Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for The Chair Company S1E8 “Minnie Mouse coming back wasn’t on my bingo card” (written by Tim Robinson & Zach Kanin and directed by Aaron Schimberg)
We’re here! Ron Trosper (Tim Robinson) has spent seven episodes and who knows how much money diving down the rabbit hole that is Red Ball Market Global and, of course, Tecca. This is the most ITYSL episode we’ve gotten so far, and it’s a great one.
After a disastrous father-daughter dance at a wedding, the father asks for another whiskey at the bar, but is told he should slow down. A few seats down, a white-haired man (Peter Rezkinoff) orders another whiskey himself, and when being served one, moves over to the father and gives him the drink. They speak briefly, during which the father mentions that the poem read during the wedding was his own, and that he’s a songwriter. The man hands over his card, telling the father to drop a line next time he’s in town, and leaves. As the man walks towards the door, he’s approached by a young boy. “Are you Stacy Crystals?” When Stacy asks if he can help him, the kid draws a gun and shoots him, shouting that Stacy ruined his dad’s life.
Ron wakes up peacefully in bed, ignores 15 missed calls from Mike, and tells Barb (Lake Bell) that he’s going to spend the day trying to get his job back. Barb counters that he should instead try to do something that actually makes him happy. Someone who is definitely not happy is Ron’s boss Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips), who, in watching the video of the shove from last week, not only has to relive that emasculating moment, but also has to be subjected to his employees’ bickering over the incident, which further embarrasses Jeff.
Ron is walking Baby and receives a call from Natalie (Sophia Lillis), who has a few more possible leads, but Ron shuts her down, without giving her any details. After the call, Natalie’s fiancé Tara (Grace Reiter) confronts her about revealing the details of the Wendy’s concept ham restaurant, and they get into an argument, causing Natalie to leave. Ron attempts to console her at home, but Natalie is having none of it.
Seth (Will Price) returns home to find his dad sitting in his room. Ron jokingly asks why Seth threw away the fake mini investigative hat from the “fingerprint kit” and Seth breaks down in tears. Ron comforts him, and Seth admits that he doesn’t want to play basketball anymore—he’s more interested in stop-motion animation. Ron is clearly exasperated by this, but composes himself and supports his son, as well as apologizes for not being as present. He was doing something important—really important—that was distracting him, but declines to share what it was.
While Fisher Robay prepares a list of candidates for Ron’s replacement, Jeff pushes back and decides to call Ron. Sitting in his kitchen and facing the window, Ron answers a call from Jeff to hash things out. Ron replies that he needs more time to figure out his “next move.” As Ron hangs up, he loses himself in the leaves outside the window as Alice’s words to “go out and tell” echo through his mind, and he decides he’s going to spill the beans. He calls a local news tip line, being careful to ask if he can share a story without naming any names or specifics, but before he can fully reveal everything, he panics and hangs up. He immediately gets a call back from the tip line, but demands that they never call him back, claiming that his call was a prank at a sleepover and “we’re terribly-behaved boys” before throwing the phone down and screaming in frustration.
Mike (Joseph Tudisco) pulls up alongside Ron on the street and demands an explanation for why Ron has been ignoring his calls and never showed up after Mike went to the bar crawl in Ron’s stead. Ron says that they need to drop the whole thing, but Mike protests. He wants to do something good. He’s never done anything good in his whole life, and this is his chance, so people don’t “sing a song when I die.” When Ron continues to push back, Mike explodes—Ron can go back to his fancy job, his family. Ron says that Mike can just go back to his own family. After a beat, Mike says, “F*ck you, Ron,” and leaves. Tudisco continues to show that he is a very talented actor, and I truly hope that he gets more work after The Chair Company.
Ron, to his credit, does try to mend things for Mike, and visits the house at which he saw Mike attempting to talk to his family. An older woman answers the door, and Ron asks for Lynette. The woman says that she’s Lynette’s aunt. Ron states that he’s a friend of Mike, Lynette’s father. The woman’s face darkens, says that Ron doesn’t know anything about Mike, and slams the door in his face.
Ron returns home to find that Baby has gotten into the chocolate Kong that Mike intended for Seth, and immediately takes her for a walk to “sweat out the chocolate.” Baby takes off when Ron is distracted by a call from an unknown number, and in his pursuit, Ron trips and gets knocked out. Waking up, he stumbles upon a house and finds Baby inside, and a man outside declaring that Baby is his missing dog, in fact named Minnie Mouse. He invites Ron to his shed to show him something. That “something” is some sort of strange holographic shape, and when Ron turns around to face the stranger, the man’s face has transformed into something monstrous. What the hell?
Ron wakes up on the stranger’s couch, and the man has returned to normal like nothing has happened. Ron’s grasp on reality seems to be weakening, I think? The stranger brings Ron a glass of water and asks if he’s okay, expressing his deep gratitude for returning his dog. Ron asks if the stranger can take some pictures of him with Minnie Mouse and post to the socials, and the man obliges. Leaving the house, Ron again receives a call from the unknown number, and upon answering it is greeted by the menacing voice breathing heavily. Ron tells the voice that he’s done and he should just talk to Alice.
“Who’s Alice?”
Ron returns home and sees that the images the stranger took have been posted to the socials, and they’ve received multiple comments that imply that he’s been extremely abusive to Minnie Mouse. He also receives an email suggesting a staffing change at Fisher Robay, and a phone call from Jeff asking him to come out. Going downstairs, Barb is on the couch and confesses she that she’s sorry she made fun of him, a stark contrast to what George (the guy from the party last week) had said. Ron refuses to accept Barb’s attempts to walk back her comments and leaves.
At the karaoke club, Jeff’s friend all but forces Ron into sharing the details on his investigation, but before he can, it’s Jeff’s turn to get up to the mic. He botches it and returns to the table, and insists to Ron that he’s a good singer, handing Ron his phone with some of his songs. Ron takes a listen, and is shocked to find a song about RBMG, written and performed by Jeff. Ron sprints to the bathroom and pulls up the RBMG hold music on his own phone to find them completely identical. Ron races to Fisher Robay, to Jeff’s office, and finds files tying Jeff and Stacy Crystals to RBMG and Tecca. He is unable to find Alice in the files, and on the way home, leaves a message for Mike that things aren’t over: “We’re gonna be g*ddamn heroes!”
Ron returns home to find Lynette waiting for him outside. She explains that Mike is not her dad, but that Mike was the recipient of an organ donated from her deceased dad. Lynette’s mother had the idea for Mike to walk Lynette down the aisle for her wedding, and Mike got the idea in his head that he was Lynette’s dad, which tracks as Mike took Ron’s declaration that Mike was a relative at the hospital to heart. In contrast, Mike then tried to date Lynette: Mike’s a dangerous person.
Ron once again receives a call from the menacing voice, inviting Ron to finally meet him, at his old high school. The figure in the Jason Voorhees mask steps out, and Ron follows him behind a curtain. The figure unmasks, and Ron finds sitting before him…a character we haven’t met before. The man explains that everything was set into motion when, in high school, Ron attempted to spit a gummy bear into the air and catch it back into his mouth, but instead it landed in Amanda’s cleavage. She never stopped thinking about it—it made her crazy, obsessed with Ron, and she developed psychic abilities that led to her breaking Ron’s chair with her mind. “Who are you?” Ron asks.
“She’s my girlfriend, you dirty f*cker!” he screams. We end on a grainy freeze-frame of Ron’s face.
If this was a one-and-done, I might have been left pretty disappointed, but with the announcement of a Season 2 renewal, there are even weirder threads to pull on when the next season drops, and a lot of unanswered questions regarding Tecca and RBMG. Amanda having telepathic abilities is a fascinating turn indeed. As a huge fan of Robinson since Detroiters and him and Kanin since I Think You Should Leave, The Chair Company has struck a carefully calibrated balance between the pair’s bizarre, awkward comedy and genuinely compelling thriller (that also gets progressively weirder and more stressful as it goes on): like I’ve said before, like an ITYSL character dropped into a dramatic conspiracy. I am very excited to see where Season 2 takes us.
