In “The Anecdote,” one of Nathan For You’s many hysterical episodes, Nathan Fielder concocts an elaborate scheme to create the perfect funny yarn for a late-night talk show appearance by attending a wedding in a comically oversized suit. Once he’s completed all the wacky tasks for the narrative, Fielder admits he could’ve left the wedding. Instead, he sticks around and watches from afar as couples dance together. Before long, he joins in the festivities. “As my feet glided across the dance floor that had once only existed in my mind,” Fielder recounts in narration, “I realized the exciting life I had envied in others had actually become my own.”

It’s a side-splitting moment on many levels, juxtaposing poetic wording with Fielder cutting a rug in that baggy suit. However, it’s also the thesis of Fielder’s entire comedic career. His exploits in Nathan for You, The Curse, and The Rehearsal all concern awkward men detached from humanity. His “characters” yearn to be cool, for human connection, to feel in control, yet these qualities all evade him. This melancholy center, not to mention the deluge of side-splitting humor, continues into The Rehearsal’s Season 2.

The gist of this show concerns Fielder helping normal people “rehearse” big moments in life through elaborately detailed sets recreating everyday environments like apartments, bars, or homes. If breaking up with someone or confronting a relative sounds taxing, just rehearse it with Fielder. In Season 1, the small, initial endeavors snowball into Fielder simulating the experience of being a father. Season 2 takes things in a radically different direction. Fielder’s got a new obsession: aircraft safety.

For this Canadian “businessman,” the biggest problem behind planes crashing is obvious: communication issues. When pilots and first officers aren’t comfortable speaking to each other, disaster inevitably follows. Thus, Fielder begins several “rehearsals” (which include a detailed recreation of a Houston airport) to solve this “issue.”

What follows over six episodes is classic Nathan Fielder. Those of us who’ve been on the Fielder train for a few years know that his gift is creatively zagging when you think he’s about to zig. In this case, The Rehearsal Season 2 doesn’t rehash its initial season’s structure or best gags. Instead, it rolls out many new insane Fielder techniques. These include concepts impossible to film under the first season’s COVID-filming restrictions. For instance, there’s The Pack, in which an array of people follow you around in social situations. Meanwhile, a new introspective undercurrent about the very concept of communication quickly becomes apparent.

It isn’t just pilots and first officers who struggle to hear each other. The Rehearsal Season 2 is often about difficulties connecting with others. Whether it’s Canadian Idol contestants, corporate heads, or romantic partners (among countless others), the underlying meaning of flickering eyes or exclamation points in e-mails can go amiss. Much like Rehearsal’s first season, Fielder’s comically outsized control over his recreations can’t deliver social revelations. Some people are just inscrutable, no matter how long or often you rehearse.

These weightier concepts manifest with an incredible hot streak of laughs throughout The Rehearsal Season 2. As a director, Fielder has grown incredibly sharp in recognizing how to execute highly hysterical visual gags. In the premiere alone, there are countless gut-busting images relying on the sight of Fielder ominously lurking in the background of recreated airplane crashes. His very undramatic silhouette juxtaposed against fiery tableaus had me tittering like a fool. Deeply precise timing from the show’s editing team also proves critical to making certain comedic beats land. Especially impressive is how editors know just the right amount of awkward silence to linger on.

Unquestionably, The Rehearsal Season 2’s laughs reach a high point midway through with “Pilot’s Guide.” To fly into specifics about the episode would be a spoilery shame. Rest assured, though, it’s a dream come true for folks who love Nathan For You installments like “Electronic Store” and “The Movement.” These episodes masterfully saw one crazy scheme spiral out into several other outlandish plans and digressions. “Pilot’s Code” takes that structure to its comedic zenith. This audacious outing will engross even total newcomers to Fielder’s comedy, taking its place alongside “Connor’s Wedding” and “Ozymandias” as one of the 21st century’s greatest television episodes.

Subsequent Rehearsal Season 2 episodes can’t hope to reach “Pilot’s Code” creative highs. However, just because The Zac Brown Band’s melancholy tunes could never hope to match the excellent of “Highway 20 Ride” doesn’t mean there weren’t redeeming features about those introspective tracks. Similarly, the back half of Rehearsal’s second season still features plenty of laughs and poetic extensions of Fielder’s existential tendencies.

These qualities are especially served well by the program’s various writers committing to each episode as its own entity. While this collection of Rehearsal episodes has overarching season-long plot and character details, each installment has distinct elements and obsessions. Even if you binge-watched these hysterical creations in one gulp, it’s to keep each installment separate. Embracing a quality that used to be a given in televised storytelling informs The Rehearsal’s endlessly creative spirit. There’s truly no telling where Fielder’s deranged mind will go next.

In some ways, The Rehearsal Season 2 feels like a culmination of Nathan Fielder’s comedic exploits, and not only because his past creative exercises like The Curse get recurring shout-outs. Qualities constantly permeating his work, like the blurred lines between artifice and reality, have rarely manifested in such a polished or grand scope. Much like with Severance’s sophomore season, waiting three years for more The Rehearsal was worth it. One warning: you’ll never look at either airplanes or the blue-tinged Paramount+ logo the same way again.

The Rehearsal Season 2 takes wing on HBO starting April 20.

The Rehearsal Season 2 Trailer: