‘The Rehearsal’ Is Getting a Season 2, And I Couldn’t Be Happier

HBO

Warner Bros. Discovery took a knife to my heart yesterday, announcing that it was removing dozens more series from the once-perfect HBO Max. Among them: Close Enough, which the company already canceled too soon; similarly canceled, similarly heartbreaking loss Genera+ion; and a slew of fan-favorite animated series, like Infinity Train and Summer Camp Island.

It was terrible news, and I’m still not over it. But today, the company announced its attempt at a make-good. Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, a social experiment that’s so far made for genius television, will be back for a Season 2.

The announcement comes hours ahead of Friday night’s season finale. With how unpredictable the preceding five episodes have been, there was no guarantee that The Rehearsal would even be able to continue on. Story-wise, this is such a singularly weird, brilliant show—does Fielder really have it in him to set up such an obsessively detailed, high-quality simulation all over again?

The Official Guide to Nathan Fielder’s Best Moments From ‘The Rehearsal’

This is Nathan Fielder; of course he does. I once thought that nothing could ever top the absurd beauty of Nathan For You, The Rehearsal’s Comedy Central predecessor. That was a show where every episode’s simple premise—help a business do better business—was taken to over-the-top, unthinkable heights. The Rehearsal has already gone above and beyond Nathan For You’s scale, just by virtue of seamlessly recreating an entire Brooklyn bar and transporting it cross-country.

After yet another week of terrible HBO news, the promise of more Rehearsal is an unbelievable relief. But first, we have to find out how Fielder wraps up the first season of his comedy-turned-outrageously compelling docudrama.

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