'The Chair Company’ Season 1 Recap: A Season to Cherish

Welcome to the Prestige TV podcast.

I am Rob Mahoney, and I come to your feed today with great news because we are going to be talking about the thrilling first season of the chair company and a truly strange season finale on top of it.

And at the risk of violating my own personal NDA, I have brought in the perfect co-host, the Wendy of Wendy's Carvers herself, is Jodi Walker. Jodi, how are you?

I'm actually going to have to end the podcast because you're not allowed to talk about that. I've broken my boundaries.
Oh, I'm so sorry. Look, it was right there for the taking.

How could I simply refuse it? And you know, you came in with a perfect joke. I meant to come in with some prop comedy.

I was going to wear a green bracelet to say that I was down to make mistakes, but I've actually worn a red shirt, which I guess means like no mistakes.

Honestly, safer. I think the green bracelet is the bigger HR infringement as these things go.
Like Spotify HQ would not love a green bracelet coated podcast.

No, I think that they would like for us to be open to mistakes in the style of yellow,

but maybe not actually going into an environment. hoping to make mistakes because we're kind of in a weird time in our lives right now.
These look like headphones, but they're a bubble necklace.

I'm glad that you're bringing the appropriate whimsy to this podcast because I'm feeling whimsical.

Look, how else could you feel but whimsical and also kind of terrified? I feel like the tonal balance of the chair company is quite something to behold.

What has your experience been with the show and just kind of like the day-to-day, week-to-week experience of watching it? I truly, I was like, I'm getting on this pod to talk with Rob. I'm so excited.

And I was like,

what are you going to say about how you feel about this show? And the only thing that I could think was, like,

Rob, I love this show. I hate this show.
And I love this show. Like,

I have so much fun watching it. You know, I covered the rehearsal with Charles on Prestige TV.

And obviously, I think we have to get into like some of the facts and figures of how these two shows relate and relate in getting a second season and relate in their auteurs and the genius that fuels them.

But I find the chair company to be much easier to watch. It doesn't sort of, um,

the, it is not to me as uncomfortable as the rehearsal. And obviously, these are like totally different kinds of

comedy. I don't find it as uncomfortable, but I do dislike it more.
Um, but I also kind of love it. I love watching it more.

Like, I don't, I used to fear watching the show Parenthood because I knew how much I would cry. I fear watching the rehearsal because I know how uncomfortable uncomfortable it will make me.

I do not, I go into the chair company with like an open heart, a girded loin, just ready to like be intense.

I think that I actually, another show that I cover on prestige, I sort of watch it like industry, which is like

your Apple Watch is going to think you exercised after this. It is so intense.

But I love it so much. And I also hate what

Ron is doing to himself at all times. Most times.
At most times. I hate what he's doing to himself.
I hate what he's doing to everyone around him.

And yet, like, it is propulsive in a way that not that many things have been on TV this year.

Like, I felt really pulled into this world and a show that, like, to be totally honest, for all the reasons you just described, should not work.

Like, the balance of what they are trying to pull off, of kind of like, if you want to compare it to the Tim Robinson verse, it is like they go 30% as far as they would on like, and I think you should leave sketch.

You know, you don't get to the full, completely insane conclusion of every little situational joke they bring up. But then the show is also over.

The first exclusion is episode five, which was really difficult for me in terms of like grotesquery, but agree. No, speak on it.
What was it that grossed you out? Oh, every single part.

Probably when that guy kept putting his elbow in that soup and then Tim Robinson punched him in the dent in his head.

Then next to that probably is when Tim Robinson, and I'm just calling him that, found himself in in that room where a man was cheating on his wife and thought Tim Robinson had been sent there by his wife and said, the only way to settle this score is for you to cheat on your wife too and me to film it.

And then he made him kiss that woman. And they certainly did it and they filmed it.
See, for me, I was like,

he said, yep, that's cheating. And then

he hit stop record. I'm glad we had confirmation.
You know, like, you only want to do one take for these things. And it was helpful for me to know what counts as cheating.
Like,

that's what gets you to cheating. I do find that this show overall has a really strict morality.

You know, it's really trying to set us straight in these uncertain times and put us on the right path as a country, as a people. I appreciate that about the chair company.

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If you are not familiar with the show at all, this is a series from Tim Robinson, as we've alluded to, and HBO.

It's about a suburban dad who is like attempting to unravel an office chair-oriented conspiracy.

Is that a fair description? Yeah, a vast criminal conspiracy may be conducted by a major pharmaceutical company via a sort of small city government via a

chair company.

As

simply put,

as such, chair companies are wont to do. As you might be able to tell, it is unlike anything you will see on TV this year.
And for that reason alone, I think you should go watch it.

If you haven't, we are about to spoil basically the entire first season, especially this season finale, Jodi.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, I would just like to list some things that happened in the chair company season one finale. Oh, that would be great.

It feels like a nightmare dream to me.

To me, too.

And I'm sure to many of the people involved in making it, starting with the fact that we learn a lot more about our friend Mike, who became so obsessed with his organ donor that he first wanted to be a father to his organ donor's daughter and then also made a move on said daughter.

We learn that

she's

actually even better because she's younger. You're absolutely right.
I look, I shouldn't have skirted past that part. It's very important.
The age is important. It is an important age.

To me, falling out of love with Mike, actually, looking that in the face of what he did to that family is important for me. Um, letting loose my grip of how attached I had become to Mike.

This show's ability to make Mike an incredibly sympathetic character for like half its run should be studied.

I don't know by what courses in what colleges, but like there's an educational value to this process. Rob, he had been looking at this chocolate Kong for a year and he just needed a reason to buy it.

It's so sweet. And until it's colored very darkly, by that reason, he was the son of a man that he is

involved in a vast criminal conspiracy with and just wants to get inside his house like a vampire. All extremely normal stuff happening up and down this show.

We did learn that the puppet masters behind Tekka are apparently this dude named Stacey Crystals who was assassinated by a kid with no explanation holding a 3D printed gun.

And also good.

Again, I have no explanation for any of this.

Oh, no.

Why did it have to be 3D printed? Couldn't tell you, couldn't tell you what's happening with most of this show most of the time. And yet I am delighted consistently by all of it.

Oh, same. I mean, you know,

the news came out that the show had been picked up for a season two,

along with the sort of Easter egg news that this is HBO's top freshman comedy in the platform history. Yes.

All at the same time, I think, ahead of the penultimate episode. And it's like, surely with this ending

and the initial reception, HBO and Tim Robinson maybe knew this was being picked up for a second season much earlier than we did. That could be part of the reason it ends that way.

I think he'd also be perfectly happy for it to end that way and for everyone to be like, what?

But it certainly colored the way I watched the last two episodes of like,

how do we extend this universe? Do we, and what do we extend? Do we extend the universe? Do we extend the mystery? Do we extend Tim Robinson's devolvement into it?

And I, oh, I do not have an answer to be very clear. I am presenting a series of questions because per the finale, I do not know, but I liked it.
I did too.

I have to say, like, this is not a show I go to for answers necessarily. And so the idea that we are ending a season one finale on this incredible cliffhanger that I'm just going to spell it out.

Like, apparently, this whole story might have been Amanda's psychosexual revenge fantasy, and also she might be telekinetic to be continued. Hard stop for season one.

Like, I'm

that other woman in the office thought that she had metal inside her body, and we thought it was because of that, but maybe it was Amanda.

You know what? I completely blocked that from my mind.

I'm so glad you're here to illuminate really the pertinent details that could bust this whole case wide open jodi i think there's metal inside my body what if i came into your office and was like hey could we move the podcast up i have got to get to the doctor i think there's metal inside my body Like Ron, I don't know how I would respond to that.

And I have to say,

Rob, you would respond.

Well, I was going to, you would respond as sweetly as the Ron that we met in the story. You would not respond like the Ron that we left the story with.

Well, again, can you blame him?

Given the lengths that Ron has gone through to try to uncover this conspiracy, only to find at the end of the day, his boss is partly responsible, you know, Lou Diamond Phillips in this incredible, like goatee-twirling, villainous performance by the end, combined with everything that's going on with Amanda and maybe her telekinetic powers, to say nothing of all of the completely insane shit that has happened in the interim.

Who wouldn't be a man or woman on the brink by the end of all that? And to think that I believe

original music is being brought into the mix.

And maybe that's something that we'll be hearing next season is a lot more of Lou Diamond Phillips and that other guy. When

Stacey Crystals, when Stacey Crystals is like,

Sabrina, think about Sabrina Carpenter. They're making these songs.

What is anyone ever talking about? But, you know, I was doing a kind of a full rewatch of the season to tune in here with you.

Well, let's clarify there, Jody, because you you were doing a full rewatch.

You can expose me like this when I have metal in my body. Well, at two times speed, which is a choice for any show, but for this show, I think is like clinically problematic.
Oh, yeah.

I think if you can see my pupils right now, they don't look right.

I knew going into it that it wasn't a good idea, but I simply had to do it for time's sake. You know, I've been watching live and here we were about to talk about the whole season.

I said I want to see it as a package, but with the timing that I had, it kind of needed to be two times speed, one and a half if I was treating myself.

And that was anxiety-inducing, but it really worked because, like, what it pointed out, and I was like, Am I going to lose some of the humor? I am not advising anyone to do this.

This is not an artistic practice. This is, I watched it one time, then I watched it at two times later.
And I wondered like what the joke cadence would be like because these jokes are so strange.

And I think that

something that people love about Tim Robinson's comedy,

I think something men really love about Tim Robinson's comedy and sometimes can't believe that women love it too is that it is so weird and so strange that it feels like only you could be finding it funny.

Like when you receive it, it feels like who, what other freaks out there could think that him just saying this in this cadence or him just saying, um, or like a guy just being like, Yeah, I saw some bugs I'd never seen before, could be so funny.

I, it is, it is true artistry to be able to make comedy like that. I know that I,

I feel so confident I couldn't do it because I don't understand it, but like he understands, and his, you know, longtime writing partners understand in some way how to keep repeating this comedy. Um,

and what I was noticing on my super fast rewatch was it is in the way that I think people used to talk about how Veep is like joke for joke, one of the most packed shows of all time, just funny.

Like joke after joke after joke, is like, that's what Tim Robinson does with weirdness. It is just weird after weird after weird.
And like, they are jokes. They're not technically jokes, actually.

A lot of times they're just saying the weirdest thing you can imagine. And what I really noticed is like, and for me, I think my favorite episodes are where those lines are just packed in.

Like in the Pin Ultimate episode, when he brings the dog baby home, it is one thing after another. It is, you know, oh, baby got into the rat poison.

And I don't know if he bit the rat or if he bit the poison. And also I pushed my boss.
And so now I'm on leave. Like just,

it's just, it's so much

that these 30-minute episodes in their normal one-time speed watching live on HBO felt much longer. They actually do.
They do do feel longer.

I think if you push past 30, you risk that assault feeling overwhelming.

And to be honest with you, that was kind of my experience watching Tim Robinson's movie Friendship as well, which was like, it just kind of pushed past a point where I was like having fun and comfortable and on the edge of my seat and into just like, I'm just like a little.

too put off by everything that's happening in all of these scenarios.

And so somehow the chair company, despite overall being longer, breaks it up and parcels it out in a way that like makes a long form version of this thing that should not be able to sustain long form.

Totally. I do.
I re I liked friendship. I didn't love it.
I really think that the chair company kind of course corrects what he was doing there. It's a different story.

He's doing, he is doing a different thing, but in terms of being able to sustain Tim Robinson comedy with a narrative and a serialized structure,

I think he like he's really found the puzzle that fits together just right in the form

of the chair company. I think, I guess, we'll see about that

being a multi-season show.

I think in it being like what felt like a limited series show, the shorter episodes with the ultimately longer run gives a lot of moments for things to amp up way too crazy, like way out of control in what it can do in 30 minutes.

And then it just gives you one or two moments of showing what he's like as a family man. And I think I really bought into that a lot more in the chair company than I did into Friendship.

My editor was like, when the chair company was coming out, he had watched some of it. He was like, hey, do you think that you would want to write about

how Tim Robinson is always dating these or like married to these really hot, really cool, incredible women in these shows and like how unlikely that is?

And I was like, kind of, but I feel like when we meet him in the chair company, you see how she could could have fallen in love with his whimsy and you see, but also his secure, like his stableness a lot of the time.

But then you also see how he goes down these paths, and you see how his children love him.

And I, I sort of marvel at like how the show could do that with just really little things, like Seth putting the tiny hat on his backpack or loving the Pee Wee Herman dance or being able to talk to his dad about drinking.

While we really know like very little about Seth, except that he did play basketball and now he wants to do stop motion animation.

You know, we don't know that much about like the inner workings of these characters, but we know how they all relate to each other. And that really provides a lot.

That little warmth goes a really long way.

And you're right, like having the family structure as kind of the anchor of the show and the thing that Ron is ostensibly like fighting for amid his job travails and failed Jeep businesses and this big like conspiracy he's trying to uncover via spreadsheet.

Look, we all have to have a dream and I support him in chasing his. Clearly, that one was not the dream for Canton, Ohio, but you can't blame a guy for trying.

Well, you know, something that I have been caught saying at a couple of ringer events with basically like no context is that men are obsessed with legacy.

And I do think that this TV show is a lot about how like

an obsession with something bigger robs you of all the good small things. Yes.

And attempting to strike the balance of feeling important and of feeling like you make your mark on the world while also actually making your mark on the world in the form of what is what, like, what is almost the like, you know, most automatic legacy to achieve a family.

But we, we catch this man in the midst of, and I really loved those moments when we would sort of like dive back and find out

how

they, the family got to that place and like how, you know, they both wanted to do something different, do something more important. And that in that way for Ron and Barb, like it's not,

there's not the gender divide. Barb also wants to do something bigger.

Seems like she's handling it a little better, but like that, that the way that they support each other in this mission, but that like it has to be balanced and that this is not a balanced person. No.

Very few characters in this story are balanced, but I would say the family is.

And that we should like Lake Bell being the improbably hot wife in question in this case, who is like just hilarious in these sorts of comedies.

And this reminded me a lot of the sorts of roles she plays in children's hospital specifically of being this like almost like a trampoline for Tim Robinson to launch him into orbit.

Like the more and more insane he gets, the more and more like dry and unaffected she gets. Yes.
I do think though over the course of the season, like as we're straddling this like, is this a comedy?

Is this a weird thriller sort of divide? The characters around Ron do start to respond to him as if this were an actual human being have some of having some of these outbursts.

Whereas like in episode one, we're doing sketches almost. And by episode eight, it's like, dad, why are you being so weird?

Like just consistently, he's getting that kind of feedback from basically everyone in his life in a way that like makes the show feel not real because it's still in a heightened space of some kind of reality, but it makes it feel more like of a world with itself.

But also in episode eight, there's the bounce back to the bounce back where suddenly everyone's kind of being like, wait, why are you stopping doing this?

I think that maybe you're actually on to something and that all of your weirdness maybe amounts to something.

And I think that that's, I just love how many times, especially in the premiere, he exclaims, like, that's so weird. Don't you think that's weird? This is so weird.

Because what they do with that character is that he is often capable of seeing when other people are strange are behaving strangely or when a situation is strange or a circumstance is strange, but he can't see when he is being strange.

He kind of can.

And also when he will sort of like relate to someone who's being extremely weird, when his phone gets like wiped and then re-uploaded, and all of the text from the shirt, the shirt,

the shirt company,

whole other conspiracy. That's what season two should be.

When the shirt company texts start rolling in, and he starts seeing the vast criminal conspiracy at the shirt company, and it triggers for him, they're replacing the parts.

And he recognizes that guy as being insane, but he also recognizes himself in that guy. And what can you do with recognition except follow it?

And I think that's where the show really goes off the rails in the best possible way is following all of those weird instincts and recognitions. And frankly, like structuring the show so it is.

what could be a throwaway joke in any other program.

Something like the Lou Diamond, like, we don't know it's Lou Diamond Phillips yet but like the hold music that he has to listen to for five hours and we have to listen to for like three scenes it honestly is quite catchy uh becoming a critical plot point like that is the kind of economy it was like as soon as he walked in that office i was like that's why lou diamond phillips said that super weird thing to him about the wall and it actually in that way does it does work well as a mystery like as a mystery that you're following because any one of these weird things that anyone said that woman having metal in her body could come back back up.

It might come back up in season two. Amanda might have put it there.
Like it could, it could be anything and I'd buy it. I think I would like totally respect the criticism that the finale kind of

flew off the ramp finally in terms of absurdity. But I think that

I really just

buy into that absurdity. And I think that what reminds me most about season one of the rehearsal for season one of the chair company is how it really just made me like trust this

artist in terms of like where he's leading me and how he can complete a story and also leave it open to build on.

I think like with Nathan Fielder, I never could have imagined what he was going to do with season two of the rehearsal.

And my hope is also actually like that I can't imagine what Tom, like what Tim Robinson is going to do with season

two and that it kind of won't be the things that I don't want it to be, that it will actually be something that like I just couldn't imagine. You could never dream it.

And I do think that the show and the rehearsal do have that in common. I do think as a broader like HBO comedy lineup, I would also put like the righteous gemstones in that group as well.
Yeah.

As far as a show that went to really unexpected places.

And also, again, I don't want to like over-prescribe over-prescribe a comedy in which, as you alluded to, a guy dunks his elbow repeatedly into a bowl of soup as being like pregnant with meaning.

But this is a show that is kind of about some stuff. And like, some of that stuff is like.
Speak on it.

I mean, undercover, like trying to undercover a vast criminal conspiracy to deal with your feelings of inadequacy at work for one, or like, even as Ron like puts it, like, kind of lays this out like on the nose, this idea that people are just like making garbage.

And as a consumer, you cannot find anyone to complain to about the garbage.

Like it is grabbing something that's like a very real human feeling in 2025 and taking it to ridiculous places. But like, I think there is actual commentary here.

It's just kind of buried in all the soup.

I agree. I think I read a really, a really great like piece in The New Yorker that I really liked by Molly Fisher.
That's called Tim Robinson Finds Humanity and Test It in the Chair Company.

And she sort of posited that, like, where

she said, where Fielder's efforts at expansion went deeper, Robinson has chosen to go wider. Rather than plumbing the internal lives of his trademark weirdos, he imagines a world teeming with them.

And I think that's absolutely true, but I also think there's depth to wideness. And like what width allows you to do is to kind of place yourself within a wider world.

And he really has painted this incredibly wide world. I mean, right down to like that moment in, I think the finale when he taps his phone onto the computer and it puts the pictures in.

It's so fucking funny, and I can't tell you why.

I could not begin to. And it's, and it's like, well, that's not real.
It's not exactly the world that I know, but it's close. And these characters aren't exactly the people I know, but they're close.

They're just stranger and widely drawn. But if I zeroed in, I'd see something.
And yes, like relating

to

spinning, I mean, listen, has my therapist told me that I use data collection as a form of control? Yes, she has.

And I do think that in this

situation, Ron is attempting to use data collection to gain a sense of control in his life that he does not otherwise feel. And that's not like explained or drawn out on the page.

It's just kind of evident in his

wild actions.

Absolutely wild.

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But as you laid out, not only are his actions wild, but in kind of creating this broad universe of across the board insanity.

I mean, one of my favorite things about the show, Jodi, and we talked about this some, is just like all of the random side characters who are popping up for sometimes one scene, sometimes one minute.

And it's just like there is an an indelible thing about this person. Like, you came off the top with the woman who thinks she has metal in her body.

I would up you with like the guy who brought the Ziploc full of pepper patty balls to the dinner party. Oh, you don't need to worry about him.

It doesn't matter if he doesn't like the dinner because he's set. So don't worry.
Keep prepared. But who else stuck with you? Who else jumped off the screen to you?

I mean, my first thought of like favorite side characters, and of course, I would also love to elaborate on favorite more like supporting characters but in terms of like one to two appearances i was so absolutely obsessed with that janitor in the very first episode who is obsessed with his wheelbarrow and who the indoor wheelbarrow

well the in the indoor wheelbarrow and allegedly uh he feels very protective of his wheelbarrow and he says are you the guy that's been saying i'm not allowed to have a wheelbarrow in the office why would anybody care it never goes outside it's an inside wheelbarrow.

I could understand if it was an outside wheelbarrow.

And I loved him because that is just like objectively hilarious, but also because in that, that's one of those moments where you see Ron observing his own behavior.

Like that man is a mirror in the same workplace. It's kind of an upstairs, downstairs situation, acting exactly as erratic, but kind of logical.
Like

there's a logic to his argument and the thread that he's pulling. It is erratic.
And also, he does take the wheelbarrow outside. And he does.
Ultimately, he was right. Ultimately, it was suspicious.

I think

not to be the guy on a podcast explaining, like, this is why comedy works, but this is kind of also what we're trying to do here, aside from just Chris Farley showing, like, wasn't it funny when this happened?

I think a lot of the jokes we're describing and the bits that like really just stick with you from a show like this are the ones that kind of scratch our itch to like have lore.

And so it's like when you hear something like the indoor outdoor wheelbarrow it's like this guy has a whole history of wheelbarrow paranoia when you see the woman who's been like taking stock photos at the life of the party class and she's been told she can't get past level five because she's too dumb

like i just want to know her whole story and every every character who appears in this show has that effect on you and it's sometimes it like they'll just scream so much they kind of knock the memory out for five seconds so that they can move on.

But ultimately, like that is a, that's that's quite a magic trick to have that many kind of, I say well-conceived, but just insanely conceived supporting characters. Totally.

And then sometimes like when you find out their lore, you're like, oh, no, thanks.

Actually, it was too much. You know, when you, the, the guy who runs out of the,

wait, what is the class called where she can't get to level five? It's the life of the party class. The life of the party class.

And the guy runs out and ultimately he is actually connected and he is like the nephew

of the assistant director. And you find out that the lines on his arm, they really do mean something.

They do represent all of the women that he's had sex with and the black one is the woman he married. And that's his life structure.
And that's why he designed those websites like that.

It's like, oh, no, thanks.

You can keep that.

I didn't like hearing that at all.

Whereas maybe

I'm good wanting to know that Mike doesn't want. to turn out to be Ebenezer Scrooge.
You and I have been talking a lot about Scrooge lately for reasons that are beyond my comprehension.

I could not believe that we were coming here today to talk about another Christmas Carol allegory.

Tune in to Benjamin on the Ringerdish feed to hear Rob and I talking about a little Hallmark film called Christmas Above the Clouds, where the main character's name is Elenezer.

And yes, it is a direct take on the Christmas Carol.

Also a work of brilliance. And I would say, by comparison, much more chaste than the portrayals of Ebenezer Scrooge.
It's also really about men being obsessed with Legacy, but go on.

You know, it all ties into itself.

But yeah, like, I think you're so right that there are certain guardrails with some of these characters that are urging us to move on and kind of nudging you back towards the plot.

And ultimately, I think what keeps this thing on the rails and kind of turns what could be a sketch show or just like all of these bits into something resembling a plot is they have just chosen to shoot it and score it as if it's the parallax view, but everyone is yelling all the time.

And as we were talking about kind of the way that nothing is spared in this show, it kind of is like the breaking bad of comedies in a certain sense. Like there is no crumb left on the table.

Everything is kind of coming back, telekinetically or not.

I'm just, I'm, I remain incredibly impressed with the structural obsessions of what it is that's going on in the show and why I can't begin to wrap my head around it.

Yeah, I think that's why I keep going back to like that the best thing season one has done

is teach me to trust it because I don't totally understand

how

this is like a functioning ecosystem. I don't totally understand how they're making it work.
And there were low points for me in the season.

Like I did really find episode five very difficult when I knew that I was going to be re-watching it at two times speed. I was also thinking, oh, no, thank you so much.

But I did and I noticed some things I missed. So I was glad that I did.
You're a professional. I'm a professional.
I'm gonna

watch it all, you know, two and a half times.

I think that like there were some times maybe where it didn't work for me perfectly, but maybe like there are some people where like episode five is their favorite style of Tim Robinson comedy.

I told you this offline, like my favorite thing to track throughout the season and like my favorite Tim Robinson comedy is all of the little ways that he lies when he is like caught in a situation.

And that really, I think, it's almost always at work. And I do think that points to, for me, this is not exactly

a

like workplace comedy, but it is a lot about work. And a lot of Tim Robinson's comedy is a lot about work.
Like, I really loved The Detroiters.

It is, it is designed in a different way, is much more episodic than serialized.

But that is like another, another

show

about

ambition

and

real talent at times. I mean, I think I like, I love that we meet Ron

absolutely knocking it out of the park. Like when he gets up before the inciting event, when he gets up on that stage and he gives his speech, does he repeat certain words like 17 times?

Yeah, he's not a professional speech giver. And it's really rousing and it's really good.
And these people at work trust him like the people at home do. And he's a really capable person

who is maybe capable of of greatness, but what if the greatness he's capable of doesn't bring something better to his life?

What if the like regularness that he's capable of is what actually

brings something to their life? Like, not all people, a lot of people are probably capable of greatness, but they're not capable of managing it. And so, I really- Jody, that's fucking deep.

And as I said it, I was like, where do I fall on the scale? Oh, no,

something to think about no you are both great and managing it beautifully i can attest to that thank you thank you i mean i do have a podcast about hallmark movies so i think you know we're the greatest there

um

so i love the workplace stuff the strangeness that it brings i love the show's commitment to basically everyone else at work being happy like yeah

Everyone is sometimes like he will walk into an office and everyone is just laughing.

It is they they're not exploit, they are exploiting the weirdness of other characters, but not exactly the discontent of other characters.

And that literally makes for a really fun time when there are kind of these like one-dimensional weird people and this two-dimensional weird person.

And what that leads to is, as I was saying, like my favorite part, my favorite thing that he does is tell these insane, unbelievable, or insanely minute lies to cover up the weird things that he's doing.

Do you have a favorite one of these? Mine is more a big lingering one.

And I don't even know if it's a lie so much as just something he hid but did not need to hide, which is when he finally does get this burner phone to communicate with Mike and he puts it in a water bottle for absolutely no reason.

It's the noisiest water bottle in the world. It just create, I mean, it creates the

like just the hilarious like audio cue every time it goes off that then sets every scene and it's involved in into overdrive.

But it's just like there are things like that that are happening for no conceivable explanation other than it aids the bit. It makes everyone in the scene more on edge.

It forces him to like try to get in and out of conversations where as a boss, like he should be listening to the fact that the people around him are having a tough day or are working through this or that, or maybe he abandoned them to get into a car accident.

And yet he's just got to take that call because this is what drives him. It's so incredibly specific, the humor.

My favorite little, I have so many, but my favorite little lie that he tells is when he is like rooting around under the car, I think to find the pipe that Mike hit him with.

And someone asks him, like, Ron, what are you doing? He says, I dropped a freaking Hershey's hug somewhere. He's like, do they even make Hershey's hugs anymore?

And then he goes on this whole elaborate thing of like, and I'm going to need something sweet later. Like, I packed spaghetti for lunch.
I'm going to need something sweet later.

I got to find this Hershey's hug.

That is a beautiful mind that could be used in many beautiful ways. And the question is, is he using it in the right ways?

When the weird HR guy who keeps hanging around the office later catches him in his new office before he's outfitted it with like Persian rugs and gorgeous, you know, mid-century modern like record cabinets,

he catches him in there with

a full chair on his lap and a screwdriver

upside down on his lap. And he says, What are you doing? And he says,

He says, just call on my mom, relaxing.

Both of those things simultaneously. Just call on my mom, relaxing with this chair in my lap.
I just love him.

It's truly an unhinged show for in exactly that kind of way, and that they're able to replicate it and replicate it. And I agree with you.
There's ways in which your mileage may vary.

There's going to be things that are like a little too weird or not quite your brand of humor. But that office stuff, I think, is so comfortable.

I think the stuff at home is just like a nice place the show can return to as we address.

And if anything, I will say that's the moment I knew this show had me is when Ron is having a heart-to-heart with his daughter, Natalie, and she grabs his phone for a second and seems to be typing into it.

And I honestly reacted, oh no, Natalie is in on it with Tekka. Oh no,

Ron, your poor Jaden Harper.

What is wrong with my brain that this show has convinced me that a shadow chair corporation is guilty of a level of conspiracy? It's all these other perspectives. They treat this man's family.

Honestly, you know, tough but fair. It's like

there's a lot of moles in task. I actually do not begrudge you thinking Natalie might be in on it.

There were so many moles, but ultimately, it was just the well-meaning concern of a daughter who's seeing her dad go off the deep end investigating something that, like, yeah, may be a little corrupt, but ultimately is not corrupt in quite the way he envisioned.

But then, Rob, correct me if I'm wrong. I did get a little lost in the Natalie stuff.

She's ultimately, she is worried about him, but then she she gets pretty into it in a sort of real way

and doesn't want him to stop.

I think she eventually comes around to the idea that he's making some good points, whether it's about pharmaceutical drug smuggling or not.

But it's also like, this is one of the constant themes of this show: is like, what do Ron and his kids kind of have in common? What do they share? What are they doing?

And it's like, you know, it's a daddy-daughter project, ultimately. It's a heartwarming thing where he's just leaving his son to flounder around around failing

for his artistic dreams with an alcohol addiction, like being fully supported. And his snowy man.
Middle-aged man in the basement. That's what I'm saying.

If you as a father don't support your son and his stop motion animation, a surrogate father will.

You know, another middle-aged man will stumble into your home and into your fridge and do that for you. Where does Tara, the maybe-to-be daughter-in-law, fall in terms of side characters?

Because I would say I also had some like least favorite side characters, which again are like in the grotesquerie, are sort of difficult for me.

Like Steven, the guy who is like a big part of like episode four and five, where things really start to get unhinged. He was the guy who did work at Tekka and was working in the nude.

He was kind of... Forgive me if I'm wrong.

It's his mom in the hoarder house that is screaming for popcorn. That's right.
And that was

my red line.

Yeah. I didn't like that.
Could not deal. I didn't like that at all.

That was like a little too, I did like every time, though, that Ron would walk into like a very disgusting house and be like, oh, oh, it's so dirty in here.

Except like he did it in that, in that, in that house. But when he walked into

Mike's house, he was clearly kind of appalled, but like he can ignore it there because Mike is briefly his family. And when Mike goes over to the sink and he's like, ah, there's Barf in here.

And then goes in the refrigerator. It's just, it's so much.
But

yeah, like didn't love, I think like those characters are a little harder for me. But Tara, who is an unlikable character,

oh man, she just cracked me up. And like, that's like so strange, so weird.
Um, who is that actor, Grace Ryder?

It's just so, so funny in that role of having like these really specific,

these really specific things that she bears down on and and like that she knew she wasn't going to be able to get her leg on yellow and twister because she knew her knee would give out, and they made her do it anyway.

And then, even like that her dad is kind of this specific brand of awful, too, where he keeps like testing all the stones, being like, this one's loose, this one's loose, too, also loose, and runs like, stop testing the stones.

He's dissing their dead dog repeatedly for not being well-behaved. She's like, well, if you didn't know him, not great.

You can absolutely see where Tara gets it.

I think the line that Tara had about how she's essentially eating alive pickles that are giving her incredibly vivid dreams, which is like I could just run back on loop.

I think, and she's so important because she is a character who even all of our other insane characters are sort of rolling their eyes at. And they're all saying, God, Tara's the worst, isn't she?

Because of all of these things. And they are right.
And that endears us to these Insanos so much. And yet, ultimately.

I don't know what we know about Tara that she seems incredibly content and happy with her job as a food photographer for Wendy's, I believe. Very rom-com-ass job, if I have ever heard one.

I would love to see more food photographers in movies. I think too many podcasters in movies right now, too many influencers.
Let's get some food photographers in the mix, please.

Well, and like when I was younger, like when I was a teenager, we were all like, I want to be like the person who names OPI nail polish because they all have these like very punny names.

And that's also one where you're like, I want to be the person who like photographs, you know, fast food food. Like, what a

strange job to have. And I'm sure little Rob Mahoney was like, I want to be a podcaster.
I bet you knew about it even back then. I was ahead of the game.

I was just talking into a hairbrush in my bathroom, just being like, here are my NBA takes. Let me tell you about Wilson Chandler.
I love imagining it. But yeah, like we know that she...

is weird, but she is passionate. And what we also know is that that old man in the basement who becomes friends with Seth is her friend who is teaching Seth his new passion, stop motion animation.

Yes. There's like this very like light undercurrent of,

and I mean, this is another thing that I talk about as someone, you know, like who,

and I assume you're the same. I work in my passion.
Like I love writing. That's something I would do anyways.
And I happen to have turned it into a job. And not everyone can do that or should do that.

And it's not exactly like necessarily great to do. It also means that like, I don't have an outside passion, you know, all, it's all right here, baby.

And there is some part of this show that is about that. Like, can you balance living in a capitalist society with having a passion? Can you combine them? Can you balance them?

What can you do to be happy? What I'm hearing is, is a man allowed to have a hobby?

You know, like he's, he's just trying to blow off some steam after work, breaking into various factories and offices. Like, is that so wrong?

And a man is allowed to have a hobby, and that hobby is Reddit. And I think that he could find a real true crime community on there if he just stopped trying to do this all by himself.

He really could. Honestly, if he just translated, there's one scene where Ron, rather than screaming repeatedly, is just typing fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck into his computer.

If he just did that on Reddit instead, I suspect he would get some very well-meaning DMs being like, dude, are you okay? You know? Yeah. And like, I don't want to direct him to Reddit.

I think there's a lot of darkness he could find there, but maybe he could find a community that's like, yeah, bud, let's knock this out. And they get to the bottom of it.

And either there is something there or there isn't, but he doesn't have to feel so isolated.

And he doesn't have to get wrapped up with Mike, who I'm still holding out hope could be okay, except for that whole try to kiss his heart daughter thing. Yeah.

What is it that makes you think he could be okay?

I just, it was really sweet how he gave Seth the Kong and how he wanted to.

Oh man, but so many of the things I thought were endearing are really recolored by that reveal because there's a moment where we see Ron observing a save the date that's still on his refrigerator.

And what I now know is that was the save the date for, and it was kind of like, oh, this man's been invited to like one wedding and it really means something to him. His desire for.

relating to other humans, his desire for companionship is very endearing and is very compelling.

It seems that he is not capable of going about getting those things or showing interest in those things in a healthy way. I don't feel great admitting this, but I started to find it very endearing.

The way he was always so enraptured by women's beauty. There were like several different moments where like when he saw all the headshots,

where he was like, oh, she's gorgeous. She couldn't be a part of this.
She's gorgeous.

And then when they start seeing all the like like photos in the games, he's like, Ron, you got to look at these girls. They're gorgeous.

And I just, I thought that like his blanket, like finding of beauty was kind of lovely. And now I feel differently about that.
I mean, is he still an ally? Question mark.

I don't know.

Do you think he ever watched a version of the Christmas Carol that wasn't the porn? I really hope so.

I really hope that's now where he's getting his like Dickensian information about the story structure there.

But maybe

there's more going on in the porn parody than we've been led to believe. Well, you know, he mostly just listens.

But that one he won't.

He mostly does just listen. But yes, I think ultimately that juggle and balancing act of like, Mike is the guy who chases Ron down in a parking lot and beats him in the head with a pipe.

And then we come to really feel for that guy and bond with that character. And then you are forced to reconsider everything he's ever said.
and every detail and every story.

He had that story about how his ex-wife had been like feeding him sexual stamina pills that made him smell like a duck.

And I'm like, and then she'd get mad at him for smelling like a duck and he'd say, it's the bills. It was the pills.
Was any of that true? Was anything Mike ever told us ever true?

I just feel so betrayed. I think it's his version of true.

Rob, I also think that like legally doing this chair company podcast, if we don't talk about in terms of our favorite random side characters,

the man at the shirt store

who keeps saying it, because it made me think of it, chasing down. I mean, I can't believe that happened in the first episode, chasing him down with the pole.

So then Ron gets his shirt because any good con man knows if a guy's coming for you and you're wearing a shirt sleeve button down, you unbutton that shirt, he's going to grab the shirt, he can't get you.

When he takes, when he back,

puts the pictures into his phone with the tap, backtracks the pictures,

finds out where that shirt was bought, arrives at the shirt store.

I have like never seen a more immediately compelling performance than that man at the shirt store who's like, Oh, yeah, he's at his limit. I know a guy who's at his limit.

I was like, Where did they find this

alien? Like, if I just looked at those lines on a page, they would be so normal.

And these absolute strangeness. I was the week that episode came out, I was quoting that all weekend long.
Oh, yeah, he's at his limit. Look at these buttons.
You see these buttons?

And he puts it over the ball. Was dead.
I don't know how they turn these people up for all of these shows, for everything Tim Robinson does. And this is sort of the peril, right?

If the friendship version of the dynamic is like Paul Rudd is the normal guy, and then Tim Robinson is coming in as just like something very of a different universe.

If you make Tim Robinson the normal guy, anyone by comparison has to be just completely off the deep end, bizarre in their delivery, in their acting, in their makeup styling.

Like the guy who turned out to be Amanda's boyfriend, who was de-masked at the end, I don't know what they did with his makeup, but it was truly terrifying.

And that's one of those things where it's like, we have done this physical beat and it will not be explained. Nope.
Maybe

he was going to take off a second mask, but he's just Amanda's boyfriend. And he seems to have gone to Dr.
Miami and had a few tweaks. He had that Canton, Ohio, Dr.
Miami experience, Dr. Ohio, Dr.

Canton.

Yes, I mean, his assistant, who is just

so, like, and so delightful and so pleasant, and he just hates her.

Glow Tabara's, like, just so funny.

And when she says, like, I went to a new church this morning and I want you to come with me. Every, like, the, the, the lines get colored in so quickly.

It is a really, it's an efficient use of time and energy. And again, the mind goes back to like, how do you do

a long distance run with a series of sprints? I don't know.

And I'm like, do I want completely new strange side characters? I don't know if the lady with metal in her body, I don't know if I need to find out more about, I do need more Douglas.

I'll, I'll tell you that much. I mean, he just wants to have a good time.
Like he just wants to have the mistakes party. He wants to dress like a chicken sometimes.

Like he seems to be supportive of mostly everyone around him.

He wants you to know that even though he wasn't able to choose the food he got out of the freezer when he was trapped under the refrigerator, which is clearly sort of a stressor point, like the way that Douglas victimizes himself, I find so fascinating.

Like he actually is a victim from having been trapped under a refrigerator, but the thing he finds most offensive is that he couldn't choose his food. But, but he does.

Are you telling me that wouldn't be horrible? That would be awful if you didn't get to choose your food out of the freezer.

I think it would be awful to be trapped under the refrigerator, but I don't know. And then he becomes so obsessed with like ADA compliance, which, you know, well, he should be, but his,

that was a, that was like a perfect example of using a perfect strange character, like just the right amount. Oh, yeah.

And in, in that kind of modulation, I do understand how you can fill out the office with enough of these performers who just give it a very distinct look and feel.

I think Joseph Tudisco, who plays Mike, I mean, it's basically like a two-hander of a season, ultimately. It's a buddy cop dynamic that they've created.

And I say stumbled into, but this show is so deliberate.

That performance to me is on another level that you can get that much screen time and usage and laughs and terror out of an actor that people have probably never seen before outside of like being a random bus driver or delivery man on Blue Bloods.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I saw someone note this on Twitter.
Like, it's not my original observation, but when you look at his IMDb page, it is like cleaner, delivery man, bus driver, taxi driver.

And those are all, I'm sure, I bet you anything that he brought a lot of color to those small roles too, because he jumps off the screen.

But like, to get to watch him in this extended format, in this, and I wonder what his, you know, what character background work he did,

if he all, if he believes this man to ultimately be like capable of

goodness, or if he does see him as a madman. I am so curious to see what season two looks like and feels like.

As you said, like the legs on this thing are so hard to anticipate what our like appetite for exactly this kind of comedy and exactly the sort of cadence is going to be.

I do feel like the formula, though, is sort of infinitely repeatable.

You go to Canton, you go to Delaware City, like there's always a new place you could just pop up in and find more of these people and these characters.

But in that case, like, is the main is Ron the same, or do you well? He seems in like changed forever by his experience in the first season.

I guess I mean, it's like, is Tim Robinson Ron in the second season, or is this like you know, an anthology series,

or do we take Ron to his limit? Like, he's already there. The buttons are busting.

And now is next season about

Amanda's telekinesis.

I believe that that,

that that really could be pulled off.

But I also, I'm just like, I'm not sure what I want. I think I want to go into season two with a yellow bracelet, like

open to making mistakes, but maybe not looking to make mistakes. I think that's the right mentality.
And if you watched the the season and enjoyed it, email us at prestigetv at spotify.com.

If you do have like a specific idea of what you want from this show, I like I find the mystery of it and just like being like blindsided by a lead pipe every episode to be the joy of watching it.

But I'm curious if people have a different experience, Jodi. Maybe there is a viewer of the chair company that's like, I need to see Tim Robinson do X.
Yeah. And I'm curious if there are people

who love

I Think You Should Leave, who this didn't didn't work for, like who didn't, who didn't enjoy the serialized format. And in that case, what it was, because it really did work so well.

And I like, I really cherish having both things, you know, like getting,

getting to do, getting to see what Tim Robinson does with. some time on his hands and the ability to like, you know, forge a family structure.
And,

you know, I just, I really, yeah, like that's, I'm realizing now that it's a pun, but that is the word that came to mind as I really cherished this season. Look at that.

I think we just wrote the headline of this episode. Thank you so much, Jody, for that.
Once again, I love it and I hate it.

This is who we are at this point.

Is there anything else about this season of this finale you want to shout out? You want to recall your favorite bits that we didn't get to recount in glorious details?

Or anything else that comes to mind for you? I think

the look

in Joseph Tudesco's eyes when he grabs the steering wheel to pull a little prank on Ron is like one of the funniest things I've seen on television this year.

Just like that he, it's all, you also have to imagine it's a light nod to the steering wheel flying off from I Think You Should Leave. Yes.
What if the steering wheel just flies off?

I'm trying to think if there were any other side quests. That also feels a light nod to the show itself.
Like the show feels like literally anyone could grab the steering wheel at any time or

it's like it's a prank. It's a joke.
It's not like it's

not insidious. Or is it?

Or is this guy a monster? I think it's all a little insidious at the end of the day. Unless it is wholesome family time or just office mates looking out for each other.

Everything out there in the world is scary. Like you just don't know when a guy is going to stumble into your garage and just slowly knock over a cardboard box because he has the power to do it.

The small man showing back up, LT, I think, later, to ask Ron for a job at the professor's office where he works. Just so good.
The woman at the,

I'm just naming people now, but the woman at like the county clerk's office or whatever, where he, I love all those misdirects where he thinks like, oh, Douglas isn't there because he got him in trouble, but actually he was trapped under a refrigerator eating foods that he only kind of wanted.

When he thinks that he got that clerk in trouble because he was asking for this particular deed, but actually her boss was telling her that she needed to go home and take a shower because she smells bad.

And then it becomes like increasingly pressing that she leave to take a shower.

I really felt for her. I did too.
Again, instant empathy for that character. And she appreciated having Ron in that moment, who like was a place of sympathy.

And he says, like, your boss really shouldn't talk to you that way when he has been out there just leading his employees into car wrecks and then abandoning them and then gaslighting them about it.

And I just, that is the stressor of the show is that like he really, he is,

Rob, he is capable of greatness. He was a really good.

Which part of that is greatness, Dean? Not that part. The part before where Jamie loved him, like he was a good boss.
He was a really good

dad.

and he can still be those things but the greatness that he is seeking is not the greatness that he is capable of i think this is the problem with the greatness in all of us you know that same ambition that is reaching for the shovel to build the mall that will define our legacy is the same hand that reaches for the last half of the deviled egg when we know that it's not good for us and yet like what are we what are we to do but reach for it

so i wonder if you had any moment in this season of tele of insane television where you recognized yourself in it.

I don't think there is a lightness in you that I don't think that you could have, but the way that he got about the, about that devil net being taken from him and then taking it home, I saw myself in that moment.

Jodi doesn't waste food and it's, I'll eat it. I will eat it.
I'll eat it if it's just a defiant practice and it will ideally not make me sick in an abandoned warehouse with a big ball in it. But

I like, and also, I also loved, I mean, that's the opening scene of the show, right? Is where is

Lake Bell attempting to give that toast and the waitress is hovering around and it starts distracting him so much that he just can't take it.

And he interrupts the toast to say, like, do you need something?

And then she does, which is like to express admiration for his son, but it completely derails the dinner in the way that, you know, this chair breaking completely derails his life. And it also,

I don't don't know if it's a nod to this, but I appreciated the light insight into Tim Robinson, who a clip that sort of like goes viral on TikTok pretty often is him on the Seth Meyers show talking about a time that they were at dinner and a waiter told a joke that he didn't find funny.

And it was like lightly at his expense about being a vegetarian. And the whole table of like Seth Meyers and like comedy writers laughed a lot.

And Seth Meyers is like, and you didn't think that joke was funny. And he was like, no, it wasn't funny.

I don't know why you laughed like it it wasn't a great it wasn't an impressive joke and Thinking about the push and pull that someone like that might have

With someone who is briefly allowed to enter their life in an intimate way. Yes

I just thought was a great way to kick off the show

It is it's a masterful first episode and I like I think for what this show is They didn't land the plane in the finale because they basically, if not crashed it, like flew it into the Bermuda Triangle or something.

Like it's going into a totally different place. They did a yellow jackets.
Like it's just, it's crash landed and there are survivors and we'll see who eats who next. That's exactly what I want to see.

And I'm thrilled to be along for that particular ride. I'm thrilled to do this pod with you, Jody.
Thank you so much for doing this.

Where can people find you other than teaching the life of the party class? Oh, well, and actually I will go ahead and tell you up front that it's kind of a scam.

And you'll never get to level six because you're too dumb. But other than teaching life of the party class, you can find me co-hosting We're Obsessed with Nora Princiati on the Ring Your Dish feed.

And right now, you can find my very special holiday podcast breaking down honestly like a similar level of insanity of the, you know, 100 plus original holiday movies that come out every holiday season on a little podcast called Binge Miss, also on the Ring Your Dish feed, where you can find Rob, you can find Joanna, you can find so many other amazing ringer friends.

and it's just so fun. Would you say any of those Christmas movies of this year's lot have approached the level of darkness of the chair company? Is there a sinister underbelly to any of them?

Oh, we did. I feel like

Kate Halliwell and I talked about

Merry Little X-Mas on Netflix, and that is really like about

the dissolution of heterosexual monogamy and marriage in our current society, ultimately. And so that's pretty dark.

Next week coming up on Binge Miss is Time Travel Week,

both films about time travel.

And I think if you'd like to see Charles Holmes spin into a level of darkness, that would probably be where.

Honestly, one of my great hobbies is watching Charles slowly devolve into Robinsonian fashion. So I look forward to that.
I'm going to be back here on this feed with Joanna a few times this week.

We have our usual Pluribus coverage coming up later.

We're going to be around to talk about a few of the greatest TV episodes of the century as part of our coverage here at theringer.com of the great TV episodes since the year 2000. So stick around.

We'll be right back.