Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for The Chair Company S1E6, “Happy Birthday, a friend” (written by Marika Sawyer and directed by Andrew DeYoung).
Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips) is on vacation in Sedona with a bunch of his rich friends, sitting around the fire and enjoying life and wealth with watches, cigars and liquor. Jeff remarks to one of his friends that it feels good to step away from the grind of real life, and his friend remarks that this is real life, not “pretty boxes to sell junk to people.” Jeff’s face drops a little bit, says that there’s more creativity in his job than people realize, and for the rest of the night he mostly looks pensively into the fire.
Ron (Tim Robinson) believes he is getting closer to finding Maggie S., arriving at a “Life of the Party” class with a lone woman standing in the room. The woman informs him that she doesn’t know who he’s talking about, and that they don’t do photo exercises, “at least not at this level.” There’s levels? The class started as a salesperson’s class, but has morphed into a class for people who are bad at socializing. The levels are basically a scam, she says. Before Ron can press her further, the attendees arrive. Ron recognizes one of the women from the business photos, and approaches her. She doesn’t remember taking the picture or know what the “S” stands for, but does whisper that “they do a lot of stuff here.”
He turns to another man. Upon showing him a picture of a group of people posing in front of the big red ball from the abandoned building, the man takes off running. Ron pursues him, tackling him into the bushes in front of the venue, demanding to know how the man knows him and attempting to take pictures of the man’s face as he resists. The man smacks the phone away and runs off.
Mike (Joseph Tudisco) doesn’t think he can identify the man Ron was trying to take pictures of since they’re too blurry. Ron’s call with Mike is interrupted by Jamie (Glo Tavarez), who tells him that Brenda (Zuleyma Guevara) wants to see him. Going to see her, she’s with Jeff, who wants to rework the entire mall project. Jeff shows Ron pictures of the architecture in Sedona, but doesn’t specify what he wants; he just thought the pictures of the buildings were “really cool:” he’ll know it when he sees it. As a result, Ron is unable to specify to his team what they need in the redesign.
Arriving home at 1AM, Ron finds a man in the kitchen with grey hair pulled into a ponytail. When Ron asks Barb (Lake Bell) who it is, Barb nonchalantly tells him that that’s Richard (Tyler Bunch), one of Tara’s friends who’s helping Seth with a project. Seth (Will Price) comes downstairs and they talk about Seth’s upcoming birthday party. Ron’s more concerned about Seth’s basketball practice the next day: he was “sluggish” in his last game. Richard calls Seth downstairs, and Seth leaves. Meanwhile, under cover of the darkness, a group of men sneak into the new mall’s construction site with toolboxes and planks of wood.
Ron and his team sit at the conference table with Jeff and a collection of pictures from Sedona and potential materials with which to construct the redesigned mall. Ron also suggests some influence from the CBGB (Country, Bluegrass, and Blues) era. Jeff looks up from scrolling indifferently on his phone to stare at Ron for a minute, and remarks that “they’ll figure it out.” Ron appears to fantasize about hitting Jeff, flashing back to when he hit the bartender in the dent on his head. Jeff tells the team to “keep at it” and leaves. The team continues to grind, trying to figure out what exactly Jeff wants. Back home, Seth stares at a picture of him and the basketball team with Ron as he takes a big swig of another beer. His drinking appears to be getting worse.
Ron’s getting overwhelmed, with images of Jeff’s pictures and face flashing through his mind. He’s scrolling through the pictures he tried to take of the man at the Life of the Party class, when he notices what looks like a tattoo on the man’s wrist of four vertical lines of different colors. Before he can investigate further, he gets a call from Bruce, in charge of the foundation. As he assures Bruce that any changes to the mall will be cosmetic and they can keep pouring the foundation, a member of Ron’s team comes in and tells him that when she was playing with a magnet on her abdomen, she felt something move and is worried that during a recent surgery they might have left a screwdriver inside her (lol what?). Ron ignores a call from Mike and keeps listening to her. Mike is calling back again. Bruce heard that they’re scrapping the food tunnel, which Ron refutes. Ron’s teammate doubles over in pain. Mike is calling back again, and Ron takes it: Mike says he’s out front and Ron needs to come out and meet him. Ron says he can’t, but Mike insists. Ron’s teammate comes and sits down. A magnet on Ron’s desk starts scooting towards her. This scene was a perfect balance of hilarity and stress.
Outside in Mike’s car, the fumigator (Robert Asencio) from earlier in the season says that the mystery bug he found in Ron’s car can be traced back to Hungary: where the chair parts come from. The bugs have also been found in Delaware City, and he suggests, citing his government contract there, that the government might be transporting the bugs via the chair parts. Mike insists that they have to go to Delaware City that weekend. Ron says that he can’t: it’s Seth’s birthday. Mike is interested in attending the party, Ron declines to invite him.
The next day, Ron Googles Delaware City and does a search for Maggie S. to no avail. Brenda bursts in, insisting that Ron to something to “walk Jeff off the ledge.” Ron goes to Jeff and Jeff says that they meet the next day to brainstorm. Ron declines, saying that he’s got Seth’s birthday party. Jeff declares that he’ll be there, and Ron is too meek to turn him down. Later, Ron revisits the Delaware City website and notices that the directory icons are circled by colors that match the colors of the tattoo on the man outside the Life of the Party building. He eagerly Googles RBMG and finds the same thing on their links. A potential breakthrough! Ron suddenly gets a call from an unknown number, and a sinister voice on the other end states, “I’m finally thinking of doing something to you,” before hanging up.
At Seth’s party, Tara (Grace Reiter) is rambling unbearably. Even Natalie (Sophia Lillis) is clearly bored and fed up, and eagerly takes the opportunity to come talk to her dad, who reveals his new discoveries. He surmises that the guy whose picture he tried to take must have been the designer of the websites, and could be connected to all of it. Natalie mentions that the Delaware City Hall has to contain a file on him, and with the next day being Sunday, the building will be vacant, but open because of a fair honoring the city’s police officers.
Jeff shows up to Will’s birthday party, and as Ron uncomfortably sends him to the backyard, he looks out the window to see Mike coming up the driveway with a present. Ron goes out to confront him and vehemently insists that Mike is not welcome. Mike is still fixated on when Ron said they were family in the hospital, and after Mike repeatedly begs Ron to come in, Ron snatches the present and forces Mike to leave. Inside, Seth tries to get his dad to do the Pee-Wee Herman dance, but Ron angrily tells them to turn off the music: he’s not doing the dance. Seth sneaks upstairs, and takes a swig of the bottle of liquor in Ron’s office before pouring a large amount into his cup.
While Ron sits outside, Jeff approaches him to insist that they bring the entire team to the construction site the next morning to brainstorm some more. Ron declines: he doesn’t say it out loud, but tomorrow was when he was going to Delaware City to get the file. Jeff won’t take no for an answer. Later, everyone has gathered in the kitchen to sing and present to clearly-drunk Seth his birthday cake. Seth violently vomits onto the floor before running off. One of the attendees picks up the birthday cake and carefully places it on top of the pool of vomit: “It’s fine! It’s covered!” That night, Beth angrily confronts Ron, telling him she thought he was going to handle Seth’s drinking. Ron unwraps Mike’s gift to Seth. It comes with a note ending with “If you’re anything like your dad, I know you’re a good person.” It’s almost impossible not to feel bad for Mike in this moment, but also moderately unsettling in how invasive Mike has suddenly become.
The intruders from the previous night have gotten to work, unloading their boxes…
The team has met up at the construction site, and Jeff enthusiastically says that they’ll be there all day to brainstorm. They’re interrupted by a noise around the corner of the dig site, and they go there to find the intruders…driving an RC truck over a small hill? Ron confronts them, yelling at them to leave, and when Jeff tries to calm Ron down, he whips around and shoves his boss. “Get the f*ck away from me!” Jeff is shocked, and as Ron leaves, he gets another call from the unknown number: “I think I’m ready to do something to you now.” “Good,” Ron replies. “Then come f*cking get me!”
At the fair in Delaware City, Ron covertly gets into the file room in the City Hall. While searching through the room and gathering an armful of files, a cop entering the room and confronts him. Ron does one of his classic Tim Robinson confused eyes-narrowed looks, and claims to be associated with “Debbie.” “Debbie Rafferty?” the cop asks. “Yeah,” Ron says, before throwing the files in the cop’s face and sprinting away set to metal music. Racing through different rooms, locking the doors behind him, Ron suddenly finds himself in a massive room with hundreds of Tecca chairs.
Chairs, bugs, and a sinister voice on the phone. Not to mention new drama at home. We’re nearing the end of The Chair Company and while Ron might be getting close to answers, there are still plenty of unanswered questions. While not as hilarious as last week, this week was still very funny, and I’m starting to get more suspicious that Ron might be doing all of this work just for something innocuous. That being said, Robinson and Kanin’s skill at subversion has been at an all-time high so far, so anything is possible. Can’t wait for next week!
