John Wilson is a guy who looks at a New York City sidewalk and sees a Greek tragedy. Or a comedy. Mostly, he sees a lot of scaffolding and discarded furniture. If you’ve spent any time with How to with John Wilson episodes, you know the drill: he starts with a simple premise—like how to find a public restroom or how to cook risotto—and by the twenty-minute mark, you’re looking at a cryogenics facility in Arizona or a man who has lived in a basement for thirty years.
It’s weird. It’s "kinda" uncomfortable. Honestly, it’s some of the most human television ever made.
Why the tutorial format is basically a lie
Let’s be real for a second. Nobody actually watches the show to learn how to put up scaffolding. If you tried to use episode two of the first season as a literal DIY guide, you’d probably end up with a structural lawsuit and a lot of footage of people tripping over sidewalk bridges.
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The "how to" framing is a Trojan horse. John uses it to get his foot in the door of people's lives. It’s a way to organize the chaos of the thousands of hours of B-roll he shoots on his camera. He’s been doing this since his early Vimeo days—collecting these tiny, bizarre moments of New York life that most of us just walk past because we’re staring at our phones.
Take the episode "How to Improve Your Memory." It starts with John forgetting where he put his keys. Classic relatable content. But then he meets a guy who is obsessed with the Mandela Effect—that weird phenomenon where people misremember the Berenstain Bears or the Monopoly man’s monocle. By the end, you aren't thinking about your keys anymore; you're thinking about the fallibility of human history and how we’re all just making it up as we go.
The Nathan Fielder factor
You can’t talk about these episodes without mentioning Nathan Fielder. He’s an executive producer on the show, and you can see his fingerprints all over the awkward silences. Nathan apparently taught John how to collaborate, which is a polite way of saying he helped turn a solo art project into a cohesive HBO series.
Fielder’s influence is most obvious in the "cringe" moments. There’s a standard they set for the show: every episode needs at least one moment where the audience says, "I cannot believe he caught that on camera." Like the guy in the scaffolding episode who casually starts talking about BDSM in the middle of a street interview. You can't script that. You just have to be there with a camera and a lot of patience.
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Notable episodes that break the mold
If you're looking for a place to start or just want to revisit the highlights, some episodes stand out because they go way off the rails.
- How to Cook the Perfect Risotto: This is ostensibly a thank-you to his landlord, Mama, but it turns into a meditation on aging and the fear of losing the people who take care of us. It’s one of the few times John’s own life becomes the primary focus.
- How to Watch Birds: This one is a trip. It starts with birdwatching and ends up being a deep dive into the concept of "truth" in documentary filmmaking. John actually admits to faking a shot (the "exploding" toilet) to show how easy it is to lie to an audience.
- How to Track Your Package: The series finale. It is heavy. It deals with organ donation (both the musical and the biological kind) and cryopreservation. It’s a perfect encapsulation of why the show works: it takes a mundane urban annoyance and turns it into an existential crisis.
The secret sauce of John's B-roll
The editing is the real hero here. John isn't just filming people; he’s filming signs, pigeons, trash, and strangers’ backs. He then matches that footage to his narration with surgical precision.
When he says the word "gatekeeping," he shows a literal gate being closed. When he talks about "social pressure," he shows a guy struggling to pull a heavy door. It’s a visual pun system that keeps the energy high even when the subject matter gets dark.
He doesn't use a massive crew. It’s usually just him and a camera. This is why people are so honest with him. They don't see a "production"; they see a guy with a camera who looks a little bit lost. So, they open up. They tell him their secrets. They show him their bunkers.
Actionable ways to watch (and learn)
If you're looking to get into the show or want to understand it better, don't just binge it in the background. Pay attention to the transitions. Look at how he uses a shot of a cat to comment on human behavior.
- Watch the credits. You’ll see names like Susan Orlean and Conner O’Malley. These aren't just random people; they are writers who help John find the "story" in his piles of footage.
- Look for the recurring characters. Mama (his landlord) and his Volvo are the constants in a city that is always changing.
- Check out his early shorts. If you want to see the DNA of the show, search for "John's Movies" on Vimeo. You can see the rougher, more experimental versions of the HBO episodes there.
The beauty of the show is that it reminds you that nothing is actually boring. If you look at anything long enough—even a pile of discarded batteries—it becomes interesting. It becomes a story.
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To get the most out of your viewing, try watching an episode like "How to Appreciate Wine" and then immediately watch "How to Watch Birds." You'll see how John’s perspective shifts from being an observer of others to questioning his own role as a storyteller. It makes the ending of the series feel much more earned when you see the breadcrumbs he's been dropping about his own anxieties for three seasons.