“The Chair Company,” premiering Sunday on HBO, is a conspiracy comedy (dark comedy, one would definitely say) in which Tim Robinson falls down a rabbit hole, from one carrot to the next, after a chair collapses beneath him. It is a thriller in its own way; There will be suspense, injuries and a lot of screaming, mainly from the star.
Robinson, who co-created the series with Zach Kanin (who also co-created Robinson's Netflix sketch show, “I Think You Should Leave”), is a difficult hero. His main gimmick is the madman beneath a cracked veneer of civilization; Physically, he projects a kind of eccentric normality, as a critique of the normal. From the beginning of “The Chair Company,” we see that Robinson's Ron Trosper is tense and nervous and unable to relax, arguing with a waitress about what is and isn't a mall; has been named to lead the development of a new one in Canton, Ohio. (All action takes place in the state).
A presentation he dreaded goes well, but when he sits back down, his chair, a standard office model, collapses beneath him, robbing him of a moment of triumph. What most would do with a prank makes Ron nervous and he begins an obsessive search to locate the manufacturer. But all he can think of are dead ends and empty offices, and he begins to suspect a conspiracy. When, upon getting into his car, he is hit over the head with a pipe and told to stop asking about the chair, it only makes him more determined to discover it. Stalking, sneaking and stealing will ensue. Reckless behavior. Shouting.
Along with some standard office comedy involving HR reports and Ron's “I know it when I see it” boss (Lou Diamond Phillips, aging gracefully), there's a family element. Wife Barb (Lake Bell) moves forward with her plans to develop a more attractive breast pump. Daughter Natalie (Sophia Lillis) is getting married to her girlfriend and wants to change the venue at the last minute to a haunted house. Son Seth (Will Price), a basketball player apparently talented enough to be mentioned in the series, has discovered the joys of drinking just as the recruiters show up. It's not a developed thread, but it gives Price a chance to say my favorite line in the series: “Some nights I have like four beers and I sit in my room and put on Abbott and Costello after I've had a couple; it makes me feel good knowing that [these] “Two boys found each other because they both seem very different.” Which is a theme of the program.
The character that makes the series breathe is Mike Santini (Joseph Tudisco), the person who wields the pipe. Ron will track him down and they will eventually become partners in his investigation and, in a way, friends. (Although Ron isn't always friendly.) Mike is the series' most original conception and, in a strange way, its heart: someone who goes from accepting money from a stranger to hitting another stranger over the head, but who is understanding. Lonely, he longs for connection. Ron, for his part, is always running away from his family to join Mike on some misadventure.
Robinson, the rare “Saturday Night Live” worker who went from actor to writer, is quite adept at playing this character, making Ron exhausting company; it takes a certain kind of resilience, or love for this particular kind of chaos, to endure it. It sometimes seems implausible that he has successfully helped raise two rational children, one to adulthood; has achieved an upper-middle class life (with Lake Bell!); and holds a position of creative responsibility. There are difficult comic characters that you are nevertheless happy to see: Larry David, because he is very focused on his world and is basically right, Lucille Ball because she is a genius. But Ron spends so much time on DEFCON 1, clocked after 11, that it can be unpleasant and suffocate the human being inside him.
However, like any mystery, it drags you waiting for answers. Seven episodes out of eight were given to critics; the seventh ends on what feels like a note of quiet irresolution, if not, in Ron's mind, satisfaction. But the eighth surely won't let things rest, and you can be sure (and you may need the rest) that eight is not the end.
