HBO’s ‘The Rehearsal’ Recap, Episode 2: A Numbers Game

Episode 2 of The Rehearsal, “Scion,” opens with a harrowing scene, showing Nathan Fielder directing his underlings into swapping one baby for another, clearly trying to prevent the baby’s caretaker from noticing.

Thankfully, it isn’t quite what it looks like; Fielder hasn’t veered into child-snatching for the sake of entertainment – yet. Like episode 1, “Scion” hints at Fielder’s dark side, at the moral ambiguity of his actions, and the warped consent of Fielder’s test subjects.

This time, the titular rehearsal attempts to prepare “Angela,” a childless woman, to be a parent, with the help of a revolving door of child actors, ranging from babies to teenagers, in the hope of speedrunning the full spectrum of motherhood in the span of two months. Or at least, that seemed to be the plan, but this episode is a two-parter, delayed via a detour with Angela’s Tinder-date-turned-fake-husband, who turns out to be a real oddball.

The mere presence of children (not to mention babies) involved in the scheme is pretty uncomfortable, but with the babies being swapped out every 3 hours, at least the shifts are short, and constantly monitored by their mothers. To stimulate those sleepless newborn nights, there’s also a robot baby, whose piercing cries are being managed by a self-described “night owl” who falls asleep on his first shift, and spends the rest of his time onscreen talking earnestly about “Sasquatch liaisons.”

The best of Fielder’s experiments are a result of accumulating as many weirdos as possible and placing them into a closed space, watching how they bounce off each other. But with The Rehearsal, there’s a strong potential for any of these bizarre interactions to be (at least somewhat) staged.

Hence, when Angela goes on a series of Tinder dates to find a practice dad to co-parent with, her instant connection to “Robin” rings alarm bells. Robin, a Jesus-obsessed eccentric who finds deep meaning in random numbers, seems like one of Fielder’s undercover actors, another meta layer to The Rehearsal.

Angela’s extremely religious too, and has her own strange opinions concerning radiation and baby skulls, but Robin’s eccentricity quickly eclipses it all. When she explains her baby rehearsal, Robin is oddly passive about the situation, and eagerly accepts her invitation to be a co-parent.

It’s not until Fielder drives to Robin’s house that it becomes clear that Robin is not an actor – he’s the real deal, a genuine weirdo whose room is filled with mattresses, whose life decisions are dictated by the random digits that appear on license plates and speedometers.

While visiting Robin’s house, Fielder doesn’t have to do anything to spark awkwardness – in fact, he’s the normal one, stuck inside a strange situation that keeps escalating, unprovoked, as Robin takes a deep bong rip, gets into a passionate argument with his roommate, and assures Fielder that he doesn’t actually need a license plate to drive. No really, it’s fine!

Robin also seems convinced that he and Angela are going to have sex, despite Angela making it crystal clear that it’s not going to happen, as her faith dictates her celibacy. But the potential to get laid seems to be Robin’s sole motivation here – one can sense his immense disappointment when he spends the night tending to a robot baby.

Robin manages to soothe the bawling robot before deciding, rather abruptly, that fake fatherhood isn’t for him; the man just wants a good night’s sleep. At this point, Fielder decides to step up, and co-parent with Angela, who reluctantly agrees.

“Scion” plays with our expectations throughout, ultimately going in an unexpected direction and shining the spotlight on Robin. Prior to Robin’s appearance, it looked as though Angela might have had her own motivation to agreeing to the scheme; at one point, she prays out loud, voicing her belief that God is in full control of the situation, rather than Fielder. Did she believe The Rehearsal was going to manifest into reality?

Whatever she thought was going to happen, she’s stuck co-parenting with Fielder now, and the episode ends with him ensuring that he has the informed consent of all the parents who agreed to lend their child to The Rehearsal.

“Scion” got sidetracked, investigating an oddball, but the next episode promises something special; Fielder and the incoming group of child actors are surely going to ensure that the parenting simulation is as painfully accurate as it can be.