The Rehearsal AND Paul T Goldman AND The Curse AND Green Queen Discussion

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Rehearsal AND Paul T Goldman AND The Curse AND Green Queen Discussion

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Nathan For You is the best. How To with John Wilson is also the best. It only stands to reason that this will be the best too.

Here�s an excellent Vulture profile on Nathan with some info on The Rehearsal: https://www.vulture.com/article/nathan-fielder-rehearsal-profile.html

I think I�m actually more excited for this than the final set of Saul episodes.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 18:24

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:20

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

This was an incredible premiere oh man

# ¿ Jul 16, 2022 14:49

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

This episode certainly wasn�t as moment-to-moment funny as most NfY eps - which means there were only a shitload of gut-bustingly funny moments instead of an absolute shitload - but it�s also twice as long as most of them and this is only the premiere. I completely expect this season to get a lot wilder as it progresses.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2022 02:31

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Yes.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2022 20:34

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Gotta say I really love the goon who never watched Nathan For You starting out as �this is good but mean� and then almost starting to get it in real-time as the discussion itt continues

# ¿ Jul 18, 2022 06:42

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Yeah that sounds uh. Bogus

# ¿ Jul 18, 2022 06:49

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Space Fish posted:

Joe Pera Talks With You

RIP

# ¿ Jul 18, 2022 20:40

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/boobyhaver/status/1549078349250805760?s=21&t=28r9SQSP2LSvf-FT6131Sw

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 07:54

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Vegetable posted:

Don�t be such a baby. The show�s more interesting if it feels more real. Seeing the seams of its stitched reality makes it slightly less great. Still plenty entertaining.

Nah, veni is right. This show is doing exactly what it wants to and arguing that features are actually bugs seems very silly.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 08:10

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

TychoCelchuuu posted:

But the show wants to make it seem like Fielder first rehearsed the conversation and then had the real conversation, because duh. That is exactly what the show wants.

I didn�t get that from it at all. I got, as Argue said, �Nathan couldn�t bring himself to tell the truth to the real Kor so he confessed to the fake one instead�.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 08:39

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Claiming so aggressively that a show is trying to do the exact opposite of what it�s actually trying to do is amazing. I love that trying to understand Fielder can drive some people so madness like this

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 08:50

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Vegetable posted:

He�s a dweeb for nitpicking it so hard but you guys are so prickly at the idea of someone criticizing your comedy god. �get out of my thread� like lol

You�re being weird

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 09:04

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

veni veni veni posted:

Tbh I did not expect this thread to go full TV IV in a matter of days. We had a nice 2 or so pages I guess.

It turns out �maybe the show isn�t for you� was the better option rather than �nah please keep talking about this and gently caress up the whole thread�

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 21:20

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

TychoCelchuuu posted:

I watched the episode once, and not very closely

Sure wish you�d said this before making the whole thread about yourself and your brain worms

# ¿ Jul 20, 2022 06:56

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Gorman Thomas posted:

On the one hand NYF and The Rehearsal are incredible tv.

On the other hand, Nathan antagonized a bipolar guy during a NYF scene and said guy later had a mental break, which has since led to members of my family possibly getting a restraining order against the guy for harrassment. Like I don't think his appearance on the show directly led to this, the guy was always an rear end in a top hat, but being humiliated on TV probably didn't help. It does make me watch the show a bit differently tho.

Edit: can't go into more detail sorry

gently caress yeah thread�s back on track. I love Nathan You For

# ¿ Jul 22, 2022 08:14

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

loving hell that episode was a masterpiece

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 07:35

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Angela is so wrong and dumb and gullible and also so smug about it and I hate that so much but it is very funny on screen especially when she fucks up the Usual Suspects quote. I do kind of hope she never has a child tho

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 10:40

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Brigadier Sockface posted:

That was a great show, but l, like other posters, also wish the concept had been a different episode 1 every week

I can see this and I�m sure that was the original plan but oh my GOD I�m so happy he took it in this direction. Maybe not as many laughs as the other way but so much more bizarre and powerful and emotional

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 10:46

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Ethics hand-wringers are gonna be hilarious about this one

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 13:54

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Baron von Eevl posted:

My wife was thinking that Remy might have had some delays. I think ADHD is likely, maybe some minor delays as well.

Maybe but I�m not sure it�s cool to speculate on what developmental disorders a six year old you only saw via a heavily edited 30 minute episode of television may have

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 14:26

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Incredibly stupid article from the usually very good Sepinwall https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/rehearsal-finale-nathan-fielder-1234578043/

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 18:40

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

That @bown guy seems cool though. Wonder who it is

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 10:16

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Oh nice I didn�t realise there was Goldman discussion happening in here. Anyone itt who hasn�t watched it definitely should. I think it�s even more morally dubious than Rehearsal* but it�s so well-made and absorbing that I honestly don�t care

* I mean I didn�t think Rehearsal was at all but y�know

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 10:19

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

I liked it a lot. It�s very uncomfortable in the best way. At first I thought it maybe should be a half-hour show but I think making it even more drawn-out works to its benefit. Stone is fantastic as ever but I�m really impressed by Fielder�s performance, he does a great job of showcasing Asher�s rage and entitlement.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2023 03:19

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

quote:

Co-creator and co-star Safdie told GQ that the show evolved into something more serious than originally planned. �It started out as a 30-minute comedy and became an hour-long comedy-drama,� he said in a July 18 profile.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2023 16:56

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Whitney asking if they eat hot dogs with rice was loving incredible cringe lmao

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 19:23

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Still enjoying this show but it kinda feels like it�s stuck in one gear atm, hoping things pick up a little and it isn�t entirely vibes. The final scene was loving brutal lmao. And holy poo poo Safdie�s character is such a piece of garbage

# ¿ Dec 1, 2023 16:56

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

veni veni veni posted:

there was this show that aired last year that is very different from the Curse, but I think it had some of the same reactions and has some similarities. I thought it was fantastic, but it was very slow moving and people were just expecting a big twist every week, but the show was really more about the characters more than anything. It would have been best to binge it cause people started to get frustrated with the pace watching it weekly.

Is this meant to be a joke about The Rehearsal because I don�t really see the similarity (but I also wasn�t following this thread very much at the time)

# ¿ Dec 2, 2023 10:24

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

veni veni veni posted:

Oops lol, the show was called the Patient with Steve Carrell. Probably should have included that.

ahh hahah. That was a real good show!

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 00:35

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Yeah I agree with this. I think I also see the floating in general as being a reflection of Whitney�s subconscious rejection of Asher - while she accepted him due to the commitment he displayed at the end of ep 9 she still has all the same issues with him that she did previously but was pushing them down so hard that they came out in him being literally pushed upwards and away from her. Obv could be nonsense but that�s what I got from it anyway.

I�ll have to do some more thinking to see how I feel about this finale as an ending to this specific season of television but just in itself I thought it was very funny and unsettling and well-made

# ¿ Jan 12, 2024 10:25

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

I think it�s a good ending to the story of Asher and Whitney�s marriage but not necessarily a good one to the story of Flipanthropy/Green Queen and the effect the couples� hypocrisy had on the community. Also yeah this season maybe should have been 8 episodes, it really span its wheels quite a bit in the middle

# ¿ Jan 12, 2024 14:23

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Reposting something I saw in a comment on Alan Sepinwall�s newsletter because I liked it a lot and think it deserves a bigger audience:

quote:

The first thing I thought of, watching the finale, was The Metamorphosis�not just because it's actually-literally Kafkaesque to have something surreal and horrifying happen without explanation which everyone immediately treats as mundane, but because one of the underlying themes in The Metamorphosis is the instant social alienation that Gregor Samsa experiences, where he's more-or-less treated as inhuman and not-actually-there, in ways that lead to his death. It's less a matter of "what made this happen?" and more a matter of "what does this happening expose?"

And in that sense, I think the finale works on the two levels that it needed to work on, in addition to its sheer jaw-dropping spectacle.

On a personal, character-note level, the effect it has on the show's three main leads was absolutely revelatory:

1. Dougie's immediate response, which is to minimize Asher's fear and treat this as TV gold, slowly erodes and gives way to a genuine concern, which in turn leads to his having a total meltdown as he relives the experience of his wife dying�grieving her in a way he hasn't let himself do all season, and admitting the profound guilt he now feels at being responsible for TWO people's deaths.

2. Whitney succumbs to her feelings at being completely out-of-control, fundamentally incapable of being what she feels others want her to be; the version of her that we see at the end is a woman who is deeply unsettled and uncertain, but openly so, in a way that feels paradoxically peaceful for her. (And the fact that Asher is gone from her life might be a major part of that.)

3. And Asher, meanwhile, DIRECTLY experiences the thing that's been sublimated throughout the entire season: the sense that he's insanely disconnected from everybody else in his life, and that they're fundamentally incapable of being there for him�even when they SEE him, even when they EMPATHIZE with him, they have no room in their lives for him. Whitney sees him as an escape from her parents, a convenient husband-shaped figure; Dougie sees him as show material, and as a "friend" who won't abandon him; even the people who see what's literally happening to him minimize what's going onto him, brushing him off as somebody else's problem or insisting to his face that he's overreacting.

And it's Asher's experience, I think, that ties the PERSONAL themes of the episode into the SOCIETAL themes that the other nine episodes focus on more directly. Because The Curse is a show about societal alienation and disconnect, and about people trying to "be good" without really understanding what "good" even looks like. It's a show that opens with a woman who's dying of cancer, suffering the indignity of someone dripping fake tears into her eyes, in the name of making a show that's superficially about doing good for a community while actually tearing that community apart.

Emma Stone described Whitney as a "human mood ring" at the panel for episodes 8 and 9 a couple of weeks ago: someone who superficially understands what "the right thing to do" is, but doesn't really understand WHY it is. She wants to do good for Espanola, but mostly to distance herself from her parents; her versions of "doing good" are not only ill-considered, they have local residents showing up at her house armed with automatic rifles to try and get her to cut it out. She wants to be a good friend to Cara, not understanding that it's her (and people like her) that are the cancer undermining Cara's attempts to be an artist. (Cara has to create art that panders to non-Native audiences, in ways that estrange her from the one Native man who comes to her art show; whether her art succeeds or fails, she's selling herself as "the Native American," trying to express something that her audience doesn't understand no matter how plainly she spells it out for them.)

Her treatment of Espanola is mirrored by Dougie's treatment of her marriage: to him, human tragedy is just one of those things that attracts eyeballs, and his "empathy" can easily convert to cruelty if it's what the producers want. She at least THINKS that she wants to do good by others; he's less delusional about the fact that his care for other people is largely self-serving. And the whole show, large and small, is about that phenomenon: people pretending to do good, unable to understand that they don't know how, because to understand that, they'd have to admit their real motives aren't benign at all.

If Whitney's feigned good is all in the name of establishing an identity for herself, and Dougie's is all in the name of creating a successful show, Asher's is the most vulnerable and desperate: he just wants to be someone that people like, let alone love. And HE doesn't know how because he's incapable of admitting, not just how alone he is, but how bitter and resentful he is towards everyone else he is. (Though it sure comes out a lot.)

He wants the show and the child for the same reasons: because he thinks they'll force other people to be connected to him. And that word, "force," is important�because everything he does, including his "good deeds" towards Abshir, is coercive. So just as Whitney destroys Espanola in the name of saving it, just as Dougie destroys and humiliates people in the name of turning them into good television, Asher destroys any chance that he could form meaningful connection by the way he goes about forming it.

The finale is that tension literalized: the more desperately Asher tries to reach out, the more he's pulled apart. But, as he said in the penultimate episode, he IS the curse: everything he does to solve his predicament makes it worse. He destroys in the name of healing. So does Whitney, and so does Dougie; what's unique about Asher is just that he both destroys and IS destroyed, like an ouroboros or a cancer, eating himself alive.

But on another level, beyond whether it says something about narcissism masquerading as social reparations or what it says about the people at the center of the story, I think this finale was just jarring, disturbing, spectacular, memorable television.

At the panel at the Lincoln, Benny Safdie endlessly reiterated that their approach, with the show, was to depict things happening "in real time," to find all the fleshed-out and strange and awkward moments in sequences that television usually cuts down. And they took that "in real time" approach to the surreal situation Asher finds himself in, playing it out moment-by-moment, capturing it in an almost mundane way, finding gorgeous touches like the way Ash and Whit float in the air as they cling to each other. That mundanity made it infinitely more unsettling for me, especially as Ash flew out to space and the camera captured it as dispassionately as it captured all of its less-extraordinary moments. As storytelling, as drama, as spectacle, I thought it was flabbergasting�it's telling that I asked myself whether film has ever captured anything like this before, and the only comparisons I could think of were to things like the ending of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2024 23:33

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

I generally am a big fan of Sepinwall but this isn�t a non-sequitur in any way tbh. But I also don�t think that�s what he�s saying in his review at all?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2024 01:58

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

lmfao Rachael Ray advertising some cleaning wipes instead of paying attention to Asher and Whitney is so funny

# ¿ Jan 13, 2024 02:42

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:20

Escobarbarian: Jun 18, 2004; Grimey Drawer

imo Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show should be the next show this thread covers as it�s in a similar vein to Rehearsal and Goldman and the first episode was really good

# ¿ Mar 31, 2024 23:12

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