The Rehearsal Season 2 Episode 5: Nathan Fielder & Autism

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Rehearsal, Season 2 Episode 5, “Washington.”]

Three years ago, when the first season of Nathan Fielder’s brilliant, ambitious docu-comedy show The Rehearsal premiered on HBO, I was fascinated by what the Canadian filmmaker-madman had concocted: A Charlie Kaufman-esque experiment where ordinary people participate in meticulously crafted simulations of socially and emotionally challenging situations, in order to better prepare for their real-life outcomes.

The show resonated with me so deeply that I wrote an article for Consequence about how Fielder’s attempt to understand human behavior through these “rehearsals” mirrored my own experiences of masking as an autistic person. Now, in The Rehearsal’s ingeniously conceived second season, Fielder continues to interrogate this theme through the world of aviation safety, focusing on how a lack of communication between airline pilots and their first officers has led to an alarming pattern of plane crashes.

Like last season, Fielder tests out his theories through a series of very funny, increasingly absurd role-playing exercises that provoke unexpectedly profound insights about the human condition. But what makes this season particularly notable (for me, at least) is that Fielder not only addresses autistic masking, but does so once he discovers my article.

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At least, that’s how it’s presented in the season’s fifth installment, “Washington.” In the episode, Fielder is intent on bringing his research to the Congressional Aviation Subcommittee (CAS) with the hopes of pressuring them to do something about the worrisome, under-discussed problem of miscommunication. Fearing his conclusions would be dismissed due to his status as a comedian, Fielder Googles himself to see how he could retool his reputation, and just so happens to read my piece.

At first, he considers my article an “odd perspective,” which I take as high praise coming from arguably the oddest person working in entertainment right now. But then, Fielder finds other articles and forums further supporting this notion, and discovers a potential link between autistic masking and airline pilots’ compartmentalizing their emotions.

Fielder’s inquisitive reaction to my article and ability to connect it to the larger thematic arc of the season was incredibly gratifying and exciting to witness. Given how autism is still pervasively misunderstood and stigmatized, particularly within our current administration, I’m grateful that Fielder found a way to incorporate it into The Rehearsal with both genuine curiosity and a sense of humor that’s neither mocking nor facetious.

But since this show blurs the lines between reality and fiction so heavily, I did sometimes question the validity of Fielder’s approach, especially when it came to the people with whom he interacts.

After establishing Congressman Steve Cohen’s ties to both the CAS and the Congressional Autism Caucus as a potential way in, Fielder ventures to the Center for Autism and Related Disorders to speak with psychologist Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh. Though I was delighted to see Dr. Granpeesheh reaffirm The Rehearsal’s resonance with the autistic experience, I was surprised and disappointed to learn through my own research about her involvement in Vaxxed, a 2016 pseudoscience propaganda film that pushes the discredited yet sadly still prevalent belief that vaccines cause autism.

Additionally, the Center for Autism and Related Disorders specializes in applied behavioral analysis (ABA), a common yet controversial form of autism therapy often criticized for seeking to suppress autistic behaviors over embracing them.

Considering how thorough Fielder and his team are, I wondered why Fielder didn’t just talk to an autism expert from a more ideologically sound background. Perhaps there were more complex reasons at play that inhibited that from happening. Or perhaps this was another instance of Fielder purposefully using a questionable source to highlight the comedic and satirical undertones of the narrative he’s building. But in light of this season’s emphasis on combating self-suppression, the inclusion of Granpeesheh’s perspective reads as a bit contradictory and inconsistent with the values of the series.