How long can you hold on to the sense that you’ve been wronged? And how long should you live with that feeling? Tim Robinson, Zach Kanin, and a murderers’ row of former Saturday Night Live writers have been juggling the answers to those two questions for a whole season of The Chair Company. No matter how many blind alleys and bizarre hallways Ron Trosper wanders down, what’s at the heart of that wandering is an incident (or maybe even incidents) a healthier person wouldn’t have given a second thought. And with the season finale, “Minnie Mouse Coming Back Wasn’t On My Bingo Card,” in the rear view, it’s evident that the inability to move on is key to making this an ongoing series.
You might’ve guessed that from the start. At the risk of repeating myself: Absurd obstinance drives most of Robinson and Kanin’s work together. What continues to impress me is all the different ways they’ve found to express it—in “Minnie Mouse,” Ron isn’t the only one who can’t let sleeping dogs lie. In the crinkle of Lou Diamond Phillips’ eyes and the preposterousness of HR-reviewed footage of RC enthusiasts, we see Jeff trapped in his own cycle of feeling humiliated and wanting retribution. In the shocking violence that makes up our introduction and farewell(?) to Jeff’s gloriously named buddy Stacy Crystals, we see The Chair Company’s youngest example of a grudge held so tightly that it bursts all over the scenery. And in the final seconds of the episode, in a scene that explains everything and nothing at all, there is the decades-long perceived slight that set this strange, scintillating series of events into motion.
If we are to believe the cosmetically baby-faced man behind the Jason mask, it was all Amanda. The co-worker who once appeared to be collateral damage amid the wreckage of the chair is the supposed mastermind of the whole affair. And if we really, really want to take this weirdo at his word—and he’s certainly yelling loud enough to be sincere—she did it with her mind, as revenge for something Ron forgot long ago.
It’s a genuinely surprising turn of events from a show that’s hardly ever tipped its hand. Earlier in the finale, I could’ve sworn we were going to find out Douglas was behind Ron’s downfall: He makes such swift and punitive moves to usurp Ron’s authority over Canton Marketplace—and the chair he’s using to get around (for as long as he wants to) could’ve been a fiendish way of rubbing Ron’s nose in his defeat. But as is so often the case with The Chair Company, the truth (as far as we understand it right now) is way weirder.
If it sounds like I’m hedging it’s because a) I am, b) the Jason guy’s story of the spat gummy bear and Amanda’s cleavage could be wiped out in the first few seconds of season two, and c) it was only a week ago that we were told Barb’s investor Alice was the one pulling all the strings. Keeping us on our toes with so many frequent reversals could grow tiring after a while, and a Chair Company where no character can be trusted to tell the truth would eventually undermine the storytelling reinforcing all of the jokes.
But if Robinson and Kanin wanted to transmit some of Ron’s paranoia to us, then that scene with Lynette sure did the trick. As she unspooled the unbelievable yarn of Mike claiming that he was her father (and then worse) because her real father’s heart is in his chest, I laughed at the guy’s oblivious depravity—but I also thought, “Doesn’t it help the conspiracy to isolate Ron further?” Sure, the guy chained up in Mike’s bathroom (is he the same one who was bugging the mayor about his hot tub last week?) proves that we don’t know Mike as well as we thought we did. But we don’t really know Lynette either.
The Chair Company getting back in touch with its Blue Velvet/Mulholland Drive/Lost Highway side gives us some reason to believe Jason, though. How else do you justify that incredible vampire-face jump scare from Baby’s real owner? I guess you could chalk it up to Ron taking a few more blows to the head in “Minnie Mouse,” but I think that would limit how far the show could expand its supernatural horizons in season two. Besides: The Chair Company is just too good at building eerie atmosphere to give up on that type of thing. The way the camera trails Ron into the dog owner’s garage, the dog owner’s “new shape”—the command of these Lynchian tools makes The Chair Company what it is.
Just look at the scene where Ron gets a drink with Jeff and his friend Grego. It pulses with the Fisher Robay guys’ complementary and contrasting pathologies, but the real electricity is in Grego’s too-intensely-friendly-not-to-be-sinister vibe. (The lighting on the set amplifies that impression, too.) It delivers on laughs and plot—both thanks to Jeff’s dabbling in yacht rock and other forms of jingle-ready smooth music—but also underlines an important quality of this season and this show: There are all kinds of Gregos, Minnie Mouse owners, and Stacy Crystalses lurking in the shadows just beyond Ron’s comfort zones. If he were capable of leaving well enough alone, he would’ve never met any of them.
But he’s past the point of no return now. He has seen things he can’t unsee and heard things he can’t unhear, and they’re playing on a loop in his head in “Minnie Mouse.” Tim Robinson does remarkable work showing Ron’s true feelings in the finale, his face and voice betraying every declaration that he’s done looking into Tecca. So much of his dialogue this week involves talking around the specifics of what he’s been up to, but his tones and expression can’t conceal the fact that he really, really wants to. If only to wow his family or his former boss and his former boss’ pushy friend. If only to claim Barb’s win as his own.
How satisfying the material for Barb and the kids is this week is appropriately reflective of Ron’s self-destructive yearning for something beyond what Jeff mockingly calls his “nice, simple life.” The investigation may have cost Natalie her relationship, but it’s hard to be too broken up about it because Tara seems kind of mean and dismissive and she’s stinking up their apartment with all that fast-food meat. Seth’s inner turmoil is given a legitimate explanation, but it also boils down to a silly punchline about a hidden passion for stop-motion animation. (“Like Rudolph?” “They’re not all Christmas.”) The Trospers are a helpful grounding force for the show, but season one’s most obvious struggles are wrapped up in their storylines.
It does feel important that both kids got out of unfulfilling situations before they wound up like their old man, though. Between Ron and Jeff, there’s more than enough of that sort of feeling to go around. For the former, it’s put him in the crosshairs of multiple, unpredictable adversaries. Stacy Crystals may have been in the business of ruining nice, simple lives, but the simmering rage in Lou Diamond Phillips’ face and Ron’s documented dominance of the CEO paints Jeff as the scarier of the secret Tecca honchos. Mike’s already going to extremes to avoid a Scrooge-like fate; for all we know, Amanda could scan Ron’s head clean off.
It’s the sign of a good season finale that “Minnie Mouse” has us anticipating any of these outcomes. It’s a sign of the volatile, deranging effects of holding a grudge for days, weeks, or even years that The Chair Company has at least another season of surreal comedy and real thrills in it.
Stray observations
- • Is The Chair Company the show that’s made the best use of yacht rock since the webseries that gave the fake genre its name? I feel like I could write a whole essay (with an expected audience of zero people) about how the middle-aged regrets and fools’ laments couched within the slick professionalism and gentle grooves of recordings like “Ride Like The Wind” (93.75 out of 100 on the Yacht Rock guys’ proprietary Yachtski scale) and “How Much I Feel” (Yachtski score: 60) are a perfect match for the dissatisfaction and loneliness of Ron, Mike, Jeff, and company. And the music department is digging deep into the gunwales of the boat, too: Jeff’s karaoke pick this week is Bill LaBounty’s “Livin’ It Up” (Yachtski score: 87.75), a Doobie-bouncing, David Sanborn-sax-honking number penned by LaBounty and the prolific songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
- • This week’s I Think You Should Leave parallels: Stacy Crystals seems to be running the same scam as Robbie Star at Super Star Tracks Records, and the voice Ron puts on to tease Seth about throwing away the little plastic hat is a match for the Edward G. Robinson (no relation) impression Tim Robinson does at the end of the Stanzo fedoras sketch. (“Hey, who took my cigars?”)
- • I’ve been thinking of Jeff saying “Could you please not lean on my wall? This is an office” all season, so I love that that seemingly throwaway line wound up being a clue to Jeff’s involvement with Tecca.
- • If the guy at Mike’s is the hot tub guy from last week, then it’s grimly funny that he’s trapped in a bathtub.
- • If I’m reading everything correctly, Alice is involved with the chair conspiracy, just not on the Tecca or “embarrassing Ron” end of things. What a tangled web this show weaves!
- • That does it for The A.V. Club’s coverage of The Chair Company’s first season. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I just smoked 10 cigars, so I’m going to go take a long sit down and chat with my new friend Stacy Crystals. He says I have what it takes to be a professional songwriter! He knows people in the movies!
