Nathan For You

Hard to believe that This Hour Has 22 Minutes wound up fostering anything of worth, but here we are. This show rules.

this was a good episode (and two of the ideas actually seemed legit!) but nothing made me laugh harder than the dog shrieking when Nathan tried to pick it up

well besides the Bill Gates impersonator

"you know... when we made microsoft..."

this guy is just the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL6fco19xXQ

i think the toy store one is my new favorite, just omg the santa reappearance. really amazed at this show's ability to do the same thing over and over again and keep it fresh, improving it even

would really like to see that "i hate jews" picture...

it's in the episode i saw on the comedy central app

i think the one with "the hunk" is my favorite ep, love this guy

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2rgnxxf.jpg

as much as I lost it at the picture, the end of that segment was the first time I genuinely felt the show went too far

that's worse than when he was three seconds away from showing his dick to a crowd of kids?

but that didn't actually happen

thank you, that picture is amazing.
yeah, the bit where the lawyer was getting genuinely indignant was deeply uncomfortable but hey! She posed for the shot!

i kinda assumed 4channers would be all over this show

I can't see this show's title without singing "Nothing on You" by B.o.B.

i always hear flava flav myself

http://assets.adamriff.com/images/woodfellas.jpg

this is the funniest show i've seen in a long time

he has weird hair

my god santa telling those kids they look like babies and the one kid opening up about another kid being mean at school
my god

wait, what episode are you talking about here?

yeah last night was the Taxi/Line Cutting episode. pretty good though the cab company owner's desperation was a little unsettling. I'm glad they didn't go through with it!

oh i am talking about ep8, on the comedy cnetral site. shh never mind it's only a tiny spoiler ;)

did not even realize that the site was ahead of the broadcast schedule! is that normal for cc?

watching this on hulu. they just put the liquor store/exterminator/car wash episode. first two ones were pretty dumb, but the car wash was funny. i think i overdosed on this show "binge watching" the first season.

the lawyer in that dumb starbucks episode trying to steal the signed contract was one of the funniest things i've seen on tv. even if a lot of it was staged or w/e, he does a great job playing with the line between reality tv artifice and the actual, ridiculous things he is doing to/for these businesses

yeah i was curious about to what extent this show is real and found this, which pretty much jibes with my impression:

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.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/nathan-fielder.html?_r=1

if the lawyer wasn't in on it that is like the funniest thing ever

that corkboard thing was one of the funniest moments on the show, my god

"Inside all of our anatomies there's two parts. There's a part that's a liar, and a part that's a cool guy."

dumb Starbucks did not disappoint

i keep thinking there should have been more interesting material there (like how did the employees react to the media blow-up), but if there were, they would have shown it.

This show is the most tortured I've been between thinking it's the funniest thing I've seen in years and thinking he really is possibly an awful person who is blatantly exploiting (at best) unhappy people for a gag (thinking of the repeated cuts at the expense of the lonely guy who allows Nathan to test the 40-maids-in-6-minutes scheme; the woman who says she was assaulted by an 'entity' in Switzerland during the ghost real estate thing; even the lone shot of a woman crying to herself across the pet cemetery when he unveils the advertisement/headstone).

I even felt for all the people who would have been so excited to see the 'Johnny Depp' movie being filmed - though that sequence also had me doubled over in pain from laughing (when he repurposes the footage of the guy running through the souvenir shop as 'people were desperate to get supplies' or whatever I fucking lost it).

He's got to be some kind of sociopath to stand there through these horrible and often quite sad interactions just trusting it'll all wash out in the edit.

There's definitely some tension there. I think it helps that the show often paints "Nathan" the character as being untrustworthy and openly manipulative, particularly in his constructed social behavior and his contradictory narration. If anything he mirrors some of the sadder characters you mention, and only seems to behave "naturally" when confronted by the truly out-there encounters that there's just no character protocol for, like the "entity" assault victim or the pee-drinker from S1.

the show often paints "Nathan" the character as being untrustworthy and openly manipulative, particularly in his constructed social behavior and his contradictory narration.

But I guess my first problem is with the actual interactions as they occurred. These people aren't meeting someone they know to be those things - and they seem to sometimes be possibly fragile people who are getting dicked around.

And then the edit can be cruel for the sake of a joke that *isn't* part of the show's larger target of cheap/dumb/lazy marketing. I was aching watching Nathan asking that guy about his relationship status and seeing the guy trail off, going "Gosh, L.A. is just so.... hard...."

We just started watching this, and def. getting Sacha Baron Cohen vibes from it. It's pretty funny, though. My wife was in tears during the gas rebate episode, which just gets so ... strange.

I agree there's inherent sociopathy involved but probably to a lesser degree than actual makeover shows.

We just started watching this, and def. getting Sacha Baron Cohen vibes from it. It's pretty funny, though. My wife was in tears during the gas rebate episode, which just gets so ... strange.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, September 1, 2014 12:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SBC vibes is exactly what bothers me about it. The being a dick to being funny ratio is just a little too high for me, and he seems a little too proud of his *deadpan* humor.

His hair also appears to be waxy like an otter's fur

I think SBC goes farther to make people look stupid. Like, part of the joke of his stuff is that no one recognizes him as a cartoon and takes him seriously (the fools!). Nathan's pitches on the other hand at least operate within a skewed system of reality TV makeover logic, made funnier by his total deadpan. I mean, sometimes his ruses work! (See: Dumb Starbucks, pig rescues goat, King of Sting, etc.). And when they don't work, he hilariously tries to find some way to take credit anyway. Or sabotage the results, like turning the gas rebate scheme into this weird human interest story, not publicising the pig rescue, taking mock offense at the King of Sting.

there’s a weird inconsistency in character when nathan gets upset at the quiznos rep for going too far, which makes me wonder if that amazingly wasn’t staged.

His hair also appears to be waxy like an otter's fur

He is Canadian. I think that's normal for them.

They call it a "pelt."
http://www.glacierwear.com/media/catalog/category/Fur_Hats_Fur_Ear_Muffs_Fur_Acc.jpg

The Daddy's Watching/party planner episode might have been my favorite except it also had the weight loss bit which was the first one that really crossed into unnecessary cruelty for me. But I was so happy when he brought back the Bill Gates impersonator.

The weight loss part was amazing but yeah that ending was rather tough to watch. The Bill Gates dude could be in every episode as far as I'm concerend.

Also, if this isn't a preview of season 3 I don't know what is:
http://www.vocativ.com/money/business/gestations-bar-for-pregnant-women-viral-marketing-stunt/

Considering he already did the free taxi rides for pregnant ladies I don't think that's a NFY bit. Speaking of which, I loved the part when he made the obstetrician pretend to be a mechanic to vet the midwife's credentials.

"When we started Microsoft..."

I've been listening to this every day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcrLSSlNZGs

Managed 27 seconds.

yeah i think the fact that it's interesting to talk about is drawing some people in that otherwise would've skipped it b/c it can be so uncomfortable to watch. my friend said she literally has to look away from the screen sometimes, which i find relatable. i found myself checking texts and stuff to avoid having to watch certain conversations play out

I was drawn in by being told it had the pace of Uncut Gems and was set in a place we had literally just passed through on a trip to NM. I got a lot more than I bargained for to say the least.

I haven’t watched the last two eps yet and I keep wondering about Asher and how he got that way — what’s his family like? What was the failed relationship like? How did he and Whitney meet? I loved Dougie’s line about cosplaying as a good guy. Dougie otm.

i saw a couple of ilxors talk about it on social media elsewhere, and learned that it was a fictional drama which interested me
before that i had assumed it was more like nathan for you

overall i liked it more than i expected to
but i see now that it is prob 90% red herrings & 10% actual story lol

the interpersonal relationship stuff was so well observed

i think that’s what ultimately kept me watching

Whatever you think about the finale, a lot of the talk I saw of this show was about how no one was watching it, now I see a bunch of people catching up.

― Chris L, Friday, January 19, 2024 10:42 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Speaking personally, I knew I wanted to watch this show from the moment it was announced, but I waited until this month to sign up for a Paramount Plus With Showtime subscription so I could binge it and then cancel the sub.

Man Asher is an asshole and a bad husband but the shit Whit did to him in Ep 9 with the pottery video bombshell is still mega cruel.

And then he manages to do something to make me like him even less lol

Started in and am existentially bummed out because in the early 1990s I spent some time in the San Luis Valley/Southern CO/Northern NM territory and miss what it was like 30 years ago. The Rio Grande Cafe on the old Los Alamos Hwy in Espanola had the most amazing huevos rancheros.

HOLY FUCK the finale

How can you guys binge this?? I watched one episode and had to shower and take an anti-anxiety

i actually often would distract myself on my phone while watching.

leave it to Vanity Fair to have the worst take on the finale lmao

idk i kind of agreed w him

the part at the end where the doctor asks if Whitney wants to see if her husband has arrived and she hesitates and says "sure" was a great moment for Emma Stone. she was caught up in the panic of the horrific situation with Asher and being in excruciating pain but she feels free without him, he's an afterthought now that she has her beautiful baby, and won't be tied down by him and his desperate attempts to abase himself for her.

also the moment where Whitney mocks Asher for being such a nice guy and his 'there will be consequences' tough guy act was equal parts funny and devastating, like masterful moment from Emma Stone there as well

anyway I loved the finale. lot to ponder on, but the sheer absurd horror of it is something I'll not soon forget

I can’t say watching this show gave me noticeable anxiety? I binged without incident.

Haven’t read anything about the ending but did have some interesting convos about it. I keep thinking about all the things in the last ep, not the least of which was that charade about the house & Abshir.

they were so grossly patronizing to Abshir throughout the whole thing and he was one of the most normal people in the entire show

That model with the tiny figures of them waving outside…

I loved watching their faces when he asked about the property taxes.

yeah that whole sequence was great.

"it's ok if you need to cry"
"no, it's just dust"

they were so grossly patronizing to Abshir throughout the whole thing and he was one of the most normal people in the entire show

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Tuesday, January 23, 2024 9:07 AM bookmarkflaglink

yeah like sending him to a chiropractor that ignores his cries that he's in extreme pain and keeps working on him until he nearly passes out.

very much 'stop helping'!

I read the VF review and actually do not agree at all. I think it's easy to assume it was a Mad Men-style fantasy weirdo cop out, but then what to make of the final shot being almost identical to 2001, with the baby/star child floating in space in the same position as Asher?

I was trying to make sense of the lack of narrative resolution to so many of the threads and what i noticed was the one thread running throughout the show was ART. Whitney was convinced she was making art. She was different from her parents bc she was an artist and they were just bad landlords. In the final ep she angrily notes that Cara gets a NYT writeup for "quitting art" and she's stuck on reality tv. Architectural art, coffee art, fashion (jeans) art, performance art, art buyers and sellers, Native art, conceptual art, artlessness and artfulness, art and artifice (like the eye drops), art and activism -- I feel like I had a better thesis at some point but I do see a throughline from the beginning of the series through the last episode that seems very intentional, not lazy absurdism as the VF writer implies.

That sort of total dismissal is what's lazy.

precisely, and I never really felt like this was a tightly-plotted show, like a Breaking Bad that had you wondering what development was coming next - which was refreshing, because I could just watch and not fight my brain trying to figure out what was coming next.

Asher/Whitney were like a patch of weeds growing in the middle of a garden, growing larger while continuing to insist that they're not destroying the garden, and my "enjoyment" of the show was seeing them faceplant in handling challenge after challenge because their intentions aren't pure and that sullies everything they do. Española grows more tainted through every interaction with them, such as Whitney almost arriving at the right solution for the jeans theft ("we should be focused on de-escalating") but for the wrong reasons (wanting to keep crime in Española out of the press), which leads to a far-fetched solution nobody actually wanted, which actually makes things much worse for everybody involved.

I like your point about artifice because that's all it is - their marriage is stage managed by Dougie and HGTV! The shops can only remain open if the show is picked up, and to ensure the show gets picked up, they have to tread a fine line of creating enough fabricated friction to make the it interesting but not too much to where people don't like them, which leads them to make a lot of rash decisions that play well for a tv bit but make life worse for everybody long-term, including themselves.

Asher abases himself to atone for being Whit's curse, they seem to finally reach the finish line, and then their show gets picked up and it's not even a victory lap, they're second fiddle to Vincent Pastore on Rachael Ray, they're financially struggling to turn what they do into a living without the aid of Whit's parents, and their relationship is still fractured, even if Asher is a bit oblivious to it.

his last pickle being one he ultimately can't escape is kind of artistically brilliant - he can't get helped to safety because everybody misinterprets what's happening based on who he is and has been to this point (Dougie thinking he's shirking parenthood, for example), only to send him careening upwards to his death.

that VF article is pretty bad!
David Lynch has some ideas on that:
https://archive.org/details/ConsciousnessCreativityAndTheBrain around 00:13:00

I think one of the running threads is how Asher even fits into this other than being “the husband” and trying to use his incredibly limited social, sexual, and handyman capital never works out. He’s just a normal guy who is kind of a jerk but hey, he’s kept it level enough to get married and that’s the american man second act.

He constantly seems like he’s trying to not even be relevant, just keep himself tethered to this marriage, tv show, partial friendship with Dougie, but… his tethers all fail

I think that’s the second phase of the unfocused american man, the child (after the marriage, precluding a successful career) and as his child is born…

Working off of a very cliched stereotype of “american man” here, as reality shows will

I’m halfway through, and kinda squint-scrolling this thread so as not to spoil anything

This show gives me such anxiety, like Portlandia before it (I like this show better than Portlandia, so far, but it does feel like an extended sketch from that world). I described the show to my brother today as Nihilist Mon Oncle

Asher’s first visit to the comedy workshop reminded me of a game I invented years ago that I called Bob Saget, I just made it up at an afternoon picnic table party thing, you go round in a circle and plainly say a funny word, and then everybody votes out the loser (who doesn’t have to leave, but has to drink). The following round, the goal is to say an unfunny word, and the loser is who fails and inadvertently says something funny. As the loser drinks, everybody pounds the table and says “Bob Saget”

Anyway, the entire comedy workshop sequence reminded me of that game, that Asher’s contribution was so extremely unfunny, and it felt like this was in fact the format for much of Fielder’s comedy language, to set up a joke, and then deliver the least-funny imaginable punchline

I think if we retroactively look for signs of something supernatural going on, the comedy class is a possible example. It's a scene that unsettles a lot of people, me included. Asher is unable to contribute anything at all when it's his turn; his outburst has nothing to do with the rules of the game, and comes after he fails to come up with anything at all. It seems he's physically incapable of being a likable person -- the only person who seems to have ever found him funny and charming is Whitney, for reasons unknown -- and his reaction betrays some intense inner struggle.

At least Charlie Kaufman makes his intentions perfectly clear from the get go and doesn’t let you get 9 and half hours into a series to get metaphysical on your ass

He constantly seems like he’s trying to not even be relevant, just keep himself tethered to this marriage, tv show, partial friendship with Dougie, but… his tethers all fail

your analysis is interesting mh -- i have struggled to figure out how Asher fits into this at all as he seems to fuck up everything he touches and we have no idea where he comes from. i'll buy it!

i do get a strong whiff of "i married a women whose family has money and i am not letting this go without a fight" only he's bad at fighting and also at everything else

oops WOMAN

I think the end of the season is just a set up for S2 in which grown Asher plays baby Asher

Still fucking fuming about this