The charmingly uncomfortable comedy series will return to HBO and Max in April
Ready to want to crawl out of your own skin some more? Nathan Fielder’s intentionally cringeworthy HBO docu-comedy series The Rehearsal will return for Season Two on April 20. The upcoming season will feature six episodes, which will be released weekly on Sunday nights.
“The Rehearsal follows one man’s journey to reduce the uncertainties of everyday life,” says HBO and Max about the upcoming season. “With a construction crew, a legion of actors, and seemingly unlimited resources, Fielder helps ordinary people prepare for life’s biggest moments by ‘rehearsing’ them in carefully crafted simulations of his own design. In season two, the urgency of Fielder’s project grows as he decides to put his resources toward an issue that affects us all.”
The teaser for the new season finds Fielder pacing by a slew of nearly identical sets with variations of the same couple played by starkly different actors pulling out board games or sitting at a computer desk. Fielder watches them with an open laptop strapped to his torso as he walks by.
Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sepiwall called the first season of The Rehearsal “even more absurd, funnier, and strangely affecting” than Fielders’s beloved Comedy Central series Nathan for You.
Rolling Stone spoke with Fielder at the start of his other docu-comedy series, Nathan For You, in 2013, where embarrassment and discomfort were not necessarily the main goal. “We never really want to make people upset. When you’re actually with the person and they’re upset, it’s not as funny,” he said. However, he’s built a thrillingly uncomfortable body of work since, including 2023’s Showtime series The Curse with Emma Stone. “If it’s difficult to sit through, The Curse is also not dull, nor is it entirely onscreen misery for its own sake,” wrote Sepinwall. “The show has a lot to say about the fakery of reality TV, and how actual relationships get transformed into brands. There’s also a lot of thoughtful material about gentrification, appropriation, and the challenges of trying to live an ethical life.”
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