HBO
In the first episode of The Rehearsal, back when this show seemed like a goofy prank serial rather than a journey into Nathan Fielder‘s deepest anguishes, our host felt the need to apologize.
The subject, a man named Kor, wants to confess to a friend that he does not, in fact, have a Master’s degree. Fielder creates an environment where Kor can practice that admission over and over again with all of the chaotic variables fully in his control, and within that simulation, Fielder begins to feel gross about himself. Kor intends to make the truth known about his educational history during a trivia night at a bar. To keep The Rehearsal airtight, Fielder procures the answers to the questions that will be asked ahead of time, and does his best to inject them into Kor’s subconscious.
This is a mild violation of competitive integrity, and Nathan Fielder—a man who has taken advantage of so many people’s faith in the goodness of strangers throughout his time in the spotlight—comes clean. He (of course) first rehearses a mea culpa with an artificial Kor, and then deploys the honed version to the man himself. It was a surprisingly somber end, punctuating a deeply silly television premiere.