The show must go on.
The latest episode of Nathan Fielder's HBO series The Rehearsal saw the exit of Angela, a devout Christian and single woman looking to start a family of her own, after they disagreed about raising their fake son, who is played by multiple child-actors, with Jewish and Christian beliefs.
Nathan joined Angela's experiment, during which she was rehearsing to be a mother, after her relationship with Robbin Stone, an ex who she invited on the journey, fizzled out. Since then, fans have seen Nathan and Angela amicably co-parent Adam, their fake son. But the rehearsal goes awry when Nathan asks Angela in Aug. 11's episode if they could raise Adam as both Jewish and Christian. This doesn't go over well with Angela, who insists on raising Adam as a Christian.
But Nathan wants Adam to understand the Jewish faith, so he takes one of the child actors to Judaism classes when he's really supposed to be taking him to swim class. When the Jewish instructor Miriam learns about this deception, she demands to meet Angela to convince her that Judaism isn't bad. However, things quickly get tense and at one point, Miriam calls Angela an "antisemite."
Ultimately, Angela decided that she's done with the Rehearsal.
Now, Angela is addressing that heated conversation with Miriam, as well as her love for Mel Gibson's 2006 film Apocalypto—which she shared during the latest episode, raising questions amongst fans because of the director's past antisemitic comments—in a video posted to the "Nathan for You Businessposting" Facebook group Aug. 14.
First and foremost, Angela said she was happy with the way her conversation with Miriam played out. "Miriam had a lot of fire in her belly and I liked that about her," she said. "And we talked about a lot of things actually."
Of course, the women disagreed about their religions and Angela admitted their conversation got "intense" at times, but she has no complains about what was shown. "All in all, I'm satisfied with how the cut came out," she shared. "Obviously, I prayed on it, and just left it up to God. I knew that I took a risk going into this. I didn't have control over the final edit. They did a good job."
Regarding her love for Apocalypto, Angela said it has nothing to do with Mel, whose antisemitic remarks she says she was previously unaware of. Instead, she noted that she loves the film for its "cinematography, its message and just the sheer art and the masterpiece that it is."
Lastly, Angela maintains that she left The Rehearsal because the project felt like it had become more about Nathan's life, than her own. But she did say that despite her exit, she'll still be tuning in to see how it all plays out. "Since we didn't agree about how to proceed—I'm not the boss—it was time for me to go and let Nathan do his thing," she said. "I'm really looking forward to episode six and seeing what he does with it and I will see you guys next time."
The next episode of The Rehearsal airs Aug. 18 and will see Nathan raise Adam, the fake son, as a single father.