This is an edition of the weekly newsletter Tap In, GQ senior associate editor Frazier Tharpeâs final word on the most heated online discourse about music, movies, and TV. Sign up here to get it free.
There is a special, unique, and increasingly rare thrill in watching a television series where week-to-week, you have absolutely no idea what youâre in forâa show that dares to defy the formula and familiarity built into TVâs DNA. Back in 2022, Nathan Fielder achieved this feat in the first season of his HBO series The Rehearsal, in which Fielder confronted his longstanding fascinations with the inherent artifice behind human interactions and behaviour, breaking through the fourth wall only to invite the audience to watch him reconstruct itâand then dared us to see how thoroughly we could pinpoint, in the aftermath, what was real and what was theater. Only the Real Fielder Heads (those of us with taste) could truly find it funny but everyone who watched found it compellingâall the way up to a finale that pulled the rug out, tying together grander themes of identity and soul-searching that had been in play the whole time underneath the surface of Fielderâs play-acting schemes.
That first season was so effective, and felt so complete, that it left many viewersâor at least this viewerâwondering where a second season could possibly go. An early-April trailer drop that hinted at a season focused on air-traffic control and flight safety, only left us all more confusedâand also bewildered, since the already eerily emotionally-attuned comedianâs years-in-the-making project appeared to be addressing a hyper-current news phenomenon.
Now that weâre about halfway through The Rehearsalâs sophomore season, itâs clear that Fielder hasnât just lived up to the first seasonâheâs found a higher gear and is doing career-best work. The Rehearsal may go down as the TV event of the year, maybe of the decade. Although I have press screeners for the whole season, Iâm writing this having only watched up through last nightâs episodeâbut when youâve just seen Nathan Fielder spend weeks cosplaying as Captain Chesley âSullyâ Sullenberger only to emerge with a real, credibly psychoanalyzed thesis about how the legendary pilot actually saved the day on the fateful flight that made him a household name, Iâm ready to say Iâve seen enough to call it. I donât know what Iâm watching, but I know itâs genius.
The funniest thing about all of this is that if you squint hard enough, all of the scenarios on The Rehearsal so far this seasonâthe Twitter-timeline catnip, I-canât-believe-he-went-there rabbit holes heâs gone downâare also some of Fielderâs most contrived work. If the showâs mission is really to figure out how and why improved communication between airline pilots can lead to less downed flights, there was no actual good reason to rope an eager first officerâs blatantly wayward relationship into the mix as âresearch.â The connection that Fielder draws in episode two from pilot social interaction to his own real beef with Paramount over an old episode of Nathan For You is tenuous at best. And I couldnât really tell you why this weekâs installment finds him fixated on Sully. But it hardly matters when the material generated by these leaps of logic is so jaw-dropping.