In the first episode of the final season of How To With John Wilson, executive producer/director/narrator John Wilson is giving a tutorial in “How To Find A Public Restroom.” But, as viewers of the first two seasons of the show know, Wilson won’t just be looking for a public restroom. In fact, we don’t quite know just where he’s going to end up going, and that’s why the show is such fun to watch.
Opening Shot: A shot of the legs of a man lying down at the top of subway stairs, the image of the Empire State Building sticking up from those legs. “Hey, New York,” says John Wilson. Then a shot of him lighting a candle on his toilet tank. “The relationship you have with your toilet is unlike any other object in your home.
The Gist: We start with some of Wilson’s voyeuristic videos, showing some pretty private shots of couples canoodling — one through an apartment window — while he describes the intimate relationships people have with their toilets. Then he goes in search of a public bathroom, seeing a porta-potty balancing on some two-by-fours on the Queensboro Bridge.
In fact, there are very few truly public bathrooms for the 8 million residents and tens of millions of visitors in New York, and the ones that are around are mostly in bad shape. He goes to a couple of those, and the one of the self-cleaning, coin-operated bathrooms the city installed in the 2000s; he even sits on the sink and watches the jets of water clean the thing as if he wasn’t there.
Wilson visits with some off-the-grid types in Queens, boards a party bus to an ODESZA concert, goes to a Masonic Temple, then encounters a woman getting her RV ready to go to Burning Man. He hitches a ride there, manages to get a ticket and film there, then is told he can’t use any of the footage. Smarting from that, he sets up an interview with Stinky Steve, who owns a septic tank maintenance business. He just happens to own a retired missile silo that he’s renovating into his new family home — even if he and his wife split up briefly over it.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Given the fact that Nathan Fielder is one of the show’s executive producers, it feels like How To is a cousin to shows like Nathan For You and The Rehearsal.
Our Take: It feels like in Season 3, John Wilson has refined and honed his “anxious New Yorker” persona, probably because it’s not that much of an act. But he’s able to direct it better and he knows just what his show is all about. That confidence can be seen in the first episode.
What’s fascinating to us is that by now, fans of the show know that they’re going to see a lot of very intimate shots that Wilson has somehow been able to get, despite the fact that his camera and sound setup isn’t exactly discreet. They know that Wilson’s search is going to lead him far away from New York at some point. They also know that he’s going to meet people whose backstories are far more interesting than at first blush. It’s become his formula, but it’s a formula that’s still full of surprises, which is why it works.
One of the other reasons why it works is because Wilson is opening himself up to these experiences, despite a personality that indicates that he would naturally do otherwise. It shows that good things can happen even when the most reluctant among us open themselves to the possibilities of random encounters. If viewers come away from this final season of the show with that notion — along with some hearty laughs as his narration matches up with the odd footage he gets — the show will have done its job.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Wilson collects the urine-filled bottles he finds along the streets, glues them together, and makes a piss-bottle version of the Vessel at Hudson Yards.
Sleeper Star: We wanted to reach out to Stinky Steve’s wife and give her a hug as she described how she’ll miss looking out the window and seeing the weather when she and Steve move to the silo. She needs to run as far as she can from Stinky Steve and not look back.
Most Pilot-y Line: Stinky Steve even provided his advertising jingle to play over the credits. He was so giddy that John was there to film him that he told his daughter, “I’m gonna be on HBO!”. Let’s hope he doesn’t see the finished product, because it doesn’t put him in the best light. Though that game room he set up in the silo is pretty sweet.
Our Call: STREAM IT. How To With John Wilson is a show that’s perfect for streaming when you’re in the mood for something with a little weirdness, a little optimism, and a lot of funny.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.