Tim Robinson is the comedic equivalent of cilantro: His onscreen persona — a fully committed, physical embodiment of social unease — either resonates with you or, on some fundamental, perhaps genetic level, it simply cannot. I’ve historically found myself in the latter group, but have admired how the performer has gradually built a cult following while only becoming more himself, however polarizing that oeuvre may be.
Robinson lasted a single season as a featured player on “Saturday Night Live” before transitioning to the writers’ room, a highly unusual trajectory within that storied institution. That’s where the native Midwesterner met his now-creative partner Zach Kanin; together with Joe Kelly and Robinson’s co-star Sam Richardson, the duo created “Detroiters,” a showcase for the sweeter, sillier side of Robinson’s childlike demeanor. (His work has no use for a finely written joke where a nonverbal exclamation will do, which is not at all the same as being imprecise.) But it was the Netflix sketch show “I Think You Should Leave” that really distilled the Robinson ethos: a procession of deeply earnest, maladjusted people prone to crudely phrased but instantly sticky proclamations like “I don’t know what any of this shit is, and I’m scared!” The comic is such a dominant and distinctive presence that this year’s A24 film “Friendship,” though written and directed by Andrew DeYoung, was rightfully received as a Tim Robinson Movie with a capital M.
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Robinson has now re-teamed with both Kanin and DeYoung for “The Chair Company,” a half-hour comedy that officially inducts Robinson into HBO’s roster of auteurs. (Kanin is credited as Robinson’s co-creator, while DeYoung executive produces and shares directing duties with Aaron Schimberg of last year’s superb “A Different Man.”) Robinson’s closest peer at the network is Nathan Fielder, a fellow bard of anxiety who deploys cringe with a masterful and unsparing hand. “The Chair Company” is to Robinson what “The Rehearsal” is to Fielder: a chance to realize an already refined vision on a much bigger canvas. Like “The Rehearsal,” it’s unlikely to win Robinson any new converts — but those already on board will be more than happy enough to make up for it.
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The plot of “The Chair Company” is both minimal and besides the point. Robinson’s humble family man Ron Trosper has a negative encounter with an office chair while working at a mall development company. (HBO has asked that I keep the details of the encounter to myself, making the already bare-bones setup even more skeletal on the page.) The sting of public humiliation sends Ron down a conspiratorial rabbit hole as he launches an amateur investigation of the chair’s manufacturer, a company by the perfectly generic name of Tecca. Robinson and Kanin have a gift for exquisitely banal-yet-somehow-off-kilter monikers, and “The Chair Company” is chock-full of them: Bahld Harmon. Greg Braccon. Oliver Probblo. You’ll repeat them to yourself like an incantation.
What distinguishes “The Chair Company” from prior Robinson projects, and what allows the show to sustain a narrative over eight episodes rather than a succession of quick clips or a compact feature film, is that Ron is not alone in his eccentricity or skewed logic. Until now, the typical Robinson concept pits a single bomb-thrower — not always him; recall Vanessa Bayer slopping down some pig shit with these fat fucks — against a crowd of straight men. But in “The Chair Company,” Ron meets his match in many forms: a shirt salesman who insists on using a basketball to show how a belly strains on buttons; a man with a mysterious, unexplained dent in his head; a co-worker who “can’t stop thinking there’s metal in my body.” This whole fictional world vibrates on Robinson’s bizarre frequency, which means Ron may just be onto something.
Robinson still sets the tone, of course. He screams in wordless anger and confusion, contorts his face in befuddlement or wide-eyed wonder and coins phrases like “grab-ass parlor.” This way of being is just reflected back at Ron. Robinson’s unpredictable line reads elevate even ordinary dialogue — “That’s. REALLY. Bizarre.” — into the unsettling, but they’re one-upped by scene partners like Alberto Isaac, an alumnus of “I Think You Should Leave” who’s totally internalized the Robinson-Kanin rhythm. (Apart from Lou Diamond Phillips playing Ron’s boss, “The Chair Company” features few broadly recognizable actors, instead opting for a more immersive approach. To many, Ruben Rabasa is the steering wheel guy, an effect reproduced at scale here.) “This is a COKE BAR!” Isaac’s Oliver shouts of his typical watering hole. “Everyone here is a COKE HEAD!” The context matters less than the indelible delivery. It’s the “normal” types, like Ron’s wife Barb (Lake Bell), daughter Natalie (Sophia Lillis) and son Seth (Will Price), who seem out of place.
Few comparison points are more overused than that of the late director David Lynch, but he’s the obvious antecedent for how “The Chair Company” coaxes out the sinister undertones of everyday settings like a fluorescent-lit office or single family suburbia. In a media ecosystem awash in thinkpieces about men in crisis, Robinson plays men driven to babbling incoherence trying to decipher the unspoken codes of modern life; it’s implied Ron is searching for a sense of purpose and feeling emasculated while Barb’s small business takes off. (She’s trying to attract investors for a redesigned breast pump. Ron’s own off-road Jeep touring company didn’t do so well.) In “The Chair Company,” he and Kanin have populated an entire show with versions of the archetype. It’s not the most relaxing watch, but if you’re looking to Tim Robinson for a chill evening on the couch, you’ve already made a mistake.
“The Chair Company” will premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Oct. 12 at 10 p.m. ET, with subsequent episodes airing weekly on Sundays.