The Rehearsal Season 2 Finale

While it may not be as wild or audacious conceptually as Episode 3—which I will still declare the best episode of the season—the finale of The Rehearsal still sees Nathan undergoing a crazy experiment on himself, backed up by comedic setups that come together in a striking finale sequence.

The basic conceit of the episode is that, since Nathan’s attempt to get his “character” acting protocol taken seriously by Congress has not succeeded, he decides to demonstrate how the program can help himself. To do this, we see Nathan spend multiple years attending pilot school, all so he can get his 15 minutes of fame flying a 747 and proving that his character acting methods could actually help pilots make safer decisions.

The cinematography gets incredibly ambitious, as the team appears to pull off a ton of practical work filming an actual plane in the sky and watching Nathan take command of a plane carrying 150 people, flying it for over two hours. They get another plane to capture some insane shots, and if this was fake, it would be the most insane fake flight ever conceived. The editing and setup of the show ensure that we believe in this ridiculous journey Nathan undergoes.

It is perhaps the most admirable Rocky-style montage because Nathan is doing MrBeast-level work to pull off this episode, but because of his lack of charisma, he is able to turn almost every moment of failure into something funny. He knows exactly how to get the audience to laugh at him in the way he desires.

I don’t want to say too much more because this is one of the best shows of the year, and even if you have not seen Season 1, this is a must-see season of television. It would help to watch some of Nathan’s previous work, like Nathan For Youand The Curse, to fully appreciate what he is doing here.

Hacks Season 4 Finale

While the story contains fewer plot changes and emotional moments, the Season 4 finale shows that Deborah has hit a wake-up call and will do anything to continue innovating and creating brilliant comedy. This episode, in particular, establishes the show’s more dramatic tone this season, where I think a stronger argument could be made that this show is as dramatic as The Bear—if it weren’t for the fact that this series is about comedians and the characters are purposefully making jokes every episode.

This finale, while not as funny, is a very loose episode, more in line with Lost in Translation, as Deborah, locked out from performing due to her contract with the late-night network, has no way to perform in America. So she takes the only available loophole and brings Ava to Singapore after attempting to vacation and realizing she cannot live with herself. In Singapore, a translator delivers her jokes in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tamil to the delight of the casino, but Ava and Deborah slowly begin losing themselves in the escapism of this tourist paradise.

The performances are, as always, very award-worthy. Hannah Einbinder, as Ava in particular, has become less of a character studying Deborah and more the center of the character study herself. She finds herself uniquely stuck and uniquely blessed by her relationship with Deborah, where her punk and free-flowing attitude has landed both of them in trouble. However, Ava is now helping Deborah escape a professional rut, an interesting task that proves complicated as it reveals that their relationship—which has always been tied together by work—may not be the same or even healthy without the work that binds them and makes them treat each other well.

(It would be funny if this could exist in a shared universe with The Studio, where Bryan Cranston remained the studio CEO the entire time. Unfortunately, the Golden Globes established Jean Smart as a real person.)