Nathan Fielder to Make the Skies Safe for All

In season two of The Rehearsal, the comedian will put his role-playing expertise to work in service of aviation safety.

Nathan Fielder to Make the Skies Safe for All
Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO

Of the very few details that have been announced about season two of The Rehearsal so far, the juiciest and most intriguing is that it will see creator Nathan Fielder scale up his altruistic ambitions. “The urgency of Fielder’s project grows as he decides to put his resources toward an issue that affects us all,” HBO stated in a February release. In other words, it’s not just going to be helping people come clean about their nonexistent master’s degrees this time around. The stakes are higher.

A new trailer for the show’s upcoming season sheds some light on what this will look like in practice. “I’ve been studying commercial aviation disasters as a hobby, and I started to notice a disturbing pattern in the causes of these crashes,” Fielder says, describing a likely pastime. One possible solution? An expert-recommended role-playing exercise that the Federal Aviation Administration has never approved. “I do have some experience with creating elaborate role-playing scenarios …,” Fielder tells an evangelist for these exercises. And we’re off to the races.

The remainder of the trailer shows glimpses of Fielder gazing longingly at a potential love interest, engineering a social mixer of fake pilots and real pilots, delivering testimony at a political assembly, and more. “Mr. Fielder, where does your sense of altruism come from, where all of a sudden you want to save lives? You’re known for pranking!” one politician asks in response to his testimony. It’s a valid question. Find out if Fielder has an answer when the season premieres on April 20.

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