Nathan For You

nathan must have been burning through comedy central's money at some rate w/maci

anyone know why the last ep isn't on amazon?

What did he say the anecdote episode cost, $300,000? That would pay for over 40 24-hour days of Maci, at around her rate. Now that would be a funny episode, if instead of the girlfriend experience he wanted the wife experience (I could have sworn he was going to propose in this one) and he paid her her going rate to basically move in with him and do mundane domestic stuff for a month or two.

It's sadly fitting that when Nathan's NFY character finally finds a semblance of human connection, it's through a relationship that's really an ongoing business transaction.

this was my thought as well

Same with the Smoker's Allowed actress, right?

Yup.

MUD 2
NEVER CLEAN

definite smokers allowed parallels in their interactions

am i only one that felt like that last episode was a waste of time, sort of a shaggy dog story without a punchline. oh well

I have mixed feelings about it. It's a departure from the show's main shtick, for one thing. It seems like Nathan wanted to show what people don't often see: the lonely old man who's lived a life of regret, the escort on her dates, and Nathan himself being called out as a liar, all of which was uncomfortable to watch. But I like Samuel Beckett and I like this, even if it's less entertaining than, say, Nathan inventing an absurd way for obese people to ride horses. (That episode almost killed me laughing.) The finale is another brand of absurdist performance, and it's heavier and probably a little more philosophical, and I appreciated the anticlimax. But TBH I did hope for more lolz, hah.

Idk this show has always been about the ~journey~ and not the destination. Regardless, thought this episode was hilarious, disturbing, uncomfortable, sad, touching and finished with a kind of catharsis. That phone conversation Bill has with Frances (outside of her house!) was kind of just the right way to resolve it. So much going on there. Brilliant episode imo.

loved how this ep kind of felt like a low-key spoof of S-Town at times.

Yeah, it felt very podcast-y.

“Can you switch to Fox News?”

I can’t believe this I love you this made my year https://t.co/cHS2SGIQR9

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) November 13, 2017

been watching clips of nathan's show on youtube

not sure how i feel about him, but did find the poop one endearing in a my-6-year-old-makes-those-jokes way

That’s kinda beautiful

xp

definite xp

i feel kinda lame for even pursuing this point given the precision of fielder's comedy but maci is clearly a scripted character yes?

also
https://streamable.com/s154b

I do wonder how many of the people on the show are in cahoots. The "ai doo" bit earlier in the season worked almost a little too smoothly, but who knows

somewhat related:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/

Hoooly shit that is depressing stuff

bill gates reminded me of the guy from the jinx a bit

i feel kinda lame for even pursuing this point given the precision of fielder's comedy but maci is clearly a scripted character yes?

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Monday, November 13, 2017 12:11 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do wonder how many of the people on the show are in cahoots. The "ai doo" bit earlier in the season worked almost a little too smoothly, but who knows

― davey, Monday, November 13, 2017 12:18 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wondered about these things, too. It's one of the mysteries of the show, how much of it is kayfabe. I had doubts about Maci especially, since she allowed her face to be shown, something I doubt a real escort would do.

pretty convinced majority of this show is staged/finely edited. still it's great obviously

Yep.

Maci is a real escort. Reddit is having a very hard time deleting her personal info, as she keeps being harrassed by people tracking her down and posting her asl. Supposedly her escort service is easy to find (I didn't look for it obv).

Which doesn't mean it was obv scripted, but she is in fact an escort.

That should read it's obv scripted, but she is etc

Like I noted, I think.6 credited writers on the finale. for what that's worth.

Well yeah, the writers come up with general scenarios for each episode and ideas for things like Mud 2

they're not writing scripts for actors to learn (unless they actually are actors in the context of the show)

Many people suspect that reality television is scripted, and with “Nathan for You,” this is, in a sense, the case. Fielder and his writers compose detailed outlines for each episode, trying their best to predict “what a reasonable person might say in a situation,” Fielder said, and to steer events in propitious directions — nudging customers from the gas station, for example, to the mountaintop. This doesn’t mean that the show’s marks are acting, however, or in on the joke: Fielder’s producers approach prospective businesses without letting on that “Nathan for You” is a comedy show, and Fielder never breaks character at a shoot.

In filming the show, Fielder says, chance ultimately rules: “We don’t even reference the script after a certain point. An entire day of shooting will ride on stuff happening the way we hope. It’s crazy to do a production like that, but the uncertainty makes the show feel more authentic and spontaneous.” Koman agreed: “It’s setups and luck.” The way Fielder manages this unpredictability is to shoot an excess of footage: He may need only one kid sitting on Santa’s lap with a Doinkit, but he’ll film three to ensure that he’s covered. “This show shoots more footage than anything I’ve worked on,” Notarnicola said, sitting at his editing bay. Fielder said, “Only a few things keep making you laugh the 10th, 12th, 15th time you watch them, though, so it gets easier to cut as you go.”

6 credited writers seems like a lot doesn't it? Are there usually 6 writers on every Nathan For You episode? I've never noticed. most scripted shows don't credit that many writers per episode, let alone a pseudo documentary-style show. Anyway, clearly the show is written in the editing room. I'm not sure I would trust much about it, from chronology on down. In this last episode he claims he was in Little Rock for weeks. as depicted in this episode, there's not much that would take more than 3 days, imo. it's all like an elaborate meta magic trick.

most of the episodes have 3-4 writers

this was obviously a bit more ambitious than usual though

No doubt. I do think that this could have been edited down to a usual run time, if they wanted to, but the expansion - and all the weirdness that entailed - was what made it special. Conversely, I'm sure they could have made any other episode into a weird epic like this one. The Maci stuff, she's just tangential to it (if thematically linked, per the "plot"). Like (gross though it might have been) he could have said, to reference a previous episode, "but first we wanted to see if a regular person would buy chili dispensed from a fat suit, so we hired this actor/escort/whatever to play the part of a 'real' person," and so on. The Maci stuff is the hardest to suss in this one. She's OK with her face on camera, and for that matter, she's OK with the camera crew being present - except when she's not? Regardless, I'm continually impressed by his ability not to break character in uncomfortable situations. When he's doing the dance for her? When they're smooching? So uncomfortable. It's totally impossible for me to tell where Nathan the actor/host ends and Nathan the person begins. Vs. someone like Sasha Baron-Cohen, who pops up out of character all the time.

yeah I was thinking about that a lot during this episode. is this the only time we see him laugh during the show?

as my friend dan pointed out, one of the most interesting beats in the series so far was when nathan says to maci: "it's business. you know, business."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cZoc6WTnYs

MUD 2
NEVER CLEAN

― johnny crunch, Saturday, November 11, 2017 9:15 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've been laughing at this for like ten minutes

That Cotillard clip reminds me of the faux flirty Between Two Ferns with Charlize Theron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83I_rQUbw8c

Acting is a really amazing balance of power. I have a friend who once interviewed this minor actress, and he said she was so flirtatious, almost hypnotically so, that he was convinced she was going to ask him out for a drink or something. It was only as he was working on his feature that he recognized, Usual Suspects style, just how perfectly she had played him.

There were definitely a lot of really funny moments in that episode but it all felt overshadowed by its emotional content. I feel the not-so-subtle subtext was the similarity between Nathan and Bill - he criticizes Bill for being dishonest and for having some unsavory aspects to his personality, but at the same time NFY is practically built around deceiving people to some extent, and he winds up spending a chunk of Comedy Central money so he can pal around with an escort (who is willing to tell Nathan, "but you're lying to these people...").

I thought it was amazing how they went on this insanely elaborate quest to track this woman down only to have it result in a short phone call, right outside her house no less. I loved that scene because both characters were so visibly nervous - Bill because he's been pining for this woman for nearly his whole life, Nathan because he knows this is the grand finale to the season (and maybe the whole series) and has no clue if anything's going to come of it, or if we're even going to see her on camera. The bit where Bill keeps trying to get her to guess who's on the other line was heartbreaking. She has no clue what they've been through just to get her phone number, or why he's calling in the first place. I can't imagine what watching that episode must have been like for her family.

is there any word on another season? I kinda have a hard time imagining where they could go with the concept from here

Curiously, we noted her Facebook profile picture was included in the show, but her husband's was blurred. Wonder when she gave permission, or what she thought about giving permission.

man, that was great

btw I know that Nathan's recent-ish divorce doesn't get mentioned on the show, but I was half-expecting it to come up at some point during this episode. obviously I'm extrapolating here but I would guess that moving to LA and putting insane amounts of time into this TV show was not great for that relationship.

I thought he got divorced before the first season? Did he get remarried?

i feel like you guys trying to prove the show is "fake" or scripted are kind of missing the point

like the show is already about fake scenarios around real people, why would it need to have an extra layer of deception when the entire purpose of the show is revealing its deceptions to the audience

it was in 2013, right when the first season started airing

Who's trying to prove something is real or fake? It's on TV, it's been edited, it's not "real," and it doesn't matter. But given the entire point of acting is to make something "fake" seem "real," it's really impressive how well it straddles the line. I mean, "Thor" has you suspend disbelief, to some extent, but it does not seem "real." This on the other hand, the divide between real and fake is the whole point. Why else would you watch it?

im talking about the theorizing that maci is an actress instead of an escort? its very bizarre, what sense would that make? the whole episode she's like puncturing the falseness of it, why would they hire an actress to do what a normal person in that situation would do?

the skepticism directed towards the show is just strange to me, like it's obviously the point of the show that they're forcing scenarios and "nathan" in the show isn't a real guy. thats what the 'writers' are for. but the art of the show is about the interplay of the real & the fake, and the way these things bleed in capitalism ... the whole episode is about whether or not his love for her is real, if her love for him was real, if nathan's attachment to maci is real (while being obviously not) (but is it? frogsbs just described him as using comedy central's money to hang out with an escort, as if maybe the real nathan might have a real attraction to this escort underneath which are all these fake layers, the money he spent for her, the show which is the 'real' purpose, etc.)

anyway the point im making is this show isn't really something that you 'disprove' for being fake, it uses fakeness to find the real, thats its whole thing

i think the funniest moment of the whole episode is nathan standing in teh doorway to the bathroom while bill harangues him about frances lol