YMMV / The Rehearsal

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Why did Patrick leave the rehearsals? Did he figure out that Nathan was manipulating him? Did he feel like he didn’t need to come back after a cathartic rehearsal? Did the rehearsals make him embarrassed or uncomfortable?
  • How seriously did Angela take the rehearsals? She initially seems to be taking them seriously, but halfway through her first episode Nathan is watching footage of her dancing in her office when she's meant to be taking care of Adam, and he's already questioning if she's exploiting the show to get a free vacation. Later, episode 5 shows that she broke character with the actors playing Adam when Nathan wasn't there. Did she actually think that the rehearsals would help her? If she didn't take the rehearsals seriously, then why did she get into so many arguments with Nathan over how to raise Adam? Did she just start these arguments for the sake of the show? Does she even understand her own actions, or did reality and fantasy begin to blur for her the way it has for Nathan?
  • How in control is Nathan of the show? The blending of reality and fantasy, and the fact that Fielder is ostensibly playing himself, make it difficult to determine how many of Nathan's decisions are made for narrative reasons, or to what extent Fielder may be losing himself to his own show. That Fielder himself admitted he went into therapy after filming ended indicates the lines between what was real and what wasn't got blurry even for him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Of all the guests on the show, Robbin has received the most attention and is viewed as one of the funniest people in the show due to his absurd, over the top, Cloudcuckoolander personality traits and actions. While all fans agree he is an awful, narcissistic person, he stands out as hilarious in a cartoonishly ridiculous way. The fact that he didn't even try to defend himself in post interviews and on social media is the cherry on top.
  • Joshua Benard^note The son of General Hospital star Maurice Benard; the younger Benard also plays a Recurring Character on GH who's also named Adam., the actor playing teenage Adam, received rave reviews for his performance. The fact that he was able to conjure up a backstory for who he was playing and portray a convincing performance of a drug addled teen living without a father figure shows his talent despite being in his late teens. Many viewers likened him to Timothée Chalamet, an acclaimed young actor who has a similar appearance to Joshua.
  • Similarly, Anna LaMadrid, the actress from Nathan's acting school who plays Angela for Nathan's rehearsal of a confrontation with her, has become loved for her emotional and effecting performance.
  • Liam, the nine-year-old actor for Adam in the finale has also received acclaim for his acting, surprising intelligence, and Deadpan Snarker moments. He delivers a great performance as Remy and shows realistic emotion while acting.
• Estrogen Brigade: Interestingly, Nathan has a rather large number of fangirls who find him attractive.
• Even Better Sequel: Some fans see this show as even better than its predecessor, Nathan for You. While that show was a hilarious comedy, some prefer this show due to its deeper meaning and complexity, reflecting on complicated topics.
• Fan Nickname: Fans often refer to Remy as Dr. Fart, which was the name he used while playing with Nathan.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Unsurprisingly, many fans of the series are also fans of Fielder's previous show Nathan for You due to both starting Nathan as himself and having similar premises and senses of humor.
  • With How To With John Wilson. Both star awkward but endearing creators as themselves as they meet wacky characters and find themselves in bizarre situations. This is helped by the fact that Nathan Fielder is the producer and advertised the series.
  • Fans of this show are often fans of the band The Banzai Predicament and the short film The Web, both also created by Nathan.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the first episode, Nathan bristles at Kor comparing him to Willy Wonka, as Nathan sees Wonka as a villain who hurts children. In the final episode, Nathan realizes he's inadvertently harmed Remy by accidentally making him believe he's his new dad.
  • The scene of Nathan playing "Dr. Fart" with Remy is initially funny, but becomes sadder after the finale reveals that Remy thought Nathan was his real dad.
• He Really Can Act: In episode 4, Nathan portrayed a surprisingly emotional and realistic reaction to Adam's drug overdose, like a real father convinced that his son was dying.
• I Knew It!: As soon as the show's title was announced, many fans of Nathan accurately predicted that it would be a docucomedy where he helped people rehearse for their lives.
  • Many fans also predicted that Angela would leave the rehearsals and Nathan would raise Adam by himself.
• Jerkass Woobie: Nathan may be extremely manipulative and sometimes show a petty and cruel side, but you have to feel bad for how lonely he always is, and he usually means well.
  • Patrick holds some pretty Anti-Semetic views, constantly throwing around insults to Jewish people, but his emotional revelation shows that he really misses his grandfather and hasn't had time to process his death because of all the fighting over his will. He also seems genuinely unaware of the "greedy Jew" stereotype and seems surprised when Fielder calls him on it, indicating he's more generally ignorant of harmful stereotypes than actively antisemitic.
  • Angela holds fundamentalist religious views and is controlling, anti-Semitic, and quick to judge others; she's also open about growing up in an abusive household and having turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with it, and attributes her conversion to Christianity to helping her get sober and saving her life, giving context to her current beliefs and world views. She also shows a surprisingly mature and sensitive side when she decides to end the rehearsal, genuinely thanking Nathan for the opportunity and parting on good terms with him.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "It's days like these that I curse the Chinese for inventing gunpowder".
  • "Door city over here".
  • "You're a fucking disaster my guy".
  • Nathan's laptop holder.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: There was a minor backlash to the show online, where a few critics claimed it was exploitative, cruel, and manipulative. This did little to hurt the show's reputation and seemed to increase attention to the series.
• One-Scene Wonder: The actor playing the policeman who says "It's days like these that I curse the Chinese for inventing gunpowder" only appears in a brief scene, but is very memorable because his line is one of the funniest moments in the series.
• Paranoia Fuel: In many episodes, participants in rehearsals interact with people they don't know are actors, including complex simulations involving performers posing as everyday people such as police officers and construction workers. Notably, in Episode 3, Nathan engineers a genuine friendship between rehearsal participant Patrick and an elderly man he doesn't know is an actor, then "kills" the man to force Patrick to deal with suppressed emotions regarding his own grandfather's death. Could you be inside a rehearsal right now?
  • Taken up to 11 in 'The Fielder Method,' in which Nathan instructs his acting students to spend one day surreptitiously following someone, then introduce themselves to that person another day and try to learn as much about them as possible so they can mimic them in a future acting class. As one of the students points out, this technically constitutes stalking.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Fielder has gone on record saying the pilot was shot before the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving it unclear whether he always intended for the show to become serialized with himself as the central participant, or if the original concept was meant to be more episodic and follow the format laid out by the first episode.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Episode 4's ending. "Alright Adam, let's go home."
  • Patrick's breakdown during his rehearsal is legitimately emotional and authentic.
  • In episode 5, Nathan is clearly hurt at fake Angela's claims that he is selfish and incapable of feeling connections with other people. His reaction is heartbreaking, and seems to genuine rattle Fielder, causing him to momentarily break character.
  • Episode 6 is possibly the saddest episode in the series. During the episode, Remy, a six-year-old who played Adam, believes that Nathan is his real father rather than his "Pretend Daddy" and cries at being forced to leave. His mother and Nathan are clearly heartbroken at this, and Nathan spends the episode trying to make him feel better and figure out what he should have done.
• The Woobie: Remy, one of the actors playing Adam, has no father and becomes convinced that Nathan is his real dad because of the rehearsals. He breaks down after being forced to leave Nathan.