![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/5470f1744d7270594649b7b64d602c9da4-tim-robinson-6.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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The Chair Company<\/a><\/p>\n New Blood. There\u2019s 5 Rons Now.<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 2\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Sarah Shatz\/HBO\n <\/p>\n Oh yeah, that\u2019s the stuff. The Chair Company was delightfully absurd from the beginning, but the bizarrely named \u201cNew Blood. There\u2019s 5 Rons Now\u201d is possibly weirder, funnier, and scarier than last week\u2019s premiere<\/a>. Now that the \u201cpremise\u201d of the show is established, Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin have space to really play around with the show\u2019s nightmare logic. I\u2019m already excited for next week.<\/p>\n There is still a storyline here; in fact, there are several ongoing threads, and I\u2019m sensing that some seemingly throwaway scenes and interactions might remain relevant much later in the season. Broadly speaking, the plot follows a man who thinks he has discovered some sort of criminal conspiracy related to a chair company, then starts to lose control of his life as he travels deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. That\u2019s easy to get our heads around, even if some of the detours aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n At the beginning of the episode, Ron is still paranoid following that inexplicable run-in with the apparent Tecca enforcer. To be fair, it\u2019s hard not to panic a little when you get a text from your wife like, \u201cOh my god, come home now!\u201d It turns out the issue is less dangerous and more domestic: Natalie wants to change her wedding venue at the last minute and hopes Ron can convince her fianc\u00e9e\u2019s dad to get on board.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll return to that at the end of the episode, but Ron and The Chair Company have bigger concerns for the time being. At work, he gets started on the next stage of his investigation: tracking down his attacker using the floral shirt and baton he left behind. After ordering an expensive fingerprint dust kit for same-day delivery, he heads to the store where the shirt was bought. Unfortunately, because he also has a big TV interview today about the mall, Jamie is following closely behind in her own car. So he exploits her bad driving to lose her, action-chase-style. She almost gets hit by a big truck when Ron runs a red light, and he can hear her screaming and sobbing as he semi-guiltily drives away.<\/p>\n What makes The Chair Company unique isn\u2019t the plot itself, but how things go down. Take the shirt salesman, whose deliberate enunciations sound vaguely alien, almost Lanthimos-esque. He seems to recognize the shirt when Ron asks him about its buyer, pointing out the dirt stains and using a red ball to pantomime a belly \u201cpushing up into the buttons\u201d and depict a man who is \u201cat his limit.\u201d Of course, the salesman doesn\u2019t actually remember the guy. It\u2019s all a ploy to get Ron to sign up for another expensive membership, a choice that haunts him later in the episode when he gets rapid-fire notifications with irrelevant news from other members.<\/p>\n The interview itself goes fine, because you can never predict what will specifically go wrong on this show. Ron even offers a genuine apology to Jamie, who then extends an invitation to church and gets nothing in return. More concerning is the HR rep who keeps prodding Ron even though she knows the skirt incident with Amanda was an accident. The peeping tom educational video is funny, but I\u2019m especially tickled by the rep\u2019s oddly phrased questions (\u201cAny kissing or sex?\u201d) and Ron\u2019s over-the-top way of denying that he\u2019d ever be attracted to Amanda. You can\u2019t really blame HR for raising an eyebrow at his claim that she \u201clooked completely different\u201d in high school.<\/p>\n Returning to the investigation, Ron makes a big jump that turns out to be \u2026 completely correct. The dirtied shirt of the peeping tom in the video reminds him of his attacker\u2019s dirty shirt, leading Ron to find the man\u2019s hiding spot outside the office. There\u2019s a food container sitting there from Jan\u2019s Caf\u00e9, a chaotic Waffle House-esque diner where Ron\u2019s attacker works security.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s where the attacker, whose name is Mike Santini, goes from Ron\u2019s biggest threat to his only true ally. It\u2019d be so easy if this guy were a Tecca enforcer, threatening Ron to protect the company from a scandal, but it turns out someone anonymously hired him to scare Ron. He\u2019s just as clueless about the true nature of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n It seems extremely possible at this point that Ron is totally off the mark about the company hurting people, that this whole investigation will lead nowhere, or at least lead somewhere completely different from what he expected. Or maybe Ron is completely right, but nobody will believe him because he\u2019s acting so crazy. Or maybe he will be vindicated. I really have no idea, and that\u2019s a fun place to be.<\/p>\n Either way, it\u2019s clear that The Chair Company is a character study as much as an actual twisty conspiracy thriller. It seems important that Jamie sees both a darkness and a light in Ron; he\u2019s usually a good dad and a good boss, but there\u2019s something darker waiting to come out, especially if anyone comes between him and his family. It\u2019s hard to know how to take some of Ron\u2019s explosions of rage and\/or pain and\/or shock. In this heightened world, and with our understanding of the typical Tim Robinson character, those reactions provoke giggles. But Friendship<\/a> also let viewers see some of those Robinson character quirks as evidence of selfishness, male ego, and real mental instability. This feels like a potentially similar case, even if we\u2019re mostly on Ron\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Ron makes plans to join Mike to meet his employer tonight at his usual place of work: the parking lot of a storage space. Mike even provides a gun so he can get some real answers out of this \u201cJim X.\u201d But after considering it, Ron just can\u2019t handle becoming a guy who could threaten another man with a weapon. He insists he\u2019s a good man and rambles about the things that he can\u2019t bear to lose, like \u201cmaking love to Barb on a soft bed.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of Barb, it\u2019s worth pausing here to check in on the Trosper family. Ron\u2019s wife and kids still aren\u2019t exactly well-rounded characters, but again, that hardly seems to matter. In this episode, Seth basically just shows up to quietly accept the plastic hat Ron pretends he got for him. (It actually came in the fingerprint kit.) Natalie wants a haunted-house wedding. That\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n But it is sweet to see Ron successfully convince Natalie\u2019s future father-in-law, Terry, to let the crazy kids have their way with the venue. His discreet thumbs-up and Natalie\u2019s happy reaction make for the most earnest moment of the episode. When you get something warm and uncomplicated like that on this show, you know it\u2019s not going to last long \u2014 and sure enough, Ron gets a creepy text reading \u201cno way out,\u201d accompanied with a photo of himself taken seconds ago behind the cracked front closet door.<\/p>\n