I have been excited for HBO’s The Chair Company since the millisecond that it was first announced. After delivering countless laughs and literally rewriting my vocabulary with I Think You Should Leave, I would follow creators Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin to the ends of the Earth, at this point.
As of Sunday, The Chair Company‘s first season has officially come to a close, in ways that the viewing audience never could have even imagined. The show stars Robinson as Ron Trosper, a businessman who begins to investigate a massive and bizarre conspiracy after his office chair falls apart underneath him during an important presentation at work.
If that logline didn’t make it clear enough: The Chair Company is one of those shows that, in a lot of ways, defies explanation. It delivers great jokes at such a rapid pace, I know I’m not going to fully appreciate some until I rewatch the show. There are certain images that are burned into my brain. If I tried to get too far into the weeds of recapping this season, I would sound like I’m describing New York’s hottest club or recounting how my father got a job at the Palm Restaurant. But this Season 1 finale did reveal a lot… which we can look at in a new way, now that HBO has already confirmed that the show is returning for a second season.
***Spoilers for Season 1 of The Chair Company below!***
Wendy’s launching a new upscale ham restaurant wasn’t just a brilliant joke from earlier in the season: it led to a genuine rift between Ron’s daughter Natalie (Sophia Lillis) and her fiance Tara (Grace Reiter). Ron’s investigation buddy and almost surrogate brother Mike Santini (Joseph Tudisco) might not be trustworthy: he apparently crossed multiple lines with the family of his heart transplant donor (to the point of receiving a restraining order), and he has the annoying hot tub man from the previous episode chained up in his bathroom.
Who is behind Tecca?
Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips) is not just a great singer: he’s the voice of the Red Ball Market Global jingle that Ron heard hundreds of times while on hold earlier this season. This is enough to push Ron to learn that Jeff is one of the actual people behind Red Ball and Tecca, alongside the perfectly-named new character Stacy Crystals. We met Stacy in the finale’s opening scene, when he tried to convince the inebriated father of the bride at a wedding that he could be a music superstar (hopefully he has a better track record than Robbie Star at Superstar Tracks Records). Just minutes later, Stacy is then shot and killed (via what appears to be a 3D-printed shotgun) by a young boy who blames Stacy for ruining his dad’s life… although we have no idea if that was another Ron-esque situation, or just scamming him into music.
Just when it seemed like Ron had figured out the truth behind the conspiracy, things got even weirder: the masked man who has been antagonizing him all season actually has nothing to do with Tecca, and is the boyfriend of Ron’s coworker and former high school classmate Amanda (Amelia Campbell). Across Season 1, Ron’s fall out of the chair started a sexual harassment investigation at work, after Amanda alleged that he intentionally saw up her skirt. But in these final moments, Amanda’s boyfriend suggests something else entirely: that she has telekinetic powers and intentionally caused the chair to break. The season ends with a freeze frame on Ron’s face, just as baffled as the rest of us are.
Will Season 2 head into a sci-fi, Twilight Zone-esque territory, or is Amanda’s boyfriend just delusional? What are Jeff and Stacy trying to do with Red Ball and Tecca, and how does the Canton mall project fit into it? How does Alice Quintana fit into all of this? And will someone save Ron’s chocolate-eating family dog, Baby, from the allegedly horrible house she came from?
One of the joys of The Chair Company has been leaving any and all expectations at the door. The show can defy logic and the bounds of reality on a scene-by-scene basis, while still bringing us characters and a central mystery that does start to make sense, even as it gets weirder and weirder. Attempting to make heads or tails of the revelations in this finale feels futile, because I just know that Robinson, Kanin, and company are going to craft something even more unexpected. I just know one thing: I need Season 2 immediately.
(featured image: HBO)
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