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Between Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, and The Curse, Nathan Fielder is responsible for some of the most inventive, thought-provoking, outside-the-box TV of the past decade. There’s no one else out there making television quite like Fielder. Nathan for You’s best segments introduced Fielder’s uniquely awkward persona and brand of docu-comedy. The Rehearsal expanded on Nathan for You’s most interesting thought experiments and extrapolated them with HBO’s blank check. And The Curse is a TV drama like no other. The Claw Of Shame Nathan for You Season 1, Episode 7 Midway through Nathan for You’s first season, Fielder took a break from helping small businesses to try something much riskier. In “The Claw of Shame,” Nathan puts his sleight-of-hand skills to the test. He rigs a robotic arm to pull down his pants and expose him to an audience of children if he can’t free himself from a pair of handcuffs in time. It’s a ridiculous idea that, as usual, Nathan takes to the extreme. He speaks to a retired judge to explore the legal ramifications of the robot pulling down his pants and the kind of jail time he could be looking at, all building up to the nail-biting climactic sequence. Land Of Enchantment The Curse Episode 1 From the very first episode, it was clear that The Curse was unlike any other TV show ever made. It can only be described as “cringe horror” — a comedy with humor so dark and uncomfortable that it crosses over from funny to disturbing. That first episode established the uniquely voyeuristic filming style and the satirical focus on gentrification, reality TV, and toxic relationships. There are two moments in the premiere episode that almost feel like a litmus test to weed out viewers who couldn’t stomach the cringe horror: Asher being anointed as a “cherry tomato boy” by his father-in-law, and Whitney’s cuck fantasy with “Steven.” Not every viewer made it past those scenes, but they established a wholly original, wonderfully messed-up black-comic sensibility. Electronics Store Nathan for You Season 3, Episode 2 Nathan’s attempt to take advantage of Best Buy’s price match policy led to one of Nathan for You’s greatest and most unhinged episodes. He convinces the owner of an electronics store to sell his TVs for $1 so he can send a bunch of hired shoppers into Best Buy to price-match those TVs and make off with a bunch of their stock. While they’re off at Best Buy, Nathan does everything he can to prevent people from buying the $1 TVs. He institutes a black-tie dress code and hides the $1 TVs behind a tiny door and a live alligator. He ends up getting his business partner diagnosed as clinically insane just from describing the scheme to a psychologist. Pilot's Code The Rehearsal Season 2, Episode 3 Nathan’s thought experiments around aviation safety take a truly bizarre turn in “Pilot’s Code.” In order to test the effectiveness of the roleplaying activities themselves, Nathan clones a beloved pet dog, recreates its 2011-era upbringing to the last detail, and finds that, even with all the same environmental conditions, it’s just not the same dog as the original. To get inside the head of a pilot who successfully avoided a crash, Nathan replicates the entire life story of national hero Sully Sullenberger. He dresses up as a baby and breastfeeds from a giant puppet, he gets disciplined by parents towering over him on massive stilts, and he masturbates in an airplane. It’s deeply disturbing, but it’s pure cinema. Young Hearts The Curse Episode 9 The penultimate episode of The Curse is full of memorable moments, from Asher getting way too into a bowling game to Whitney overhearing his cuck fantasy in the bathroom. But “Young Hearts” becomes an unforgettable TV masterpiece in the final scene, when Whitney brings Asher to watch a rough cut of their HGTV show in Dougie’s hotel room. Dougie’s discomfort matches that of the audience as Whitney forces Asher to watch himself turned into a punching bag. Fielder proves to be every bit the powerhouse actor that Emma Stone is in his climactic monologue, as a trembling Whitney realizes there’s no end to Asher’s humiliation fetish. It’s tense, riveting, and hard to watch, yet impossible to look away from. Dumb Starbucks Nathan for You Season 2, Episode 5 Nathan for You’s season 2 episode “Dumb Starbucks” sees Nathan using parody law as a loophole to copy Starbucks’ branding and poach their customers. It’s a great opportunity for Nathan to write parody songs, create parody artwork, and try to pin his own legal liabilities on a thoroughly unimpressed lawyer. But the episode takes a surprising turn when the stunt goes viral and Dumb Starbucks becomes a worldwide phenomenon. What started out as a moneymaking scheme becomes a commentary on capitalism. The little guy goes after a giant corporation and, at least for a couple of days, puts up a good fight. Pretend Daddy The Rehearsal Season 1, Episode 6 Fielder conceived The Rehearsal as a way for people to prepare for every possible outcome before going into a difficult situation, but over the course of its first season, it grew into something even more profound. By the end of season 1, Nathan was preparing for fatherhood by working with a legion of child actors. But one of those young actors, Remy, has a tough time distinguishing make-believe from reality. He doesn’t have a dad at home, so he comes to really see Nathan as his dad. “Pretend Daddy” is a sad, thought-provoking look at the psychological impact of acting at such a young age, and getting invested in a false reality. Finding Frances Nathan for You Season 4, Episode 8 For the series finale of Nathan for You, Fielder drastically departed from the usual format to tell a touching feature-length story of love and lifelong regret. Fielder decides to use the show’s budget and resources to help octogenarian bit player Bill Heath track down his long-lost high school sweetheart so he can tell her how he feels. “Finding Frances” is essentially an odd-couple road movie about these two very different guys becoming unlikely friends as they work toward a common goal. The search for Frances yields all kinds of classic Nathan for You schemes — from a fake high school reunion to a fake Mud 2 location scout — but at its core, it’s a strangely moving character study about an old man filled with regret, reckoning with mortality. Green Queen The Curse Episode 10 The finale of The Curse is one of the most surprising episodes of television I’ve ever seen. Up to that point, the show had been aggressively realistic, with no indication that the titular hex was anything other than a figment of Asher’s paranoia. But in the final episode, the show takes a sudden, jarring left turn into supernatural horror. There are a million and one ways to interpret Asher defying gravity. Did Whitney wish he’d go away? Did Nala send him to Heaven? Was he reborn as the baby? Whatever it means, it made for gripping television. The series still played that supernatural scenario as grounded as possible (no pun intended), which made it feel hauntingly real. My Controls The Rehearsal Season 2, Episode 6 In the final episode of The Rehearsal season 2, Nathan reveals he’s been playing a much bigger game all along. The whole time he’s been investigating plane crashes and figuring out ways to improve communication in the cockpit, he’s actually been learning how to fly.
