Nathan Fielder Pulls Off His Biggest Feat Yet on The Rehearsal‘s Season Finale

Nathan Fielder Pulls Off His Biggest Feat Yet on The Rehearsal‘s Season Finale
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Don’t question Nathan Fielder’s commitment. In tonight’s Season 2 finale of The Rehearsal, Fielder nonchalantly revealed that he learned how to fly for his show, and is now a fully licensed 737 pilot. 

That doesn’t mean you’ll hear Fielder’s monotone the next time your pilot gives you an update. Although Fielder could legally pilot a passenger 737, pretty much every major passenger airline requires more hours of flight time than Fielder currently has. That won’t stop him from flying for delivery companies like Nomadic, though, as we saw in tonight’s episode—and who knows, maybe after logging 1500 hours for Nomadic he’ll send his CV over to Delta.

It’s a fitting conclusion to a season in which Fielder focused on making air travel safer. If you’re worried you can’t trust the people in the cockpit, it makes sense to become one of those people. And it’s not like Fielder hasn’t gone to outrageous lengths for his shows in the past. This is the guy who spent seven months learning how to walk a high wire. And to preempt any doubters, most of tonight’s finale was devoted to showing in detail the hundreds of hours of training and flight time Fielder put into this, including his extreme struggles with learning how to land. By the end he is, as he puts it, “the least experienced person licensed to fly a 737 in America.”

Of course the finale wasn’t just a full episode of Fielder patting himself on the back. It all plays into the fragile psychology of the “Nathan Fielder” character he’s played throughout his career. As the episode comes to a close, Fielder sums up the real reason his TV self would put all this work into learning how to fly: “They only let the smartest and best people fly a plane of this size, and it feels good to know that,” he says. “No one is allowed in the cockpit if something is wrong with them. So if you’re there it must be fine.”

So, yeah: “Nathan Fielder” spent years learning how to fly on HBO’s dime just so he wouldn’t have to address his insecurity, mental health issues, and potential neurodivergence. It’s what his whole career’s been building up to.

All of The Rehearsal Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max.

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