by Robert Bouffard, Editor
For three short seasons, John Wilson treated us to quite the array of characters that he first encountered around New York City, and then scattered parts of North and South America, on his show, How to with John Wilson. From befriending a guy who went to MTV Spring Break in Cancun to escape from life for a while after the death of his friend in the very first episode of the show, to a group of people who love and devote much of their lives to the movie Avatar, to finding himself at a cryogenics convention in the series finale, Wilson always reveled in the eccentricities of his subjects while treating them with a deeper sense of empathy than the show might have if it had been produced with more cynicism.
Wilson centers these people in his personal how-to style, in which he takes a seemingly straightforward task, such as watching the game (which he tackles in Episode Four of Season Three, “How to Watch the Game”), and presents it with his unique worldview, matching the steps of the instructions to day-to-day footage he (and his second unit) captures. Sometimes the footage is hilarious, sometimes it’s surprising, sometimes it’s appalling, and sometimes it’s deeply moving. And on top of the footage, he makes it into the homes, workplaces, and shared spaces of all kinds of people to interview them — this season it ranged from a couple in an apartment building who play their music too loud deep into the night, to Wilson joining a woman on her cross-country trip to Burning Man, to a convention for vacuum cleaner collectors. It will always be an eclectic group of people who are spliced together in a given episode, so all you know for sure is that one way or the other, it will perfectly fit the contained yet scattered narrative that Wilson crafts.
For the first two seasons, Wilson spent each of his six episodes doing a how-to that didn’t quite go where you’d expect, his trademark quirk and nasally voiceover guiding you every step of the way. Wilson’s awkwardness is a gentle point of entry into a curious, fact-based approach to the world and especially those who inhabit it. When it was announced that Season Three would be his last, it was a bit of a punch in the gut because of how reliable the show became in its snark and sincerity; it felt like the concept could go on indefinitely. But even though there is still more of the same greatness in Season Three, it slowly became apparent why Wilson felt like he needed to move on.
The show was always existential and introspective — again, in the very first episode, Wilson starts off by simply trying to understand small talk, before he meets the guy in Mexico — but this season became more self-reflexive than ever. Wilson reveals deeper personal details for one thing, and for another, in Episode Five, “How to Watch Birds,” he interrogates the very idea of truth, including how it relates to his documentary filmmaking. It could be somewhat reductive to mention here that the show is, and always has been, executive produced by Nathan Fielder, but turning the metaphorical lens towards himself in more ways than one feels particularly Fielderian.
And just when it feels like the veneer separating artist from audience is shattering in that penultimate episode, Wilson takes the show back to its roots in the series finale, “How to Track Your Package.” What starts as a simple exercise in tracking your online order leads him all the way to the cryogenics convention, where he gets the most profound and devastating interview with a subject that he’s had in the whole series. Wilson lets the man talk about genealogy and his ancestors, and how they’d feel about the life he’s chosen to live, one obsessed with cryogenics. The camera sits, letting him speak at greater length than most subjects on the show get, and it’s allowed to get even more melancholic and reflective than usual.
This final interview is a fitting coda to a show full of empathy. Through exploring such a minute portion of the largest city in the country, How To reminds us of every single person’s unique story and individualism. It’s a reminder that there is always something to learn and experience for those who simply have the curiosity and commitment to seek it out.
Rating: Loved It
How to with John Wilson is currently streaming on Max
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