![]() ![]() “It’ll be interesting to see if I can surprise people.” “I hope I’ll be able to make something this ambitious again,” he said. The answer to that question has yet to materialize. It was just an ambient thought I had after a while: ‘OK, what’s next?” I just thought it would feel different.” Asked how he thought it would feel, he paused at length. “I don’t want to sound like a crybaby,” Wilson said. The show’s success didn’t make things any easier. “How To with John Wilson” HBO/Thomas Wilson “But sometimes when I’m making episodes, I have to stop for a second and figure out my personal life to give it a new direction that illuminates some part of it that I couldn’t conceive before.” Listening to him talk through his process, it’s clear that Wilson invested so much intellectual and emotional energy into each episode that starting from scratch to do a new one could only have grown more daunting with time. “I don’t regret anything I’ve ever put in the show,” he said. Yet that itself became more of a challenge for Wilson, he said, as he struggled to immerse himself in the work rather than creating it for preexisting expectations. ![]() At times it can feel as though watching “How To John Wilson” is akin to a first-person variation on “The Truman Show,” as viewers become immersed in his peculiar and ever-absorbing trajectory. “How to Be Spontaneous” takes him on a bizarre detour to Las Vegas. Season 2’s “How To Appreciate Wine” takes a surprising detour to his encounter with a sex cult in college, and culminates with an unexpected visit to the mansion of a millionaire charlatan who makes energy drink. ![]() “How to Cover Your Furniture” somehow winds up with a graphic look at a man attempt to stretch his punctured foreskin. The Season 1 finale, “How to Cook the Perfect Risotto,” starts with the title’s goal before transforming into a surprising and powerful meditation on the impact of COVID on New York life. Wilson and his small team of writers begin with fairly straightforward titles that can lend themselves to unexpected destinations. The irony of that statement is that every episode of “How To with John Wilson” loses its way by design. I wasn’t completely sure what I was after anymore.” “I felt like my insides hadn’t really changed, but my external world had. The decision was clear to him as he made his way through Season 2 and fandom for the show grew. “Even though it’s a semi-satricial show, it’s surreal to see the real-world impact it has had.” “The episode would be called ‘How to Get the Key to City,’” he said. He chuckled, realizing that if he might feel differently if he needed material for a fourth season. “I declined because I didn’t want to be asked to take a photo with Eric Adams,” Wilson said over lunch in Williamsburg this week. His reaction, however, goes to show how little Wilson - who is seen more than heard on the show as he narrates it in the third person - evades the spotlight. The call was proof of the acute way that Wilson’s show has mined profound and poetic truths from seemingly ordinary objects and people lost in their routines. Fans of the Wilson’s droll, unassuming approach, which takes the form of discursive audiovisual essays about the idiosyncracies of New York life, will recall that the second episode of Season 1 from 2020, “How To Put Up Scaffolding,” tackles just that subject, before it catapults into deeper ideas about the personal toll of protective measures on daily life. New York City mayor Eric Adams was planning to hold a press conference to discuss the problem of scaffolding looming over sidewalks around town, and Wilson was invited to speak at it. A few days before the third and final season of “ How To with John Wilson” premiered on HBO, its creator and star received an unexpected call. ![]()
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