“The Chair Company” is what “The Office” would look like on steroids, with Ronald Trosper (played by Tim Robinson), playing a cranky character more like an estranged brother of Michael Scott. What works out in the series created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin is its ability to blend absurdist comedy with surreal mystery. Ronald’s idiosyncrasies help us relate to him. When we see him go unhinged while trying to unravel a conspiracy, the show amazes while still making its audience laugh.
When Ronald (also known as “Ron”) falls from his chair during a work conference, he is embarrassed. What he wouldn’t have guessed is the extremes it would push him to when he is unable to file a complaint against the chair manufacturer. Ron’s humiliation quickly turns into an obsession fuelled by an innate desire, sending him on a mission to seek answers to all his questions. Like an uncontrollable urge to scratch a wound to stop it from itching, Ron’s impulse eventually leads him to circumstances he can’t escape.
This article contains spoilers.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 1 “Life goes by too f**king fast, it really does.” Recap:
The pilot episode opens with Ron having dinner with his family in a fancy restaurant. He is shown as the husband of Barb Trosper (Lake Bell) and father of two kids — Natalie Trosper (Sophia Lillis) and Seth Trosper (Will Price). In their toast, it becomes clear that Ron has been selected to spearhead a brand-new shopping mall project in his company, Fisher Robay, a property development firm. The next morning, we get introduced to Ron’s workmates as he gears up for a presentation. After Ron gives his speech and returns to his seat, his chair collapses, causing a moment of awkward silence. He shrugs it off in front of everyone with a lousy joke, but kicks himself in disgust when he is alone.
He narrows it down to the name “Tecca” as the company that made the chair, and finds the broken parts in the trash bin of his office. He visits Tecca’s website to complain, but is met with confusion when the company’s grievance attendant, an outsourced service provider, refuses to connect him with the manufacturer of the chairs. Even when he sends an email to notify them, he runs into a wall, as the email doesn’t even exist. He dials the number on their website again and tries to reach Tecca, but it proves to be a futile exercise.
Simultaneously, when Ron fell off the chair, he apparently got a peek up the skirt of one of his coworkers, Amanda, who alerted him to her plan to take it up with HR. During the night, while Ronald is browsing photos at his home, he catches the address of the chair entity in one of the pictures. He wastes no time and travels to the location to clear the air.
However, upon arrival, he discovers an abandoned warehouse. He bumps into a huge red ball in a corner of the warehouse and suddenly hears footsteps. Unable to leave the place, he hides in a restroom when he hears screams. He leaves the premises immediately, running to his car, and decides to forget about the whole affair. When he’s starting home from Fisher Robay the next evening, he is threatened by an old man who beats him in the face and sharply warns him to stop looking into the chair company. Ron chases him, but only plucks his stained shirt from him before he vanishes.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 2 “New blood. There’s 5 Rons now.” Recap:
The episode starts with Ron debating with his daughter Natalie over the location of her wedding. Barb notices a cut on his forehead and asks about it, but he dismisses it as an accident by his coworker. The next day at work, Ron begins his research by looking at a store named Tamblay that sells shirts similar to the one his attacker was wearing.
He is also responsible for visiting the mall site to give an interview to the press, before which, he decides to take a detour to stop by the store. Upon arrival, he asks the sales personnel for information about the buyer who purchased the shirt, but they don’t yield what he was expecting. However, the clerk registers his name for store membership.
Ronald is summoned to an HR meeting regarding the incident with his coworker, where he is briefed on the measures he needs to take to ensure workplace safety. During that meeting, when he is shown a video presentation on ethics, he spots dirt on a man’s back, which rings a bell: his assaulter was waiting for him, lying down in the office parking lot near the bushes.
Once the meeting is over, he marches there and finds a box of food with the restaurant’s name on it. Arriving at the restaurant, hoping to get a glimpse of his attacker’s identity, he runs into him, which spirals into a mini-brawl before things settle down. Ron investigates Mike (Joseph Tudisco) about his connection to Tecca, but the latter confesses that he was hired by an unknown guy to strike Ron. Mike offers to help Ron if he is paid.
Mike hands Ron a burner phone and asks him to wait for his call. Meanwhile, Natalie’s parents host her fiancée Tara’s parents for dinner when Ron receives a call from Mike, who inquires about his hirer’s whereabouts. Mike and Ron meet and decide to ambush Mike’s hirer with a gun, which causes Ron to have an anxiety attack as he bails out of this plan. Back at his home, Ron is seen talking to Tara’s father to secure a truce and change the wedding venue. While at the dinner table, he receives a photo of himself via text from an unknown number, with the message “No way out”. Scared and cautious, he notices a closet door ajar inside his home.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 3 “@BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.” Recap:
The episode continues with Ron finding an invader in his closet who rushes out the front door with Ron running after him. Mike arrives at the scene and clarifies that he hired the man to keep tabs on Ron, who is distraught hearing all this. Mike then informs that he found out his hirer got paid $50K to scare Ron. The next morning, we see Ron insisting that Barb install a security system immediately. Later, visiting the county’s office to learn about the ownership details of the abandoned warehouse listed under Tecca’s address, Ron’s surprised to know someone named Steven Droyco also requested information about the chair company.
He glances at the registration documents and notes the owner’s name as “RBMG Global Inc,” which is short for Red Ball Market Global. By taking a stroll through RBMG’s website, he lands on the page about its board members. However, he is unable to hold onto a lead about who they really are. The next day at work, Ron has a weird encounter with Amanda on the lift, but the episode doesn’t pay any attention to this scene. Later that night, Mike and Ron go to Steven Droyco’s house to dig into RBMG’s modus operandi. As soon as they start interrogating him about Tecca, he panics and shuts the door.
Quick Recap To: The 10 Best TV Shows of 2024
But Mike and Ron stake out Steve’s house until he leaves. They sneak into his house while he’s gone and witness an old lady lying lifeless in a bed surrounded by a bunch of old clothes. The living room is filled with piles of papers scattered around it. As soon as they spot a camera, they set it off, grab some paper stacks, and sprint out hurriedly. The day after, Ron is stunned by Steven Droyco waiting for him at his workplace. Steven mentions he worked at Tecca for a short stint, carrying out his duties by removing parts from some other chairs and fitting them in Tecca’s chairs. Ron gets a message on his phone showing a masked man dangling in a chair in front of his home, staring into the security cams.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 4 “Bahld Harmon birthplace (disputed)” Recap:
“Bahld Harmon birthplace (disputed)” opens with a lively flashback featuring Ron, who was working at Fisher Robay even then, and Barb, as they ponder quitting their jobs to start their own business. Cut to the present state of affairs, Ron recounts to Mike about the masked man who appeared in front of his home. Mike recommends that he keep an eye on Ron’s house to avert danger if anyone comes again.
Random people arrive at Ron’s house carrying parcels, claiming he ordered them, while bizarre phone calls from modelling agencies pester and mock him, leading him to realise that someone has been using his identity falsely. We get a glimpse of Ron’s Jeep Tour business, where he’s driving through a forest with a customer who’s blanked out the whole time. Funnily enough, when Ron narrates this to Barb, he displays a determined mindset to make his business work and would rather kill himself than return to his day job.
At work, Ron establishes a plan with the security guard to steal one of his company’s chairs for scrutiny. The arbitrary calls keep coming in, and when he arrives home, he sees a police car parked outside. Ron becomes extremely worried that something has happened to his family, but gets annoyed when he is apprised that the police station received a donation request from him. Attempting to put an end to this chaos, Ron decides to move his family out of the house by staging a bogus pest infestation, roping in an exterminator with Mike’s help. Ronald and his family agree to spend a few days at the house where Tara and their daughter Natalie are living together.
The next day at his office, Ron is rebuked by his boss, Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips), over an email the latter received from Ron’s personal account demanding a raise. After this heated exchange, Ron taps on an email from Tecca asking him to fill out a feedback survey, where the last question, “Are we done, Ron?” clearly poses a hazard.
Ron reveals everything that has been going on in his life to his daughter later that night. He also argues that Tecca might be smuggling illegal drugs from Hungary, mainly a drug called Thebaine, by stuffing them in their chairs. Natalie is amused and shocked to hear about all this. The episode ends with a melancholic scene where Ron is grappling with his Jeep Tour business. We hear Barb telling Natalie he’ll come out of this, and we just have to remind him that we love him.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 5 “I won. Zoom in.” Recap:
This episode contains explicit sexual content.
Episode five is the shortest in terms of its runtime and weakest in terms of plot progression. It begins with Ron and Mike en route to meet Steven Drayco, who asserts that he has eyes on Ken Tucker, Tecca’s CFO. This turns out to be a dead end since Steve has actually seen him in a video game, which solidifies the facts: Ken is not an actual CFO; everyone on Tecca’s board is a model, and Red Ball is a shell company. Steven shares an experience he had in an abandoned warehouse while using a restroom in it, which clashes with Mike’s mishap and confirms that the screams he heard before in that dark alley (in episode one) were actually Steve’s let-outs. Later that night, Mike discloses to Ron that Ken Tucker’s original name is Oliver Probblo.
When Ron stops by Mike’s house the next day, Mike says that he emailed Oliver posing as a fan who agreed to meet with them. The duo meets Oliver at a bar, who validates their suspicions by pointing out that a photo shoot took place, and the woman directing it wanted the actors to pretend to be someone else. On pressing Oliver, he blurts out that the woman’s name is Maggie S. A tussle breaks out between one of the bar customers and Ron, which spills into the road and extends to Oliver’s home. Ron puts pressure on Oliver to show him a picture of Maggie S, but when he is forced to pursue an assailant, he gets knocked out.
Cut to the scene where Ron is admitted to a hospital for suffering a minor concussion, and Mike agrees to drive him home post-discharge. For the first time in the series, we get a peek into Mike’s life when he stops by his home on his way to drop Ron off. This is where Mike and Ron’s relationship takes the next step: Mike stops demanding payment for his services from Ron and wholeheartedly agrees to help him, feeling it is the right thing to do. The episode ends with an R-rated scene out of the blue that oddly feels necessary in hindsight.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 6 “Happy Birthday, a friend.” Recap:
“Happy Birthday, a friend” opens with Jeff reminiscing with his friends, having a little party by the bonfire. This doesn’t seem to be a filler scene, since it presents the private side of Jeff to the audience, which makes the former question whether what he’s doing is fulfilling for him. Meanwhile, Ron walks into a photo studio where Oliver confirms that the photo session took place. Ronald initially approaches the studio instructor to learn more information about Maggie S, but she doesn’t support his thoughts. After asking the people coming into the studio, a man bolts out the door, but Ron grabs him and takes shaky photos of him before he slips out. Ron shares the pictures with Mike, who replies that it’s tough to identify because the perpetrator’s face is unclear.
At work, the usual HR ethics formalities keep Ron on his toes while a new task awaits him. He’s vexed about having to completely redesign the mall’s blueprint, which apparently his boss wants him to do. During the night, we are shown a group of workers who jack up Fisher Robay’s wired fence and encroach on their property. Ron continues slogging at work, exhausting himself, leaving his brain clogged. Mike arranges a meeting with Ron and the exterminator, who says he actually found two bugs in his house, which he had otherwise found only in Delaware City while working on a government building construction project. Mike speculates that the U.S government might have some connection with Tecca’s operations. Ron barely keeps his head straight with all this newfound evidence. At the same time, he is unable to disagree with his boss’s proposal of finalizing the design during Seth’s birthday party.
While You’re Here: The Return of Theatrical Comedies?
Uncommonly, Ron grasps onto a fresh lead while skimming the shaky photos. He detects a multi-colour band in the hand of the man who fled from the photo studio, with the same colour palette matching the Delaware state’s website and RBMG’s as well. The next morning at Seth’s party, Ron fills Natalie in on this crucial hint, who eggs him on to go to Delaware City Hall.
Ron remains in a combustible mood, denying that he danced with his son at the party and is irked by Jeff’s presence in his house. The next day, Ron and his entire team, along with Jeff, visit the mall site where an altercation ends in him shoving his boss. He escapes the scene and sneaks inside City Hall’s building, where he almost gets caught by a police officer. Just as he hopes for a way out, he bursts into a room full of neatly lined-up Tecca chairs, wall-to-wall.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 7 “I said to my dog, How do you like my hippie shirt?” Recap:
Episode seven deals with the aftermath of the events in the previous outing. Ron is struggling with his emotions after he gets suspended from work. He brings home a dog and names it Baby to cope with the fiasco. Meanwhile, Barb is rightfully pissed off at Ron for adding so much to her plate. They have a quarrel that not only keeps the perspectives balanced but also acts as a testament to their love. Barb pleads with Ron not to raise this issue at the investor meeting for her company, Everpump. Ron nods to it and resumes his search for answers. He finds that the purchasing director at Delaware City Hall, who goes by the name Teresa, is an old lady who has been absent from her duties for a long time.
Ron, while on the road, stumbles upon a depot that’s loading chairs into trucks. On following them, he deciphers that they are Tecca’s chairs. Reading a text from the Tamblay membership group about a customer who was resold a faulty product for double the price with decorative patches, Ron theorizes that Tecca uses the same strategy: swapping out the old parts and reselling refurbished ones as new. While divulging this news to her daughter, Ron is astonished to learn that she laid a trap during her visit to City Hall to meet with the purchasing director, tricking the officers into giving Teresa’s address.
Ron decides to stop by the old lady’s house, where he learns that she hasn’t worked for years and Tecca’s just using her as a proxy for their shady activities. At the dinner event hosted by Alice Quintana (Kathryn Meisle) — a lead investor in Barb’s company – Ron is appalled to find a picture of Teresa and Alice together, which arouses his doubts. Raising the tension, Oliver Probblo calls and ratifies a key detail: the woman who took his photos was not Maggie S but Alice Quintana.
Suddenly, someone harasses Ron from behind, trying to put something in his mouth, but Ron blocks and tackles him, during which Alice coasts into the room and announces that the man is actually her nephew. By this time, Ron has lost his temper and starts accusing Alice of being a fraud for cheating people via Tecca. She doesn’t deny or back down, but rolls out a boulder by perfectly blackmailing, stating that she has invested all her corrupted money in his wife’s startup, only to stop him from digging deeper into Tecca. Even though Ron is dying inside to shed light on Tecca’s true affairs, we see him breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably in front of a mirror as the episode ends.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Episode 8 “Minnie Mouse coming back wasn’t on my bingo card.” Recap:
In a backstory, we are shown a brutal opening in the season finale when a young boy shoots Hollywood producer, Stacy Crystals, for ruining his father’s life. Cut to the present, Ron reconnects with his wife the morning after the party. Jeff feels dishonoured by the infamous incident and calls Ron to offer him the opportunity to join back. While taking his dog Baby for a saunter, Ron loses its leash and falls head-first when he starts chasing. After waking up, he sees a house in the middle of a large forest.
While nearing, he collides with a man named Barton, who invites him over. Barton unveils that Baby was his dog and that her real name was Minnie Mouse. A peculiar scene unfolds as Ron visits Barton’s garage and fixates on a shiny 3D object, when the latter’s face morphs into an animated monster. Waking up, Barton says to Ron that he got hit by a brick and passed out. Barton thanks Ron as he leaves, after clicking a picture with the dog.
Upon returning home, Ron calls up Jeff and meets him in a bar. An unexpected breakthrough occurs when Ron hears one of Jeff’s songs, and it strikes him. He goes to the restroom and listens to it one more time when it dawns on him that this was the same tune he heard while calling RBMG’s helpdesk. Unable to suppress what he has just unearthed, Ron drives like an unstable guy to Fisher Robay. He storms inside and pulls out some papers from Jeff’s desk, where he lands on a photo of Jeff with a Hollywood producer and an incorporation document with Jeff and Stacy Crystals printed as the owners.
Ron runs into Mike’s daughter, Lynette, who shares some deep trauma about her past with him. Afterwards, he receives a call from an unknown caller, revealing that he didn’t fall out of that chair by accident. When he arrives at the location his caller gave him, Ron recognizes it as the high school he went to and witnesses a masked man waiting for him. In an eerie showdown, the masked man retells an incident in which Ron disrespected his girlfriend, and vows to take revenge on him before the screen cuts to black.
The Chair Company (Season 1) Ending Explained:
Who is the woman Ron ridiculed in high school?
“The Chair Company,” which started as an innocent man in the mid-40s getting pulled into a web of corporate espionage, touches a personal note in its climax. Ronald Trosper is always portrayed as a bloke who’s a bit eccentric, but someone who also deeply cares and supports his loved ones. The instantaneous link he made with the audience is predominantly due to the fact that he’s just an ordinary guy who’s striving to fit in and make ends meet.
There’s also this suffering endlessly burning inside him to truly go after what he really loves to do, although he’s stuck in the ever-churning, cruel wheel of late-stage capitalism. Our liking toward him only grows when he sees it as his duty to follow his dreams, which he believes will serve as a reminder to his kids that they can also choose their own path and succeed.
The imagery the whole season has been building about Ron takes a hit in the final few minutes. The woman the masked man swears to avenge is exposed to be Ron’s co-worker, Amanda, who filed an HR complaint against him and used telekinesis to make Ron fall from his chair. While the lines on supernatural and paranoia seem too far-fetched as of now, the show cleverly foreshadows the history between Ron and Amanda, with the latter giving out crude signals towards the former in their scenes together. This only deepens the narrative and hints at the possibility of two separate mysteries involving Ronald.
The thesis above can be traced to the scene where Ron, after handing his dog to its real owner, inquires about Alice Quintana to the masked villain over the phone, to which the man replies, “Who is Alice?” This unwarranted response doesn’t make any sense because the Tecca paradox and Ron’s chair-falling incident might be two separate, unrelated events.
During the face-to-face confrontation in the last couple of minutes of the eighth episode, the masked nemesis reveals that his plan to hurt Ron was set in motion while he was attending high school, which strengthens the hypothesis that his storyline may have nothing to do with Tecca at all. Nonetheless, we can get clarity on our presumptions only when the second season comes out, which has already been renewed, so we can hopefully count on that.
