wrong with him.
The flight goes off without a hitch, though the music on the soundtrack fills the whole thing with tension, and there are some awkward moments between Nathan and Aaron. Whether this all serves the purpose that Fielder laid out or not is something we’re left to ponder, as The Rehearsal doesn’t quite bring that question home. The question becomes whether the series itself will make a real-world impact.
After Nathan successfully lands the 737, the actor/passengers all celebrate his success, and Emma asks him if he’ll keep flying. He says he isn’t sure.
We cut to the conclusion of the Wings of Voice competition, in a segue that works because it’s from one triumph to another, to learn that the winner is Isabella Henao. Fielder makes good on the promise that the winner will get to sing a song of the show’s choosing in a partial recreation of the Houston airport, and that song is “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence. It’s amazing.
During Isabella’s performance, Nathan reads a message from Dr. Jordan about his test results being ready, but dismisses it. We cut to him telling us, in voiceover, that he’s taken to flying 737s for a company that relocates them around the world. And he takes pride in doing so, not only because they only let the best and brightest fly these planes, but because no one is allowed in the cockpit if something is wrong with them. So, if you’re here, you must be fine.
