Broken furniture sends Tim Robinson spiralling to uncover bizarre conspiracy in The Chair Company
HBO’S The Chair Company might be one of the strangest shows on TV right now, and that is exactly why it works. Everything about it is absurd. The behaviour is absurd. The conspiracy is absurd. The situations swing so far into nonsense that you start laughing out of confusion. Yet the business side of things and the family dynamic feel weirdly real. That mix gives the show a pulse that keeps you watching
even when nothing makes sense.
Tim Robinson has basically created a long-form version of an I Think You Should Leave sketch. It carries the same painfully cringe humour where every small mistake becomes a full catastrophe.
The Chair Company follows Ron Trosper (Robinson), a well-meaning but painfully awkward project manager who becomes obsessed with a bizarre conspiracy after a humiliating incident involving a faulty chair. What begins as a simple complaint spirals into a full-blown investigation filled with dead ends, strange coincidences, empty warehouses, eccentric coworkers and a growing sense that something is either very wrong or completely imagined.
Alongside his unhinged partner Mike Santini (Joseph Tudisco), Ron digs deeper into
a puzzle that might involve corporate fraud, identity theft and a mysterious chair
manufacturer, all while his family and coworkers watch him unravel.
The show never settles on whether Ron is uncovering a real conspiracy or collapsing
under his own paranoia, which keeps the story moving in a constant state of absurd and uncomfortable tension.
Somehow, it never gets boring. The series balances its structure well with episodes
shifting between the conspiracy thread and Ron’s work life and the family tension and the friendships that appear out of nowhere.
The conspiracy itself is ridiculously entertaining. Half the time it feels like Ron and
Mike are grasping at straws. The other half you start to wonder if they might be accidentally right. A few details connect in a way that should not make sense yet somehow do and that is the fun of it. You get dragged into their spiral without realising it.
Robinson is great as Ron. He plays him with all the awkwardness and panic you would
expect. Ron is a man with strange ideas and even stranger reactions who desperately wants to seem normal but absolutely cannot help himself. He also lies to escape sticky situations almost on instinct. It is the style Robinson is known for and while it will not land for everyone, it feels perfect here.
Tudisco’s Mike is unhinged in the best possible way. He first appears as someone
shockingly violent then slowly becomes oddly endearing before revealing
an even more disturbing side. His backstory is somehow wholesome, sad and
sickening.
Sophia Lillis plays Natalie Trosper, Ron’s daughter who somehow stays on
his side through what looks, from the outside, like a prolonged nervous breakdown
or a full mid-life crisis. She is surprisingly normal, which might be the strangest thing in the entire show. With everyone else behaving like caricatures of real people, her steady calmness starts to feel surreal.
Robinson’s music choices are still impeccable. The songs are oddly tasteful, which makes the chaos around them feel even stranger.
The Chair Company is dumb and smart, and somehow neither and both at the same
time. It explains nothing and everything, and it glides along with a fever dream energy that makes you question what you just watched.
What is clear is that Robinson has made something entirely his and it is a good
weekend watch that will leave audiences with more questions than answers.
