“Ringo’s Nose is Gray!”

Welcome back for another week! The fourth episode of The Chair Company, “Bahld Harmon birthplace (disputed)”, was a dive into the Trosper domestic sphere, shedding light on the conditions that have led Ron to this moment. Beginning with a flashback to six years ago, we see Ron and Barb sneak out of Barb’s work party and head to a bar. There, Barb shares her idea for Everpump, a “portable, stylish breast pump” informed by her years as a working mother. With Ron’s encouragement, Barb decides to quit her job and pursue her passion project. Riding the wave of excitement, Ron decides to follow suit; leaving Fisher Robby to follow his dream of helping people, inspired by his dad. Since we know what Ron has been up to in the intervening years, we know that the project in question is his ill-fated Jeep tour company.

Back in the present, Mike Santino cases the Trosper house to fend off future visits from the wannabe Jason Voorhees. While Barb rests, Ron turns off security system alerts on her phone (a move that surely won’t have lasting consequences!) and makes a spreadsheet to collect all of his Tecca and Red Ball data. While Santino is “just listening to” porn in the car, Ron comes to the conclusion that Tecca is “putting something in the chairs”, ordering one for himself. However, all chairs on the Tecca site are sold out. “That’s really bizarre,” he bellows. Speaking of bizarre, things are strange at Fisher Robby. Alon’s Jim Brown sculpture idea is met with rapturous applause, Douglas is missing post-Mistakes Party, and HR has brought in an outside observer, Dr. Stephens.

Stephens’ job is to make sure that everything between Ron and Amanda is above board, especially now that a picture of Ron with his arm around Amanda from their high school yearbook has surfaced. The picture is later revealed to be from curtain call from a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Ron as Quasimodo and featuring Amanda in the ensemble. We learn more about the social divide between Ron and Amanda, who was “social suicide” owing to the fact that her mom worked “with the pipes” in the school basement.

Ron soon receives a call from “Malt at Vendrome Faces Modeling”, who informs Ron that he didn’t get the job. Baffled by both this exchange and an earlier encounter with an irate Beatles memorabilia collector, Ron, begins to suspect that someone (Douglas?) is impersonating him on the internet.

In another flashback, a year into the Trospers’ experiment with self-employment, Barb prepares to meet with a potential investor when a panicked Ron enters. “I couldn’t get him to smile,” Ron mumbles, referring to a potential investor of his own. Ron reveals that, after driving too fast over a log, the investor hit his head on the dashboard, returning to his hotel in a haze to “sleep it off”. Famously, you don’t let someone with head trauma “sleep it off”. Despite the setback, Ron sticks to his guns, touting his tours as “therapy for soldiers so the can get used to peace time”. “We have to show the kids that they can chase their dreams,” he tells Barb.

Back in the present, Ron gets caught dismantling a Tecca chair in Dr. Stephens’ temporary office (“I’m just calling my mom!”). Arriving at home to find cops at the house, a distressed Ron finds that someone has donated his Big Green Egg (real dad shit!) to the police station on his behalf. Looking for a pretext to get Barba nod Seth out of the house, he claims it needs to be fumigated with the help of one of Santini’s scumbum pals. They head to a hotel, but Natalie offers them space at her fiancée Tara’s house, which they take, to Ron’s chagrin.

It’s fascinating to see into Tara and Natalie’s relationship. Natalie seems to do all the household work, and a tetchy Tara barely hides her annoyance about having to give up her “burger room”. Worst of all, Tara’s work as a burger photographer(?) has imbued the apartment with the scent of Wendy’s new Almond Pimento Burger.

At work the next day, it turns out that Douglas’ absence was due to him getting stuck under his fridge, rescued by a coworker. Ron is then confronted in his office by his boss Jeff about a rudely worded email Ron apparently sent him (from his personal account) where he demanded a raise. Clearly, someone is looking to sow discord in not just Ron’s life (a second modeling agency calls), but in his reputation as well. After the terse exchange with Jeff, Ron received an email survey from Tecca. While it initially appears boilerplate, the final question, “Are we done, Ron?” Gives him pause. Meanwhile, Santino has stolen a Tecca chair for Ron, who promptly dismantles it, leading to a breakthrough in the case.

Later, at Tara’s, Natalie and Ron talk about their respective relationships. Natalie respects how he has “taken a backseat” to Barb’s aspirations. But Ron doesn’t see it that way. “Natalie,” he intones, “I’m doing something that is beyond what anyone could ever dream of.” And thus, Ron unspools his theory.

Citing a missing chair appendix and the construction of Tecca chairs in Hungary, Ron believes that Tecca is smuggling Thebaine, a Hungarian-made ingredient in OxyContin, into the United States. Seemingly impressed, Natalie wants to know more about her dad’s investigation, looking at his notes on his phone and telling him, “I love you, I trust you, and I got you.” Not long after, Ron hears from Droyco that he has located a Red Ball board member, and Santini picks him up. We then see that Natalie has started surreptitiously tracking her father on her phone, watching his journey with great concern.

In a final flashback, we see Ron crash out over the failed Jeep tours as a teenage Natalie looks on. Seeing her concern, Barb tells Natalie that all the family can do is “love him, trust him,” and make sure that they’ve “got him”.

A bit of pathos this week! Aaron Schimberg’s direction hewed closely to the show’s extant style, but I think he did a great job of evoking some of the show’s drama. Notably, this was also the second episode not written by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, this time handled by fellow SNL alum Sarah Schneider (last week was written by Gary Richardson). I was really moved by Natalie and Ron’s earnest bonding. She’s clearly very nervous that he’s fallen into some sort of Q-adjacent “Mirror World” (thanks, Naomi Klein). And, well, who’s to say he isn’t?

Highlights from this episode:

• The beleaguered Beatles fan moaning “How!?” After Ron tells him to have a nice day.
• Ron typing “fuck fuck fuck goddammit fuck”, etc, into a Word doc. Who can’t relate?
• Ron’s continued obsession with the idea of a violent home invasion (“Barb’s throat slashed across the counter!”)
• The Trospers’ lack of consensus on how to pronounce Tara’s name
• “Tara makes me put olives in everything.”

I really love how The Chair Company seems to take place in a world without any boundaries whatsoever. People just say and do the wildest things to each other. We are not past the halfway point for the season, so it seems as if the toothpaste can not be put back in the tube.

What do you think will happen? What if Ron is 100% spot on with his Thebaine theory?

See you next week!