If you frequent a movie theater that’s been promoting upcoming screenings of John Wilson’s debut feature, The History Of Concrete, you may have witnessed it: The collective laugh that’s released at the end of the film’s trailer, greeting a title that matches the preceding images (largely unremarkable footage of concrete and its many forms) if not how they’re being presented (a stirring instrumental score and busy editing style that seems to building to something more profound—or at least something not as mundane as a fundamental building material). Such a contrast between the grand and the trivial is the ideal promotion for the film—Wilson’s filmmaking style in a nutshell, even without his unmistakable nasally voiceover and comically pregnant pauses.
Some of that laughter may be an expression of recognition, too: Of course the creator of HBO’s How To With John Wilson would choose concrete as the nominal focus of his first theatrical release. Across three seasons and 18 episodes that aired between 2020 and 2023, How To took unique pleasure in leading its viewers down rabbit holes of Wilson and his collaborators’ uniquely obsessive devising. Where else on TV might the quest for a public bathroom in New York City lead an unseen host-narrator to the arcade-machine-festooned home a septic tank guy is building in a decommissioned missile silo? That trip into the rusted-out remnants of the Cold War is just the tip of the How To iceberg; but one of many examples of the knack for finding colorful, uncommonly open characters that Wilson shares with one of the show’s executive producers, Nathan Fielder.
The incredible caught-on-camera coincidences, circuitous storytelling, and nervy headlining talent further connects the show to Fielder projects like The Rehearsal and Nathan For You. Scheduling, tonal, and writing-staff overlap often made How To feel like a spiritual, nonfiction cousin to Adult Swim’s Joe Pera Talks With You; the format recalls some of TV’s earliest marriages of documentary comedy and the headier digressions owe a debt to Orson Welles’ F For Fake. And yet How To is undeniably sui generis. It’s an expression of a distinctive creative voice as well as a document of a particular moment—the only worthwhile piece of art to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic back at us as it was happening. And, as those laughing theatergoers are sure to find, a pitch-perfect blueprint for a documentary feature about the highs and lows of creative pursuits, the hidden layers of everyday people, and, yes, concrete. So stick with this article, and you’ll get a crash course [Insert B-roll of costumed Times Square performers colliding with one another.] in the five episodes of How To to [Wilson-esque pause.] uh watch in preparation for The History Of Concrete.
“How To Make Small Talk” (season 1, episode 1)
It tracks that after honing his signature style—handheld camera, first-person POV and second-person narration, setups and punchlines executed in quick cuts and ironic juxtaposition—over a handful of shorts, Wilson would deliver a TV series that arrives fully formed in its first episode. “How To Make Small Talk” may as well be titled “How To Watch How To With John Wilson”: Taking root in the social anxiety that’s at the core of the director-creator-star’s behind-the-lens persona, the series premiere cuts a winding path from seeking pointers on interpersonal communication to amateur Chris Hansen shenanigans in the suburbs to a trip Cancun that drops our intrepid guide smack dab in the middle of MTV Spring Break. The various chitchat strategies explored in “How To Make Small Talk” are hilariously undercut by How To’s readymade recipe for vulnerability: People will reveal almost anything to a guy with a camera, a disarming personality, and a boundless curiosity about the world around him.
“How To Cover Your Furniture” (season 1, episode 4)
The third of those traits leads How To to its first genuine “You can’t make this shit up” moment: Looking for the right protective covering that will keep his cat from destroying his living room ultimately puts Wilson in contact with anti-circumcision advocate Ron Low. (You can grasp the thematic connection here, yes?) Low is the quintessential subject for a Wilson- or Fielder-style show, someone who’s unabashed in his unorthodox beliefs and will go to great lengths—like getting buck naked on camera to demonstrate his proprietary foreskin restoration device (and possible I Think You Should Leave inspiration), the TLC Tugger—to get his message out.
The episode, like so much of How To, walks a fine line, getting its laughs from a genuine fascination with Low and his methods (and his music) without tipping into outright mockery. It’s a simple sentiment that’s older than television itself: People are funny, and while their biggest laughs might get teased out in the editing bay, they seldom need prodding to be their authentic, funny selves in the moment.
“How To Appreciate Wine” (season 2, episode 2)
It’s tempting to view Wilson as a one-man band, but the number of people who joined him onstage at The History Of Concrete’s Sundance premiere and in How To’s expanded season-two writers’ room (which included Conner O’Malley and, incredibly, legendary literary nonfiction author Susan Orlean) quickly puts the lie to that notion. But as the series progresses, Wilson does increasingly tie How To to his personal life and history, as glimpsed through the endearing relationship with his elderly landlord that spans seasons one and two, or in this episode’s defining tangent. As Wilson ponders his own suggestibility while learning about fine wine, an anecdote from his time in the college a cappella scene introduces a shocking near miss with the subject of another HBO documentary with a significantly different tone. (This type of thing almost becomes a running gag on How To: A later detour to Burning Man gets derailed by production on the 2026 series The Man Will Burn.)
Photo: Thomas Wilson/HBO
“How To Watch The Game” (season 3, episode 4)
This show almost doubles as an ethnography of trade associations, hobbyist conventions, and other special interest groups in the 21st century: The Scaffold & Access Industry Association, a contentious group of New York-area recreation-sports referees, and a support group for people experiencing Post-Avatar Depression Syndrome all fall under Wilson’s microscope in one episode or another. The most purely amusing of these gatherings shows up in the course of a How To on relating to friends more closely through sports. After a rained-out Mets game and an aborted attempt at seeing the Buffalo Bills in action, Wilson finds a form of competition much more his speed at the 37th Annual Vacuum Cleaner Collectors Club Convention in Scranton, PA. The real-life equivalent of a Christopher Guest movie unfolds in The Electric City, with races that bring new meaning to the term “floor show” and one of the biggest (physically, that is) visual gags in all of How To.
“How To Watch Birds” (season 3, episode 5)
Any documentarian eventually has to interrogate their own relationship to the truth—especially one who’s pulling together and recontextualizing as much B-roll as Wilson does. “How To Watch Birds” puts that internal conversation on the screen, calling back to times when the reality of How To was called into question and underlining the fact that Wilson is an observer, not a magician—i.e. he’s willing to pull back the curtain on one notable clip that was staged specifically for the show (and a tax break). But “How To Watch Birds” constructs such a compelling narrative and finds such interesting questions of fact-versus-fiction at varying scales (lying birders and Titanic truthers, to name a couple examples) that you’ll hardly mind the blatantly fabricated material that makes it into the cut. In the end, Wilson offers an epigram that fits the episode as well as the series that contains it: “The next time something seems too good to be true, just enjoy that you live in a world where something like that is possible.”
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