I watch TV for a living. This episode is the craziest thing I've seen.
This story contains spoilers for episode three of season two of The Rehearsal.
I have a high threshold for the absurd. As a kid (yes, I was too young for it, blame my dad) I grew up with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, who took deranged pleasure in beating each other senseless on the BBC. My teenage years were spent singing about soup and eels with The Mighty Boosh. One of the best things I watched in my 20s was Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas guessing the contents of a dumpster on The Chris Gethard Show. And one week after giving birth, I nearly did damage to myself uncontrollably laughing at Tim Robinson not knowing how to work his body in a virtual-reality supermarket on I Think You Should Leave.
As deputy TV editor of this masthead and someone who's professionally written about pop culture for more than a decade, I watch a lot of comedy. But none of this prepared me for the latest episode of HBO docu-comedy The Rehearsal, in which Nathan Fielder – a 41-year-old man – shaved all the hair off his body, put on a nappy and a harness to propel himself into an oversized cot and re-created the life of Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, the beloved pilot who landed a passenger plane on the Hudson.
Whether you've seen the series or not, it's difficult to describe the context for this – a scene so ornately staged and deadpan in its delivery that I literally screamed while watching.
Stranger still: it wasn't even my favourite moment of the episode. That was Fielder's reveal of a (not unconvincing) theory that a 23-second silence in the famous plane's black box recording is explained by Sully listening to the chorus of Evanescence's 2003 goth-pop hit Bring Me To Life.
Speaking to Vulture, Evanescence singer Amy Lee called the moment 'so beautiful', adding that the show is a moving portrait of human vulnerability and a worthwhile interrogation of airline safety (this season is focused on Fielder's attempts to prevent real crashes). 'It's just blowing my mind,' she said. 'He's some kind of genius.'
Separate to all that, this 34-minute episode also includes Fielder spending four months training one of a couple's three cloned dogs to behave like their deceased pet with the help of half a dozen paid actors and a man transporting air from the city where they once lived.
As our critic put it in his four-and-a-half-star review of this season, 'No one else is making television like this [and] that actually might be for the best.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

9 News
9 hours ago
- 9 News
Day of the Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies at 86
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here Frederick Forsyth, the British author of The Day of the Jackal and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said. He was 86. Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early on Monday surrounded by his family. "We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Lloyd said. Famous thriller writer Frederick Forsyth has died aged 86. (Mario Borg/AP) Born in Kent, in southern England, in 1938, Forsyth served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent. He covered the attempted assassination of French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962, which provided inspiration for The Day of the Jackal , his bestselling political thriller about a professional assassin. Published in 1971, the book propelled him into global fame. It was made into a film in 1973 starring Edward Fox as the Jackal and more recently a television series starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. In 2015, Forsyth told the BBC that he had also worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 for many years, starting from when he covered a civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s. Edward Fox starred in the 1973 film version of The Day of the Jackal. (Supplied) Although Forsyth said he did other jobs for the agency, he said he was not paid for his services and "it was hard to say no" to officials seeking information. "The zeitgeist was different," he told the BBC. "The Cold War was very much on." He wrote more than 25 books including The Afghan , The Kill List , The Dogs of War and The Fist of God that have sold over 75 million copies, Lloyd said. His publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said that Revenge of Odessa , a sequel to the 1974 book The Odessa File that Forsyth worked on with fellow thriller author Tony Kent, will be published in August. "Still read by millions across the world, Freddie's thrillers define the genre and are still the benchmark to which contemporary writers aspire," Scott-Kerr said. CONTACT US


Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Danny Boyle reveals biggest regret about Olympics opening ceremony
Danny Boyle has one big regret about the way he handed the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony. The 28 Days Later director was put in charge of the spectacular event in the British capital and it included references to UK culture including nods to music, fashion, movies and the NHS (National Health Service), but Danny regrets failing to include a segment dedicated to the BBC to recognise the national broadcaster's work over the last 100 years. He told The Sunday Times newspaper: "Well, there was a lot of advice and warnings we ignored, but the one that we listened to that I regret deeply [meant] that we didn't feature the BBC enough. Because I look now at news values and who to trust, and think, 'F*** me - we should look after that'. "It doesn't matter whether you approve of it or not. It is just the idea of this national broadcaster with some kind of values you can rely on. "These technology internationalists will have you believe that they don't matter, that there's something global much more important. "But they do matter. They define us. But we were told we couldn't feature them by the IOC [International Olympic Committee]." Danny's opening ceremony included a memorable sketch featuring the late Queen Elizabeth teaming up with James Bond star Daniel Craig which seemingly ended with the monarch parachuting into the London Stadium. Lord Sebastian Coe, who served as London Organising Committee for the Olympics, previously said of the stunt: "There isn't a day that goes by without somebody somewhere in the world asking me about this. A whole heap of people still believe that she genuinely jumped from the helicopter. "It was an extraordinary moment because Danny Boyle, who was our director, it was the only day during the seven-year period of preparation of the games that I felt the globe wobble. "He came in and said: 'I've done some market research and it shows that the Queen and James Bond, in that order, are the global iconic figures' and I was fine until that moment when he said: 'Wouldn't it be great if we could get them to jump out of a helicopter?' "And in fairness, it was Danny who got it across the line. There are lots of things that are said about it but it was actually Danny who persuaded her." Lord Coe went on to explain he initially showed potential ideas for the skit to Anne, Princess Royal - the daughter of Queen Elizabeth - and was only asked one question when she saw the plans. He told BBC News "My first role was to take the Princess Royal through the creative thoughts and I remember these sort of hammed up drawings and the only question I got was: 'What kind of helicopter?'"


Perth Now
3 days ago
- Perth Now
Olly Alexander 'wants to take his foot off the gas' as a musician
Olly Alexander doesn't enjoy the "intensity" of the music business. The 34-year-old singer has put his music career on hold in recent months, in order to focus on acting, and Olly admits that the industry has been overwhelming at times. The Years and Years star told the BBC: "With music, there's an intensity to the way I've been working and putting albums out, promoting and touring. "I definitely want to take the foot off the gas in terms of that intensity." Olly announced his departure from his record label earlier this year, and the singer is currently preparing to star in a West End production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Olly is relishing the stability that acting has given him. He said: "I spent a lot of my previous years moving around, touring, which is so fun and amazing. But I also very much appreciate staying in one place now. "Having a home in London with my partner, my cats, just trotting off to the theatre every night - that just sounds like the most wonderful existence." Meanwhile, Olly previously revealed that he turned to Sir Elton John and Kylie Minogue for advice on how to deal with fame. The pop star - who has also enjoyed significant success as an actor - told the Evening Standard newspaper: "Working with Elton and even Kylie, two of the most iconic legends, they both told me how they've struggled as an artist to feel like at times they knew what they were doing, feeling really dark. "Elton talks a lot about how depressed he was and how difficult things got for him and hearing them talk about that you just go 'wow'." Olly actually found their advice to be really reassuring. The award-winning star said: "I'm someone who is constantly questioning why the hell I'm here and doing what I'm doing like 'oh my God' - I'm totally that person. But to hear that from people I really, really respect that it's normal and you just get through it somehow. That was good advice and good to hear."