RECAP: ‘The Chair Company’ Episode 1 —”Life Goes By Way Too ****ing Fast, It Really Does”

Tim Robinson is a comedian in a league of his own. That’s not only a show of merit—although many fans, myself included, would attest to his prowess—but a signifier of his unique brand of surreal, cringe comedy, which The Chair Company Episode 1 more than lives up to. Robinson burst onto the scene with a featured player/writer on Saturday Night Live, only to parlay that into the prematurely cancelled sitcom Detroiters before hitting the cultural consciousness with his Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave.

Simply put, The Chair Company Episode 1 is lightning in a bottle, showcasing Robinson and co-creator Zach Kanin‘s unique brand of comedy and a newfound knack for narrative storytelling. Tim Robinson hit a real creative zenith with the A24-released dark buddy comedy Friendship, a zenith that continues into The Chair Company.

The first episode of the HBO series, entitled “Life goes by way too ****ing fast, it really does,” directed by Friendship filmmaker Andrew DeYoung, gets off to an intentionally slow start. William Ronald “Ron” Trosper (Tim Robinson) is having a nice dinner with his wife, Barb (Lake Bell), and two kids, Natalie and Seth (Sophia Lillis and Will Price).

They’re out celebrating Natalie’s upcoming wedding and Ron landing a new contract to develop a huge mall in their Ohio hometown. Even at this nice dinner, Robinson is showing that Ron is a mannered individual, wound too tight for his own good. He argues with the waitress over the semantics of what a “mall” even entails. 

Tim Robinson perfectly embodies embarrassment in The Chair Company Episode 1.

The bizarre vibes continue when, at work, a coworker confronts Ron about being passed up for the promotion Ron’s stepped into. He then declares he’s learned to let things go and enjoy life by carrying a bubble wand on a rope around his neck to make work more fun. Weird stuff, in the best possible way.

The time then comes for Ron to give a big speech about his development. Introduced with hilarity by his boss, Jeff Levjam (Lou Diamond Phillips), Ron gives his speech to the company and nails it. That is, until he sits down and busts his chair completely apart, with Ron accidentally seeing up a female co-worker’s skirt.

Ron plays it off, declaring he ate one too many Cheeze-Its to scattered laughter, yet it’s clear the incident still haunts him. He delays going home to his family, haunted by the incident. Tim Robinson’s performance, along with his and Zach Kanin’s script, is so good at portraying a man who just cannot for the life of him let go of embarrassment. And this is only the beginning.

The Chair Company Epsidoe 1 is rich with wonderfully strange character moments.

The Chair Company Episode 1 picks up quite a bit when Ron goes into work the next day. As he plays up the incident to his co-workers, they joke around about it, which visibly uncomfortable to the point where tries to make a joke about how his elderly co-worker Doris might have died if she had sat in the chair. All the while, his co-worker from early is blowing bubbles throughout. When Ron sees a custodian carrying trash bags containing the damaged chair, he follows him to the other room. 

Ron finds the discarded trash in a wheelbarrow. As he takes a picture of the back of the chair, belonging to the company “Tecca,” the custodian tells him to stop taking pictures. In one of the funniest moments of The Chair Company Episode 1, the custodian reveals that he thinks Ron is going to tell on him for using a wheelbarrow at work.

The custodian over-explains that it’s an inside wheelbarrow, not one for outside, which he finds “disgusting.” The flabbergasted Ron walks off. This is the kind of straight-up strange character moment I Think You Should Leave writer Zach Kanin adds to The Chair Company Episode 1.

Ron’s plot against Tecca is slowly unravelling him.

Ron tries to call Tecca, insisting that the call not be recorded for quality assurance due to his embarrassment, claiming that “a friend” sat in a chair that broke. Before he can complete the call, a coworker opens the door, causing him to abruptly end it. Later on, Ron tries to contact Tecca via email, only for it to bounce back. A representative on the phone tells Ron in confidence that if he had proof the chair caused an injury, the legal department would contact him back. 

Ron’s downward spiral in The Chair Company Episode 1 continues when he tells his assistant to bring snacks, hoping the elderly Doris will leave her chair. Does this mean he’ll swap out the chair for a Tecca chair to stage an incident, or is there a Tecca chair in the break room she’ll sit in so that Tecca Legal will contact him? Who knows! Either way, after two attempts to get her to leave her chair, Ron spectacularly fails.

Incensed, Ron yells at his coworker for blowing bubbles. Right after that, he’s confronted by the co-worker whose skirt he saw up, who claims that she thinks it’s right to let HR know. At maximum stress level, Ron sneaks out before HR can find him, only for The Chair Company Episode 1 to double up on its best punchline so far: Ron finds the custodian using the “inside wheelbarrow” outside. The coworker seems absolutely devastated to have been caught, and it is, no question, one of the funniest bits I’ve seen in a TV show since the last season of I Think You Should Leave.

The Chair Company Episode 1 proves the show may just be one of the funniest comedies in years.

At home, Ron puts together a slideshow for his daughter. Emotional, he thinks of times gone by as Jim Croce’s “I Have A Name” plays. Looking through pictures from work, he finds the address for Tecca. When he goes there, he finds a completely empty building, filled only with a copier and a giant inflatable red ball.

The distressingly peculiar scene is heightened when Ron finds a magazine of hardcore pornography, extreme to the point that I’m surprised they can show it on TV. This kind of wildly disconcerting sucker punch only adds to the thick atmosphere the show is building. 

The next day at work, Ron leaves late, only to be confronted by a man (Joseph Tudisco) who tells him to stop looking into the titular Chair Company. Ron runs after the man, with “I Have A Name” once again swelling, catching him by the shirt, only for the man to take off the shirt and keep running. Cut to black. 

All one can say is: Wow! The Chair Company Episode 1 supersedes all expectations for Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin’s fans. With a perfect opening entry, from expertly timed jokes to the downright uncomfortable tone you can’t look away from, and, of course, a tour-de-force lead performance, we are well and truly going down the rabbit hole now.

If The Chair Company keeps this up, it has a chance to be one of the funniest and most engaging TV comedies in years. In other words, I’m all in. 

The Chair Company Episode 1 is now streaming on HBO Max with new episodes weekly on Sundays.