Despite being the “slowest learner they ever taught,” Fielder never gave up and in the next year, earned his commercial pilot’s license by logging flight hours for his secret second job with the kind of intense attention that he usually gives his laptop. And it’s on those flights that we finally understand that the seeming randomness of this season of The Rehearsal has never been that at all. We’ve watched the anxious, awkwardly comedic Fielder and assumed his odd mind randomly connected some problem dots together with pilots, when in truth, he is a pilot and could see the problem from the inside, especially as someone who suffers from communication clarity. He then draws the brilliantly relatable comparison that equates Fielder to the audience when he points out how so many of us put our lives and safety in the hands of a rideshare driver who isn’t attentive while texting or watching their phone. How many of us have not called them out just to avoid an awkward conversation? Suddenly, Fielder’s quest now belongs to all of us who stayed quiet when danger was clearly present, and that gap between inaction and action doesn’t feel so niche or specific.
It’s almost miraculous that he was able to keep his pilot skills a secret so that he could use that reveal to flip the script on our assumptions about him, shattering the notion that the host of the last five episodes was coming at the cockpit communication problem with anything less than 100-percent commitment. And it suddenly provides a reason why his actors agreed to go on a rehearsal flight with him as a pilot, and why an expert like John Goglia would give him the time of day outside of an initial polite conversation.
With the power of that turn, Fielder reinvents the finale of The Rehearsal into something thrilling and terrifying: a genuine opportunity to prove his theories in real time and potentially change aviation-pilot training by exploiting a flight hour loophole pertaining to 737 pilots. Fielder theorizes to Goglia that if he finds a flyable 737 and passes his 737 SIM pilot training, he could potentially pilot a plane full of actors, not paid passengers, to test his rehearsal method between actual flying pilots. It’s the ultimate rehearsal exercise that, if successful, could prove to the FAA the worthiness of this hyperspecific but reasonable remedy.
Watching Fielder throw himself into preparing for the rigorous training is like bearing witness to a much nerdier, but equally gripping, version of the training montage from Rocky. Through sheer will and dedication, he becomes a pinnacle example of someone embracing the Fielder Method, leaving nothing to chance. He then enlists Wings Of Voice judge/pilot Aaron to co-pilot with him because he has 5000 flight hours on 737s and aspirations to produce television. Fielder’s assumption: If Aaron has something to lose by offending Fielder in the cockpit, then he is the perfect person to field test the co-pilot script exercise at 30,000 feet.
The only wrench in his incredibly well orchestrated plan is Fielder himself. As he fills out his mandatory FAA medical form—which requires by law that he answer truthfully—he realizes that he doesn’t have a definitive answer as to whether he has autism or not,. So, he chooses to get a FMRI brain scan for a definitive answer—only to discover two days before his scheduled flight rehearsal that he won’t get back the results for weeks.
Fielder turns in his medical form with answers to the best of his knowledge, presses his real uniform and embarks on the greatest rehearsal of his life, which includes 150 actors in the belly of his plane and a co-pilot unaware that he might be helping to change aviation training forever. Every minute of that flight is riveting. He directs this episode like it’s a mini feature, capturing the real drama in everything from the nervousness on the actors’ faces to his own semi-desperate setup of the cockpit role-play and even the perilously close drone plane that is meant to prove to us—the audience he knows is justifiably always questioning his authenticity—that he is indeed piloting this 737. Add to that his landing of said 737.
If you asked me where I thought this season of The Rehearsal could possibly end six weeks ago, this outcome never entered my realm of plausibility. Fielder then weaves the disparate parts of this season together, giving us an unexpected finale of Wings Of Voice, a reprise of Sullenberger’s epic Evanescence motivational anthem, and vindication for “Captain Allears” and “Captain Blunt.” As Fielder lurks out of frame in his faux terminal, he receives a voice message from his doctor notifying him that his scan results are in. Fielder deletes the call and proceeds to tell us that he spent his spare time since the finale piloting empty 737s to new locations all around the world. He closes by saying, “Only the smartest and best people are allowed to fly planes of this size. It feels good to know that if you’re here, you must be fine.”
With that, Fielder leaves us to chew on some big questions. Will anyone care to put Fielder’s atypical solution into practice? Even if the FAA does, will it matter when humans prove over and over again that being truthful is optional? When it comes down to it, Fielder has spent this entire season challenging all of us to look at ourselves and how we passively put our lives in other’s hands with an almost comical level of naive trust. Maybe our absolute blind faith in how we think the world works should get a serious reevaluation, much like the aviation safety ideas conjured up by a pilot/comedian.
Stray observations
- • Nathan Fielder seriously invested in two years of specialized flight training to prove his point, which is god-tier pettiness in action.
- • Can you imagine the insurance coverage needed to allow Fielder to execute his 737 rehearsal?
- • Watching the actor/passengers commit to their assigned lines—“I’ll have a Pepsi”—was the drinking game I didn’t know I needed.
- • The composer on this episode did incredible work matching Fielder’s cinematic intentions, from the soaring orchestral cues to the ominous notes that underscored the 737 flight.
- • How satisfying was that 737 landing?
- • If ever a season deserved an epilogue, it’s this one. I want to see Fielder (sans masturbation joke) get his time before Congress.
