` tags.
Here is the rephrased content:
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 2 of The Rehearsal Season 2.
In only its second episode, the well-known HBO series The Rehearsal is already testing the limits of how far it can go. This is expected, considering the creator’s history with cleverly bizarre projects like Nathan for You and The Curse.
An episode of Nathan for You, a Comedy Central series from the mid-2010s where Fielder helped struggling businesses with outrageous marketing, is central to the latest The Rehearsal episode. Following a premiere focused on aviation safety, Episode 2 takes unexpected turns. One involves how the removal of a Nathan for You episode from Paramount+ relates to The Rehearsal‘s goal of helping people navigate difficult situations.
In the Season 2 premiere, Fielder suggested that many plane crashes occur because co-pilots struggle to speak up to their captains. In Episode 2, Fielder compares this to his inability to confront Paramount about removing Season 3, Episode 2 of Nathan for You due to “sensitivities.” In the 2015 episode “Horseback Riding/Man Zone,” Fielder, who is Jewish, partnered with a rabbi to create an over-the-top Holocaust awareness-themed display featuring Nazi flags and a recreation of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign to promote his Summit Ice apparel brand. Summit Ice was created after Fielder learned that Taiga, a jacket maker he had worn, published a tribute to a Holocaust denier.
The stunt became a charitable effort, with celebrities like Jack Black and John Mayer wearing Summit Ice jackets. The line generated over $300,000 in sales in under two months, with profits donated to the . In Episode 2 of The Rehearsal, Fielder says Summit Ice has since raised millions for Holocaust awareness and is his “proudest achievement.”
He reveals that Paramount+ Germany decided in late 2023 to remove the episode due to discomfort with “anything that touches on anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks.”
Fielder states that this action by Germany influenced other European Paramount branches, leading to the episode’s removal everywhere as “the ideology of Paramount+ Germany” spread globally. He notes that at the time of filming Season 2 of The Rehearsal, there were 50 results for “Nazi,” 10 for “Hitler,” and zero for “Judaism” on Paramount+. While the Nathan for You episode is still unavailable on Paramount+, viewers can stream it on or purchase it on .
To address his issue with Paramount, Fielder has an actor portray himself sending emails he exchanged with the streamer. “The tricky part was Paramount was airing another series of mine, a scripted drama that hadn’t been renewed,” Fielder explains, referring to The Curse. “How I spoke to them could have career repercussions, like it did for co-pilots.”
Later, Fielder builds a set resembling a Nazi war room and hires an actor dressed as a Nazi to debate with him in German-accented English, supposedly to engage with Paramount constructively. Fielder acknowledges that while Germany is likely “trying to overcompensate” for the past, censoring Jewish artists could misrepresent their stance. “Believe it or not, we’re on the same side,” he concludes.
However, after encouraging the actor to speak freely, the actor explains he doubts Fielder’s sincerity in understanding Paramount’s view. Instead, Fielder is creating a biased scenario where he is obviously correct.
“You don’t actually want the Paramount+ perspective or the German perspective,” he says. “Look at you pretending to be serious. This is not sincere. Just a man with a grudge using his television show to smear us instead of trying to understand us.”
This moment highlights Fielder’s exploration of people’s ability to convincingly portray sincerity and, more personally, “whether he, a comedian with a reputation for humiliating people that dates back to Nathan for You, can get anyone to take him seriously on an issue he really cares about.”
But he certainly walks a tightrope to make it to that revelation.