Following last week’s spectacular “Pilot’s Code,” it was perhaps a given that The Rehearsal Season 2 Episode 4, “Kissme,” would need to be more restrained. There are only six episodes in a given season of Nathan Fielder’s boundary-pushing HBO docudramedy series. However, after such a broad, generation-spanning, oddly life-affirming bit of television, you need to scale back and go for something more manageable. Especially as you’re building towards a surely climactic final two episodes. Still, while certainly good, this week’s installment can’t help but feel a touch underwhelming. When reflecting on this season’s more zany, gab-worthy moments, there won’t be as many to glean from this one, at least comparatively. But it’s not a lackluster episode either.
After spending the last two or three episodes with various flights of fancy, it’s natural that Fielder would want to return to more grounded territory — at least, until the host-director can soar once more in this wacky aviation-themed season. The only thing left for certain: there’ll be turbulence.
Going through the motions
We start this episode with what is seemingly the semi-finals for Wings of Voice. If you’re left a bit surprised by the continued presence of this faux competition show-within-a-show, it’s no wonder. As Fielder admits, he’s running through the motions with this; the host has everything he would need from this fake show in episode two. He’s only keeping it going out of a feeling of obligation. But that’s fine. In typical Fielder fashion, the host will use this fertile ground to plant a few seeds.
Amid breaks on this pilot-focused mock competition series, Fielder finds his attention set on one particular pilot: Colin, a sweet but shy guy who doesn’t quite know how to express himself, most notably in the ways of love. Perhaps Fielder sees a kindred lovelorn spirit. Or maybe he can just see an easy avenue to pursue some bold experimentation in his classic, hilariously awkward bit of people pleasing. Either way, Nathan seeks to assist Colin in a peculiarly multifaceted fashion.
Borrowing an idea from a nature documentary, Fielder introduces The Pack, a group of various actors who will dress like and hastily mimic Colin’s varied actions during a fake-date rehearsal. If the host can allow Colin to overcome his fears of intimacy with a woman, perhaps he can find a breakthrough in his attempts to field proper communication with co-pilots. Through the process of The Pack, Fielder believes Colin can find comfort in the act of solidarity. It’ll allow his subject to return, in this specific way, to his primal animal routes. Colin is such a mild-mannered guy that anything that lets the pilot shake off his social and personal concerns would be a big win. Using several random actors is seemingly the root solution for any Nathan quandary. So, there we go.
From singing competition to romance
During a break in the action, Fielder starts to play a little game of matchmaker. He breaks away a few gals who claim they could be attracted to Colin outside of their duties to The Pack. From there, while he can’t tell them to make a move on him, Fielder, nevertheless, encourages them to try their luck and see what would happen if they attempt to woo the awkward aviation pilot. In the process, in familiar Fielder fashion, the host learns about one particular woman’s odd little crush — and sexual fantasies — about one Albert Einstein. It is best to let her speak for herself.
During these romantic trials, one particular woman sparks Colin’s fancy: Emma, a sweet actress who can see herself with a sensitive and sweet guy like him. The potential couple have a couple of dates, but the action doesn’t progress much beyond casual conversation and mild flirting. Not quite satisfied with his results, Fielder continues expanding the experiment. At first, the host is a bit like an elder middle-schooler trying to get two crushes to start a relationship.
From there, he is a bit like an aggressive, if similarly awkward, wingman (no pun intended) who wants Colin in a relationship no matter what it takes. After that, with multiple actors doing improvised simulations of potential Emma-Colin relationships, nearly all of which go much farther than the real thing, Fielder starts to question the inherent boundaries between actors and their real selves. He also questions how these professionals, along with their real-life partners, find the divide between the real, the fake, and the blurry emotions, small realities, and little fantasies created in the process.
Nathan Fielder remains an enigma
During his episode on The A24 Podcast, Fiedler talked a great deal about his fascination with the acting process. He appeared thrilled to speak with Euphoria’s Alexa Demie about the odd particulars and complex thought processes that go into an actor’s mind. Even though he had had the opportunity to act opposite Emma Stone in his celebrated Showtime show, The Curse, Fiedler claims that his on-screen romantic relationship came from how the director-turned-actor would perceive other romantic relationships and how he could mimic them. While actors tell the director that they can feel a realness to their relationships in the moment, Fielder can’t help but struggle to understand. But he knows that this will somehow pave the way forward for how he can properly allow pilots to express their buried emotions and better communicate while in flight.
There has been a lot said about how much Fielder’s on-screen persona represents his real self, and how much of it is an act for the camera. I have to think the truth is ultimately fairly complex. Nathan For You and The Rehearsal are, I believe, born from his innate desire to contextualize and dive deeply into the different complexities of our human relationships, and the elaborate, frequently hilarious lengths that people can go to try to get into someone else’s little headspace. The intrinsic irony of Fielder’s career is that he presents himself as a television aide who wants his platform to help others, but ultimately uses them all in the service of his sense of unsure self.
Fielder is self-asserting
As such, “Kissme” is very much Fielder at his Fielderist. It’s more or less his take on Love on the Spectrum, as others have likely noted, but tangled up in the web of his off-beat psychoanalysis. So, while, in theory, The Rehearsal Season 2 Episode 4 is about Fielder hoping to help Colin gain self-confidence, all in the name of paving a path forward for pilots to express themselves more freely, in the cockpit and in life, this episode proves, once more, that Fielder is the one who is continuing to try to assert his own self.
He wants to find the lines between funny and serious, lighthearted and life-changing. If he can find that bridge, it’ll be a matter of what he can find common ground with Congress, the FAA, and anyone who might only see him as a perverse little clown. Whether or not he can get that plane to lift off will be determined in the next couple of weeks. But keep your eye on the sky.
The Rehearsal Season 2 Episode 4 is out now on HBO Max.
Images courtesy of HBO / Max.
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'The Rehearsal' Season 2 Episode 4 - "Kissme" - 7/10
7/10
