How To with John Wilson defies categorization. I struggle to explain to people what exactly the show is, let alone what makes it so great. But this show was consistently one of the most interesting on TV. So let me try here. Each episode is a video essay in the form of a how-to. It begins with one topic, but it inevitable meanders into something wholly unexpected. It is narrated by John Wilson, an anxious New Yorker who really seems to understand New York. His camera captures all sorts of random found footage. It makes you wonder whether the words are made to match the images or the vice versa. The matching is hilarious. The images are often independently funny but put to words they take on a whole different meaning that makes you chuckle. And somehow the essays always turn out to be poignant, even profound. He interviews the strangest people who let him into their homes. They'll say something wild nonchalantly and he'll say "wait, what?" and then they can expound upon some crazy tangent that becomes the new focus of the essay. He loves to attend niche conventions and travel to remote corners of the country. With that HBO money, he lets the wind take him where it will and he just runs with it. And in the end, in the final episode, he came to a similar conclusion as Executive Producer Nathan Fielder did in The Rehearsal Season 1...a childless middle-aged man contemplating fatherhood.
