Since the conclusion of Nathan For You in 2017, audiences have been waiting with bated breath to see what creator and star Nathan Fielder would do next. The mysterious Fielder, who has seemingly crafted his entire career around never showing cracks in the facade of his awkward character, has never been one to overly promoting his potential projects. Instead, he allows his shows to stand on their own merits and they always accumulate a cult following.

As of July, those who have been wanting another fantastic Nathan Fielder offering can finally rejoice. On July 15th, 2022, his new show, The Rehearsal, premiered on HBO Max. Essentially, the comedy series centers around Fielder assisting individuals in preparing for life events through incredibly convoluted simulations. If that description leaves you a bit confused about what the show entails, it is likely because that is exactly what Fielder intended.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

In the first episode of the series, Fielder helps a man prepare to reveal a long-held secret to a close friend and does so by elaborately creating an entire fake bar. In episode two, Fielder employs a group of child actors to help a woman prepare for motherhood. Only these two episodes of The Rehearsal have been released thus far, and four more are yet to come.

What can HBO Max audiences expect for the remainder of The Rehearsal season one?

Gold Digger: Cringy Relationship Reckoning

Nathan For You may have been more about relationships than it was about business. Almost every episode featured Nathan Fielder falling in love with a woman that was tangentially related to the central plot. His utter inability to communicate with members of the opposite sex was the genesis of many hilarious moments (and an even greater number of cringy ones).

RELATED: The Rehearsal Review: Nathan Fielder’s Strange Simulation is Uncomfortably Funny

Episode three of The Rehearsal, set to be released on July 29th, is titled “Gold Digger,” which leads fans of the series to believe that the episode will surround a relationship. Seeing this episode title and imagining Nathan Fielder being the intermediary in a floundering relationship likely makes fans of the comedian crack a preemptive smile. Even the most rigorously planned simulation could not prepare Fielder to have a regular conversation with a woman, so it will be interesting to see how he helps someone navigate a relationship.

The Fielder Method: A Taste of Nathan Fielder’s Business Acumen ​​​​​​​

As he explains at the opening of every episode of Nathan For You, Nathan Fielder graduated from one of Canada’s top business schools with “really good grades.” Throughout the series, he utilized his business prowess, creating unique marketing plans for a disparate set of businesses around the country.

Episode four of The Rehearsal, which is set to be released on August 5th, is titled “The Fielder Method.” Though this episode does not give away a lot of information regarding the episode’s plot, it suggests that Fielder will return to his roots and utilize some of his business acumens.

Pretend Daddy: The Potential Opportunity for Parental Progress

     HBO

In the recently released second episode of The Rehearsal, “Scion,” Fielder set up a scenario to allow an Oregonian woman to do a test run of motherhood. He put the woman, Angela, up in a gorgeous country home rigged with countless cameras and utilized a series of infant child actors, who were changed out regularly in accordance with child actor laws. Unfortunately, the experiment went somewhat awry near the end of the episode.

RELATED: How The Rehearsal Distills the Best of Nathan for You

Angela met a younger man, Robin, and offered to put him up in the home to participate in the experiment. However, Robin left the house that night, abandoning his fake child and Angela. Nathan Fielder then decides, perhaps spurred by an affinity for the episode’s subject Angela, that he will participate in the experiment.

The sixth episode of The Rehearsal is titled “Pretend Daddy.” Will this episode return to the story of Angela? Could Robin return to raise his fake child, or, in a more likely scenario, will the episode showcase Nathan Fielder exploring fatherhood? The problems presented in “Scion” were not solved at the end of the episode. If the legion of child actors that Fiedler was hiding at the episode’s conclusion is any indication, the storyline is anything but settled.

The Rehearsal has already proven to be the perfect spiritual successor to Nathan For You. The HBO Max show will undoubtedly bring audiences a lot of laughs if said audiences can get past the body-tensing cringe that Fielder seems to radiate. It is unclear what potential problems Fielder will seek to remedy in future episodes of The Rehearsal, but it will be fascinating to see how he utilized his business acumen to perfectly plan out more mundane interactions.