Does this freak him out? Does he regret agreeing to be involved in this project? The look on his face as he takes in the news of this extreme violation of his privacy in front of an HBO camera crew is unreadable his expression barely changes except for a few eyebrow raises and slow nods. If this happened to me, I would be scared. Kor has just learned that a crew of strangers broke into his house and created a replica of his home. It’s funny and impressive, and also I kept thinking, This is scary. I cannot remember the last time I laughed like I did when watching the re-creation of Kor’s place or the actor it hired to play him - my discomfort and amazement chemically combined into something almost toxically powerful. I wish I could show you footage of myself watching the next sequence for the first time, sitting on the edge of my couch, scream-laughing, “Haha, what the fuck!” as a “gas company” digitally maps Kor’s apartment. Then, three minutes 40 seconds in, The Rehearsal’s premise kicks in: “This conversation’s been going pretty well so far, right?” Fielder asks Kor. All these things feel familiar we’re on solid ground. The lie itself seems pretty minor, and Kor’s face is hard to read - he keeps his tone level and his expression steady - but when he explains that all his teammates had advanced degrees and he “wanted to seem smarter than I was,” we feel a tiny glimmer of understanding that there is something deeper moving under the surface of his regret.įor NFY fans, many aspects of these first few minutes will feel extremely familiar: Kor’s awkwardness in front of the camera, Fielder’s disclosure that he’s “not good at meeting people for the first time,” the idiosyncratically flat melodrama with which he announces he’s “about to ask this man to trust me with his life.” Even using a Craigslist post to draw in participants for Fielder’s schemes is a classic NFY trope. How vague? Fielder shows us a screenshot of the prompt: “ TV opportunity: Is there something you’re avoiding? Submit video.” In Kor’s submission, he explains that he lied to his bar-trivia team more than 12 years ago about his educational status: They believe he has a master’s degree when he got only a bachelor’s. The show introduces us to Kor, a teacher who found his way to the show via a vague Craigslist post. When Fielder enters the apartment, we see a Nathan many of us already know but a little more natural - still awkward but less stilted, a guy you can imagine talking to without experiencing physical discomfort. In The Rehearsal, instead, we get a cold open: no context, no instructions, just a man intently watching Jeopardy! on his couch. For example, every episode of NFY began with a little voice-over that explained the show’s premise. But the first episode of The Rehearsal, “Orange Juice, No Pulp,” has enough structural overlap with Fielder’s previous work that the echoes and differences feel significant. Nathan for You and The Rehearsal are not the same show you don’t need to have seen Nathan Fielder’s former show to understand or appreciate his new one on HBO.
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