Orange Juice, No Pulp – As the first episode of The Rehearsal begins, Kor watches Jeopardy on television and answers the questions. Nathan (Nathan Fielder) admits he isn’t good at meeting people for the first time as he arrives and says hello to Kor. He has been told his personality makes people uncomfortable so he has to offset that. He sometimes uses humor to do that. It started off well and had to because Nathan was about to ask Kor to trust him with his life. Kor Skeet is a 50-year-old teacher from Brooklyn, New York and he loves trivia. A Craigslist post discusses a television opportunity and asks applicants to submit videos. A few months ago, Kor responded to the Craigslist post sharing a story about a lie he told his bar trivia team over 12 years ago.

Kor told them that he had an advanced degree when he didn’t because he wanted to see smarter than he was. He has been lying to them every day. A friend keeps sending him jobs that require a master’s degree and he is running out of excuses. Nathan understands his dilemma since the trivia team is his life. When you reveal your true self, people don’t always like what they see. He wants to show Kor that a happy outcome doesn’t have to be left to chance when you plan for every variable. Once they sit down, Nathan tells Kor that he made a show called Nathan For You. Nathan put himself in these uncertain environments and became good at predicting how people would act in a future situation. He reveals he has rehearsed what has happened today dozens of times.

He did it with an actor playing Kor. Nathan says the gas company came by to check a leak in his building, but it was his team creating a digital map of his home. Then, they created the replica on a set and the actor analyzed his submission video to mimic his speech patterns. Nathan would like to try the same thing with Kor’s confession to his trivia friends. Kor asks what happens if one of his friends gives a reaction that is very violent on some people beyond the predictions they can make. He explains that they could say things so he couldn’t be their friend after that. Nathan finds out he is worried about someone specifically, but he won’t reveal their name at this point. Kor points out the friend in a photo although he won’t say anything else about her. Kor says she is a nice girl who you don’t want to cross too much depending on her mood.

Nathan begins wondering if he had done something to put Kor off since he wanted him to open up about stuff. He remembers making an off-color joke about needing a plunger after returning from the bathroom. Although it worked with the actor, it didn’t go down well with the real Kor. Later, he wonders if Kor took it as criticism that his bathroom was underequipped. Nathan takes him on a trip upstate to see if he can get him to open up about his friend. He takes Kor skeet shooting. Nathan planned to have the guns loaded with blanks hoping to create a moment of bonding since they were both bad at this. It was just laying the groundwork for the main event, the mutual disclosure of information in a heated pool. Kor says he was married for five years while Nathan says he was married for three years. Kor considers it one of his biggest failures in life.

Nathan didn’t want to go too deep into his private life so he planned for an elderly swimmer to interrupt their conversation. He hoped to convince Kor he was ready to share more, but the moment had been ruined. On the ride home, Kor finally tells him the name of the trivia partner, Tricia. She is mostly a freelance writer and runs a blog called Cheap Chick in the City. The website covered cheap activities in New York, but Nathan hoped it’d provide more insight into Tricia’s psyche. Most of the posts were just apologies for not having anything to post that day. He hoped it’d be enough for the actor to base her performances on. It wasn’t enough. Nathan starts his own blog and offers Tricia an opportunity to write an article for the blog to get more information about her.

The article would involve interviewing a professional bird watcher for the site, but Tricia didn’t know she’d be interviewing her doppelganger. Although the woman didn’t seem frightening, she liked to talk. During the 30-minute interview, the actress had trouble getting a word in despite the fact she was being interviewed. Before it was over, Nathan wanted to see how Tricia would respond to being lied to. The actress tells her that she doesn’t actually have a daughter named Tricia. She seems to take it well. Nathan wonders if Kor is worried about nothing or Tricia is bottling up her rage because it is a stranger. Kor thinks the confession should happen at a trivia event when he is with Tricia alone. Nathan was overwhelmed by the chaos of the Alligator Lounge in Brooklyn.

He didn’t want to leave anything for chance. Tricia and Kor agree to play trivia in just two weeks’ time. He invites Kor into his secret warehouse to rehearse for the confession. Kor is impressed with the replica bar. Nathan tells him there will be no surprises since he’ll know what is going to happen. First, Kor decides where he wants to sit. He wanted to arrive early and secure his table using his hat. Then, he’d get their trivia sheets and drinks from the bar. He thought a drink might put Tricia in a good mood since she usually shows up at trivia complaining about something. Nathan creates a flow chart of the possible outcomes for each action. Kor thought Tricia might misinterpret his invitation as a sign of romantic interest so he practiced standard defenses for any advance she might make.

Since Tricia won’t stop talking, Kor will have to find a way to break into the conversation. Starting the confession wasn’t the only challenge since Kor was also worried about the aftermath. Their approach needed to be planned around this particular trivia night. Kor would like to talk about it for five minutes and move on. If he does it near the end, he can leave if things get too hairy. When they started incorporating trivia into the game, Kor became entranced with the game. Kor is more worried about losing points than confessing and eliminating the burden. If it isn’t going well on the trivia night, he might bail on the confession. Nathan thinks he’d have to cheat somehow to know the questions and that would be unethical. It might be more unethical to leave things to chance when there is something you could’ve done.

He poses as the Thrifty Boy Blog owner to talk to the trivia host to see if they can do a Thrifty Boy trivia night. He convinces the host to read the questions on camera to ensure viewers at home can play for free. Then, he begins going on casual walks with Kor to implant the trivia answers into his brain because he knows he wouldn’t cheat. With three days until trivia night, they bring more than 30 actors to the replica bar to rehearse. They add new variables to each playthrough to make sure Kor is ready for anything. They went through the entire night 13 times. Kor experimented with new approaches while the actress playing Tricia reacts differently each time. In one case, the other guests and host end up ganging up on Kor for lying too. Kor says he still wants to go through with it even if he loses a friend in the process because it felt good to get it off his chest.

When Kor arrives at the bar, he finds that the table he wanted is already taken. He manages to convince the occupants to change tables using a sob story. Tricia arrives moments later. As expected, Tricia wasn’t in the best mood when she showed up. Kor knew exactly what to say to cheer her up. By the time trivia begins, things seem to be going Kor’s way. He gets the first question wrong despite being very close. Then, things begin turning around for him. Kor seems to be filled with confidence by the time he turned in his score sheet. He decides to get pizza since she is in a chatty mood. When he returned to his table to wait for the pizzas, Tricia wasn’t talking. It was the perfect opportunity to confess, but Kor wasn’t doing it for some reason. As the clock kept sitting, he just sat there.

He eventually says there is something on his mind that he has been dealing with for a while. He gets interrupted by the pizza bell before sitting back down as Tricia asks what he was talking about before. Kor tells her that his whole educational history has been somewhat of a fraud. Once he tells her that he only has a bachelor’s degree, he says that is pretty impressive too. He returns with the pizzas. Kor tells her that he was the last person to join the group with a college degree. He felt inferior about that. Tricia says it is silly because many people don’t even graduate high school and her sister only got her GED a few days ago. Kor confesses he even went as far as applying for jobs just to appease her. Tricia appreciates that. Their friendship means a great deal to him and he doesn’t want to continue lying to her.

She says it does to her too. Instead of moving to another topic, Kor kept telling her things that she didn’t know about for an hour and a half. Nathan reveals he had Kor rehearse the aftermath of the confession. Once Kor leaves, he tells Nathan that he is feeling fantastic because it went better than expected. He won trivia night and that is the cherry on top. Nathan tells the fake Kor that feels terrible about giving him the answers ahead of time. The actor doesn’t handle that well and accuses him of screwing this all up. He tells the real Kor that he thinks he is a great person.

 

The Rehearsal Review

I had no idea what to expect going into the first episode of The Rehearsal considering I am not familiar with Nathan’s previous works. I hadn’t watched Nathan For You or any trailers for The Rehearsal. Suffice to say, it wasn’t what I expected even though I had no idea what to expect. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a comedy because I personally didn’t laugh one time during the first episode. The show is somewhat quirky, but not enough to hit any high notes in this category.

The concept is pretty brilliant though. There is nothing ordinary about The Rehearsal so it is easy to see how the series could touch on some emotional subjects that viewers will connect with. Once things started rolling, it was easy enough to build a relationship with Kor. While his dilemma was pretty harmless compared to life’s other challenges, it was a big deal for him so it worked.

The series was emotionally effective when Kor managed to disclose his lies and Tricia was so understanding. The series can be effective as was evident in the first episode even though Kor’s problem wasn’t something major. It is clear that a lot of time and effort was put into the production considering the elaborate replicas. Some viewers may develop animosity toward the amount of money put into it, especially during these times.

Another issue is the overwhelming emphasis placed on Nathan. This feels like another show where someone is patting themselves on the back even if that wasn’t the intention. I’d rather see more focus placed on the contestant or Kor and less on Nathan. The scenes near the end of the episode shifted back to Nathan with the actor and that really took away from the success experienced with Kor and Tricia.

The Rehearsal is an interesting show that probably fits into the reality category more than the comedy genre. Depending on the subjects it decides to tackle, it could be compelling television.