Sophia Lillis in 'The Chair Company'Image via HBO
By
Thomas Butt
Published 51 minutes ago
Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.
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As a sketch writer and performer, Tim Robinson's comedic talents are unimpeachable. However, even the most ardent fans of I Think You Should Leave were likely dubious of his ability to expand his distinct style in feature film or serialized television forms. With the 2025 double-billing of Friendship and The Chair Company, Robinson's evolution as a writer and actor has been revelatory. The A24 film and HBO series have complemented his volatile and unhinged comedic stylings into a mode that earnestly taps into the emotional core of his signature brand of troubled and erratic characters.
The Chair Company, the latest offering by Robinson and his writing partner Zach Kanin, is the most clever utilization of his character archetype in I Think You Should Leave sketches that have spawned countless memes and iconic lines. Putting Robinson in a paranoid corporate thriller with a cryptic plot practically writes itself, and the series combines the deranged absurdity and unexpectedly dark examinations of the human condition of his oeuvre. Now that it's been picked for a second season, The Chair Company is due to become a major stepping stone for Robinson as the voice of comedy in the modern age.
Tim Robinson Unearths a Sinister Conspiracy in 'The Chair Company'
Tim Robinson is unlikely to play the President in a prestigious Oscar-winning drama, but his latest output shows that he has plenty more to offer beyond the rigid confines of a five-minute sketch. The Chair Company, an 8-episode HBO original, is Robinson's most ambitious project to date, a continuous narrative that blends cringe comedy with mystery and thriller elements. Robinson plays Ron Trosper, a project manager at a property development firm who, like every I Think You Should Leave character, loses his mind. During a business conference, Ron sits in a chair that collapses, causing everyone to stare at him.
Ron channels his embarrassment to file a complaint against the company manufacturing these chairs, Tecca. Through a series of coincidental run-ins, he believes he has uncovered a sinister conspiracy run by Tecca that incriminates various powerful parties, including the local government. What follows is a haphazard investigation by Ron and security guard Mike Santini (Joseph Tudisco, the breakthrough and MVP of the series) with a cryptic plot straight out of a detective novel or film noir that is both extremely consequential and meaningless simultaneously. The series also stars Lake Bell as Ron's wife, Barb, and features recurring roles by Lou Diamond Phillips and former Saturday Night Live writer Jim Downey, hot off his hilarious appearance in One Battle After Another.
'The Chair Company' Is a Cringe Comedy Take on Paranoid Conspiracy Thrillers
The Chair Company is Tim Robinson's first proper genre exercise. Due to its expansive plot and barrage of twists and turns, the show, featuring direction by Andrew DeYoung and Aaron Schimberg of A Different Man fame, is a clever parody of paranoid thrillers about evil governments and corporations, popularized by films like The Parallax View and Michael Clayton. Not only is the substance of the alleged conspiracy, faulty office chairs, completely frivolous, but Ron's steadfast determination to unearth these shady dealings is a punchline unto itself. His distraction causes him to drop the ball as an employee, husband, and father. Robinson is perfectly suited to play a delusional maniac, becoming hyperfixated on such a selfish issue as his own embarrassment. Despite being an average family man in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, Robinson plays Ron as a bizarre oddball, and his co-stars sell his outbursts and strange behavior with mundanity.
The viewer is not meant to interpret this mystery involving the corruption of chair manufacturing and distribution with any dignity, but through its intimate photography and immersive moodiness, one can't help but be genuinely invested in this conspiracy, one that might only be a figment of Ron's imagination. As demonstrated in Friendship, Robinson's hostile outbursts and awkward demeanor carry a dark, poignant register that shines a light on the fragility of masculinity and the frustration of failing to communicate. The series of red herrings and sudden plot developments can be read as a joke, but the series never explicitly downplays the alleged severity of the case.
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Posts By Ilana Davis Oct 26, 2025'The Chair Company' Is a Major Artistic Evolution for Tim Robinson
William Ronald Trosper (Tim Robinson) with his phone speaker next to his ear in 'The Chair Company'Image via HBO
DeYoung shoots The Chair Company's episodes in an unconventional mode compared to most comedy shows, as viewers receive the moodiness and dread of a paranoid thriller thanks to static shots of Ron staring at a computer screen and close-ups of his distraught face. Ron's spiraling headspace, a trait of all Robinson characters, is imbued with an increased serio-comic edge, as he represents the addled state of men in a contemporary climate who act like the world is out to get them and desperately long for credibility with their surroundings. Even if Ron is justified in his actions, viewers would be hard-pressed to take him seriously due to his behavior and the relatively low stakes of Tecca's wrongdoings. The Chair Company is a paranoid conspiracy thriller for our time, as Americans, more ambivalent and cynical than ever, are more likely to shrug off any world-changing discovery.
Despite the ornate concept and execution of The Chair Company, the series still retains the broad, improv-heavy, and zaniness of the Tim Robinson experience. Like most setups of I Think You Should Leave sketches, humor arrives in the most unexpected forms, in large part due to Ron's questionable public behavior and cringe-inducing faux pas. In The Chair Company, Robinson allows his co-stars to be just as eccentric, notably Joseph Tudisco as Ron's surprise ally and an older man seeking a fruitful friendship with Ron. Jim Downey, creator of everlasting memes in Billy Madison and guest spots on Conan O'Brien's podcast, nails every random bit, between his inexplicable bubble-blowing and throwing an unsupervised party that allows employees to get wild. The conspiracy plot is a sturdy narrative spine, but the show never forgets to be freewheeling, a must-have for anything involving Robinson.
If Season 1 of The Chair Company wasn't ambitious enough, the show's continuation for another season raises all sorts of questions concerning the plot machinations of this sinister conspiracy. The series has all the trappings of a miniseries, but perhaps the Tecca situation and Ron's obsession will only compound, or maybe Ron will find a whole new corporate conspiracy by a company that wronged him? It's all a mystery — a perfect note to end on about a show that combines cringe humor with ominous corporate practices in a peculiar confection that only Tim Robinson could even imagine.
The Chair Company
Comedy
8
10
Release Date
October 12, 2025
Genres
Comedy
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