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The Chair Company<\/a><\/p>\n Happy Birthday, a friend.<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 6\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 3 stars<\/p>\n ***\n <\/p>\n \n Ron\u2019s dedication to the investigation is put to the test as his family life and work frustrations take a turn for the worse. This week\u2019s episode of The Chair Company begins with a scene a little more reminiscent of another famous HBO Sunday show. Ron\u2019s boss, Jeff, sits around a fire in Sedona with several of his wealthy bros, flaunting their wealth like the guys from Succession<\/a> (albeit not quite that rich). Then, in a one-on-one with his buddy Danny, Jeff says it\u2019s nice to get away from the grind and step away from real life. But this is real life, Danny points out. Life is all about these moments, not your nine-to-five. If all you have is that grind \u2014 if work becomes your entire reason to wake up, rather than a means to secure a stable and fulfilling life \u2014 what do you really have?<\/p>\n Danny\u2019s comments clearly rattle Jeff, who seems to take a lot of pride in how much time and energy he puts into work. So when he returns to the office, Jeff is set on changing things up with the mall design. He shows the team some photos from his trip for vague inspiration but won\u2019t offer specifics, shutting down all their ideas and mood boards. Everyone is completely frustrated and drained from the effort, but Ron takes it the most personally, especially after Jeff shoots him down during a meeting and orders him to \u201cjust keep us under budget.\u201d Ron flashes back to the dented head he struck last week, tempted into the same kind of violence against Jeff. (Imagine this pair in a Horrible Bosses sequel.)<\/p>\n Beyond Jeff\u2019s own exquisite dickishness, it makes sense that he can\u2019t actually put a finger on what needs to change with the design. No single change would be enough, even if Fisher Robay procured the world\u2019s best mall consultant, because there\u2019s a different void that isn\u2019t being filled. To Jeff, the mall needs to be more than just a mall, because his life needs to be more than just a mall. Ron and Jeff actually have that in common.<\/p>\n \u201cHappy Birthday, A Friend\u201d is a work-heavy episode in general, keeping all the balls from previous episodes in the air while adding some new ones. Douglas threatens to dress as a chicken to improve morale. Dr. Stevens, the outside observer brought in to watch Ron and Amanda share mundane interactions about muffins, is basically living at the office now, even inviting his parents to stop by and see where he works. And throughout the episode, we get a couple of different glimpses of some nefarious group sneaking onto the Canton site in the dead of night, seemingly sabotaging the development.<\/p>\n As is usually the case on The Chair Company, though, the truth is a lot less scary. When Jeff brings the whole team to the site on a Sunday morning, they run into the trespassers: a group of nerds using the area as a crawler course for their remote-controlled trucks. Enraged, Ron orders them to get off the property, then freaks out and shoves Jeff when he steps in to deescalate. It\u2019s an interesting place to end things with the work storyline; we don\u2019t know if Ron will face consequences from Jeff for that aggro moment, and in general it\u2019s difficult to identify what exactly the \u201cstakes\u201d are for Ron at work right now. I\u2019m genuinely not disappointed at all in the pacing of this show, because it\u2019s so enjoyable on a scene-by-scene basis even when the plot doesn\u2019t progress traditionally, but I did expect things to have unraveled a bit more by now.<\/p>\n There are only two episodes left, but the plot and intensity isn\u2019t necessarily ratcheting up in a linear way, with many of the scariest and most violent moments occurring during deranged side quests. The actual Tecca investigation takes a slight backseat early in this episode, if anything. There is one new lead: a man who bolts when Ron pokes around his \u201clife of the party\u201d class for answers about the mysterious Maggie S. But nobody else there is helpful, even the woman he recognizes as the model who played board member Ronda Scott on the Red Ball Market Global website. Besides, this random guy who might have nothing to do with any conspiracy \u2014 after all, Ron coming at him and screaming \u201cHow do you know me?\u201d while snapping photos doesn\u2019t exactly encourage calm clarification, and most of these students aren\u2019t comfortable in social situations. There\u2019s not much to go on anymore. Ron is grasping at straws here.<\/p>\n Luckily, the exterminator has plenty of straws on hand. He says that the bug he found in Ron\u2019s home is from Eastern Europe (where both Tecca chair appendices and Thebaine are produced). According to his guys, they\u2019d seen the bug once before in the government buildings of Delaware, Ohio. Ron, really operating at galaxy-brain levels of conspiracy thinking now, recognizes the color scheme on the Delaware website from both the RBMG site and from the \u201clife of the party\u201d guy\u2019s tattoo pattern, blurrily captured on his phone camera. If not for Seth\u2019s birthday party, he\u2019d be heading to Delaware with Mike right away.<\/p>\n That party is good stuff, from Jeff\u2019s unwelcome appearance to Mike\u2019s failed attempts to invite himself inside. But the show is still a little hesitant to get into the meat of Ron\u2019s issues at home. Natalie is still playing along with his delusions, actually encouraging him to visit Delaware City Hall during the fair tomorrow to find proof that the tattooed guy designed the site \u2014 possibly because she thinks it\u2019ll help him come to terms with a nothingburger story?<\/p>\n Seth seems unwell. We know he has some project planned, and he\u2019s enlisting the help of Tara\u2019s old ponytailed friend Richard, the sight of whom really startles Ron late at night. But he\u2019s still sneaking drinks in his bedroom, seemingly bummed about how he and his dad have drifted apart recently. Ron is still hounding him about focusing on basketball, and he won\u2019t even do the Pee-Wee Herman dance at his birthday party like the old days. So Seth chugs some of his dad\u2019s bourbon, inevitably vomiting while everyone sings the birthday song. You know what moment doesn\u2019t feel inevitable, though? One unnamed guest making the bizarre choice to set the birthday cake down on the floor on top of the vomit, as if the mere agony of looking at it is intolerable.<\/p>\n Barb is upset that Ron didn\u2019t handle Seth\u2019s drinking like he promised, but everything going on here is still a slow burn, mostly isolated from what Ron has going on elsewhere. And even if Ron is good at jumping to conclusions, he\u2019s not wrong to feel disturbed by the threatening phone calls he\u2019s getting where someone threatens to finally \u201cdo something\u201d to him. In Ron\u2019s mind, this isn\u2019t some lark. It\u2019s about protecting himself and his family, making sure nobody shows up at their house in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n So he does go to City Hall after all, though he barely makes it to the file room before a guy credited as \u201cGreaser Cop\u201d confronts him, chasing him through the building until Ron reaches a big room full of Tecca chairs in neat rows. This could be the jackpot he needs, the smoking gun that proves an international drug smuggling operation is afoot. It\u2019s more likely that it\u2019ll all add up to nothing, probably, or a minor cover-up at most. Hell, maybe his own buddy is prank-calling him, and not even the substantiated threats are trustworthy. (I could see Mike doing something misguided to keep their investigation going because he\u2019s lonely.) Ron may finally have to come to terms with the hollowness of this journey and acknowledge the ways in which his picture-perfect life isn\u2019t always so fulfilling after all. Then again, maybe him being totally vindicated would be the biggest twist of all.<\/p>\n \u2022 I\u2019m not sure which is more inexplicable and hilarious: Amanda violating a muffin\u2019s structural integrity to check for chocolate chips, or her insistence on eating suggestively while in the middle of a meeting with HR.<\/p>\n \u2022 Ron remembers that one of Seth\u2019s friends did something awful to his grandma, and his son clarifies: Todd Greys trapped his grandma in a bathtub with a mattress over the top.<\/p>\n \u2022 In one of the many funny-slash-unsettling interactions of the episode, Ron\u2019s stressed colleague reveals her worry that a doctor left a screwdriver inside her during an appendectomy, based on noticing something \u201cpush toward the skin\u201d when she moved a magnet near her stomach. What a horrifying detail, like something out of Titane<\/a>! And in a surreal touch, we actually see a magnet on Ron\u2019s desk pulled toward her.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cSeth, god dammit! Now the door has a little mark on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Seth joins Richard to deal with a \u201cfang problem.\u201d What the hell is going on down there?<\/p>\n \u2022 At the birthday party, Tara mentions that she\u2019s having vivid dreams from eating \u201cpickles that are alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cCrazy boring neighborhood. I feel like I\u2019m in The Lego Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cRon, this doesn\u2019t feel like what I was hoping it was going to feel like. This is kinda like a kid\u2019s party.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Mike gives Seth a Chocolate Kong for his birthday.<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Sarah Shatz\/HBO\n <\/p>\n