‘The Rehearsal’ Exposes Nathan Fielder’s Paramount+ Feud Over Removed ‘Nathan For You’ Episode

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rehearsal Season 2 Episode 2, “Star Potential.”]

The Rehearsal‘s latest episode continues to explore Nathan Fielder‘s theory about miscommunication in airplane cockpits, but one of his latest schemes also revealed an apparent beef he has with streamer Paramount+.

And while beef may be a strong word, Fielder’s desire to address a concern he had with the platform led to some extreme role-playing on his part. The crux being that he needed to improve his own communication skills to convey just how disheartened he was over an episode of his former series, Nathan For You, being removed from the streamer’s library.

According to Fielder, it was brought to his attention that the second episode of Nathan For You‘s third season was removed from viewing. Having an actor portray himself in a dramatized retelling of events, we see “Nathan” go back and forth over email with the company, reading real emails aloud.

HBO

While Fielder himself admits he believed most of the exchanges were rather intense, looking back, he sees that they didn’t express his true feelings, mirroring his belief about pilots and their first officers in the cockpit of airplanes having poor communication. The Nathan For You episode, “Horseback Riding / Man Zone,” which originally aired October 22, 2015, on Comedy Central, saw Fielder launch an outdoor clothing brand known as Summit Ice.

The real clothing line’s profits went entirely towards Holocaust awareness at the time, with money going to different school programs, but as clips from the original series’ episode reveal, Fielder’s store had a display that included Nazi mannequins donning schwastikas. In reading his former email chain with Paramount+ aloud, Fielder asked for an explanation behind the episode’s removal from their platform.

According to Paramount+, it had to do with “sensitivities” surrounding antisemitism, particularly with Paramount+’s Germany-based branch. After Germany opted to remove it from the platform, other regions did the same, spreading like a metaphorical wildfire.

HBO

Wishing he could have expressed his disappointment more clearly at the time, Fielder constructed a role-playing scenario for himself which likened a space to a Nazi-like war room, where the German president of Paramount+ was portrayed by an actor giving Nazi vibes based on the dialogue Fielder provided.

Fielder hopes this would make it easier for him to get aggressive and speak his mind, but as he suggested that the actor playing the president get more free and loose with their dialogue, Fielder became a punching bag of sorts as he’s called out for depicting a company he’s worked with as Nazis.

As Fielder points out in The Rehearsal, beyond Nathan For You, he’d also teamed with the company for The Curse, which costarred Emma Stone and Benny Safdie. Fielder admitted that his association with the company may have impacted his previous emails, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting involved with much else from Paramount+ if this episode is any indication.

But for those who do want a peek at the episode that remains missing on Paramount+, they need look no further than Max, where Nathan For You is also streaming. As for whether Summit Ice is still a thing or not, Fielder was seen handing out gear to first officers he recruited for his singing competition scheme in The Rehearsal‘s latest installment, and based on the website for the clothing line, Summit Ice is alive and well.

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Per the website’s “About Us” page, Summit Ice was founded in Los Angeles in 2015 and is a “not-for-profit entity dedicated to producing premium outdoor apparel and raising awareness of the Holocaust. The millions we’ve earned through the sales of our outerwear has financed education programs for young people grades 5-12 in Western Canada and throughout North America to educate them about intolerance, racial bias, and genocide.”

The statement goes on to reveal that Summit Ice is putting a focus on higher-quality items to match the brand’s forward-thinking attitude, but in doing so charitable donation percentage will slightly shift. “Since our founding, one hundred percent of our profits have gone to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in Vancouver, Canada, and other organizations that work to fight intolerance. And this practice will continue. But our newfound investment in quality means that, at least in the short term, slightly less money will go to them so we can put our resources toward delivering you the best technical jacket on the market,” the statement on Summit Ice’s website continued.

Let us know what you thought of the Nathan For You throwback and Paramount+ drama in the comments section below, and stay tuned to see what wild thing Fielder will do next as The Rehearsal‘s second season plays out.

The Rehearsal, Season 2, 10:40/9:40c, HBO and Max