annashay 
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you’ve grown tired of by-the-numbers, grossly predictable psychological thrillers like Netflix’s The Woman in Cabin 10, I’m here to tell you not to give up. Hopefully, you haven’t been sleeping on Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company, the HBO Original series streaming on Max that’s heating up as it shifts toward its Season 1 finale. Framed as a psychological thriller comedy, The Chair Company delivers the same over-the-top, absurd energy Robinson is known for, while also landing a surprisingly thoughtful take on career burnout, obsession, familial fallout, and searching for meaning where there may not be any, all while leaving you in stitches.
Having just dropped its sixth episode out of eight, “Happy Birthday, a friend,” The Chair Company continues pushing into extremely uncomfortable territory, raising even more questions about Ron Trosper’s (Tim Robinson) rapidly deteriorating mental state. Unlike other genre entries, there’s so much ambiguity for viewers to make sense of while the looming mystery that has followed Ron since the series premiere was set up on October 12, 2025 continues to escalate.
Gleefully Flips The Unreliable Protagonist Trope On Its Head
One shortfall most psychological thrillers fall into is the idea of an unreliable protagonist. The viewer becomes aware that the story they’re following is incomplete or imagined, leading to speculation that the protagonist is either losing their mind or being tormented by outside forces. The Chair Company’s Ron Trosper falls into both categories. By the time we reach “Happy Birthday, a friend,” his behavior and experiences mirror both possibilities as he becomes increasingly unhinged, and in a way that only leads to more confusion.
Ron’s original claim in The Chair Company, that a corporate entity known as Tecca Chairs is trying to ruin his life, legitimately holds water. He follows leads, makes connections, and navigates an insane scenario where everyone starts to worry about him, including the audience, only for his wild assumptions to be proven correct again and again. This is exactly what sets The Chair Company apart. The problem is twofold. The stress is pushing Ron to his limit, causing him to alienate loved ones and falter at work, but his discoveries validate his behavior, to the point where his daughter, Natalie (Sophia Lillis), can’t help getting pulled in.
As the conspiracy continues to unravel, Ron’s right-hand man and de facto detective, Mike (Joseph Tudisco), keeps uncovering more incriminating information that seems poised to blow the mystery wide open and give us closure.
A Thoughtful Look At Career Burnout, And The Weight Of Obligation
Thanks to Ron’s family, we learn some background insight about his behavior. In the past, his obsessions got the better of him. After his Jeep Tour business failed, he reluctantly returned to his white-collar corner-office job at Fisher Robay, clearly unhappy as his wife, Barb (Lake Bell), began to thrive with her own business venture. The initial chair incident occurs at the exact moment Ron falls back professionally to provide for his family while Barb takes a risk. His sense of malaise was there from the beginning, but it’s also clear he’s good at his job and is a reliable provider, which only compounds the tension.
As carried away as Ron gets with his obsession with Tecca Chairs, to the point where Natalie openly confronts him while referencing the Jeep business, he uncovers enough evidence for her to become quietly invested in the situation. At this point, we’re not sure if she’s humoring him to prevent a spiral or if he’s legitimately onto something and she wants in on the action.
Matters get even more complicated when Fisher Robay CEO Jeff Levjman (Lou Diamond Phillips) returns from a Sedona vacation and gives Ron vague instructions to entirely overhaul his mall development project that’s already well underway. Jeff’s insecurities about his legacy get projected onto Ron, who’s stuck in a bureaucratic hellhole of corporate doublespeak. Morale at the Trosper household is at an all-time low, and things aren’t getting better at the office. Douglas (Jim Downey), one of the eccentric office drones, even threatens to show up dressed as a chicken to lighten the mood.
More Questions Than Answers
By this point in The Chair Company’s run, everything is falling apart for Ron. He’s distancing himself from his family, his connection with Mike is on shaky ground, and his work situation is making everything worse. As his obsession tightens its grip, he keeps stumbling upon more crucial clues that should by all measures lead to a clean resolution, but the narrative keeps us too close to the picture to understand what we’re actually seeing. Ron is losing his mind, and his family has watched him lose himself to fruitless projects in the past, stripping his claims of any validity because they’ve been down this road before.
Who’s In The Right Here?
Identifying fully with Ron, I have no clue where the series is going as we approach the final two episodes. I’ve had my own experiences fixating on theories or projects that lead to dead ends to the detriment of my well-being, but I’ve also been of sound mind while going down some of those rabbit holes. I’ve received promotions I didn’t want at corporate jobs, thanks to the same obsessive attention to detail that Ron displays throughout The Chair Company. Sometimes the thing that looks like madness from the outside is actually invaluable in exposing expensive inefficiencies to the corporate overlords. And sometimes being invaluable in such a soulless, fluorescently-lighted hellscape is a burden that people like Ron want to escape from by inventing fictions in their head that are infinitely more interesting.
Either Ron is “at his limit,” like the shirt he investigated at the beginning of this wild goose chase, or he’s about to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies corporate America has ever seen. We still don’t know. Folks on Reddit have no clue where this mystery is heading and are already rewatching the series for subtle visual clues about Ron’s mental state. He’s either completely gone or he’s right on target, and I can’t wait to see if we make it out of this in one piece.
The Chair Company is streaming on Max.
