In episode 3 of The Chair Company, Ron’s trip down the Tecca rabbit hole took him to the website for yet another mysterious establishment named Red Ball Market Global (RBMG), which featured the red ball that he had discovered at the building that supposedly belonged to Tecca. He found the names of the board of directors there, and he also learned that there was a guy called Steven who, much like Ron, was doing an independent investigation into Tecca. After sharing that information with Mike, both of them went over to Steven’s house, and after confronting him, they came to the realization that Steven was actually a former employee of Tecca. So, after Steven left, Ron and Mike broke into his house to get their hands on any kind of document on Tecca that he had, and were horrified to come across Steven’s mother, who was rotting away on a pile of junk. Before the other lady who lived in Steven’s house, who could be Steven’s sister, wife, aunt, or all three at once, called the cops on Ron and Mike, they grabbed anything they could and bailed. Later on, Steven confronted Ron in his office because he wanted his papers back. Ron said that he’d do it as soon as he remembered the last place where he saw Tecca’s CFO, Ken. As a result of this ongoing investigation, Ron saw, through his security system, that a guy wearing a Jason mask was stalking him whilst sitting on a Tecca chair. In addition to all that, on the personal front, Ron had to deal with Seth’s growing alcoholism, and on the professional front, he had to fulfill Jeff’s demand to incorporate Canton’s history of football into the latest mall that Fisher Robay was developing. How were these plot threads furthered in today’s episode? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Ron’s Jeep Tours Disaster
Episode 4 of The Chair Company is divided into 2 segments. One is the flashback segment where we kind of get to see what Ron used to be like and why his recent activities are concerning for his family. And the other half, of course, focuses on present-day events, with Ron and Mike looking into Tecca. So, for the flashback segment, the clock is turned back 6 years as we follow Ron and Barb on their night out on Christmas. Barb felt that she was stuck in a rut in terms of her day job, and she wanted to change things up. She had come up with a concept for an aesthetically pleasing breast pump that she wanted to invest in. Ron sounded pretty supportive about Barb’s plan, but then he went ahead and centered the whole conversation around himself. He wanted to leave Fisher Robay and start anew. How? He had no idea, but he was pumped about leaving his job along with Barb and hitting the reset button. This seems like a fun moment, especially because of Tim Robinson’s quirky little dance, but it only goes to show how insecure and sexist Ron actually is. All Barb wanted to hear from Ron was that he’d keep his day job so that she could follow her dream, and instead he made her worry about what’d happen if both of them left their jobs together. Don’t be like Ron, folks.
The timeline then jumps forward by one year, and that’s where we get an idea of Ron’s big business venture: Jeep Tours. It’s so preposterous that I am actually laughing while writing this. Yeah, Ron’s big plan was to take soldiers suffering from PTSD on a trip through the woods in a jeep. That’s it. He thought that touring unstable soldiers in a jeep at breakneck speeds, something that they probably had to do in the war zone too, would help them acclimatize to the normie lifestyle. He did get an investor, and he drove that guy around the forests in his jeep in such a reckless manner that he got a head injury. The investor suggested that he opt for displaying old dinosaur videos on LED screens, because that’s more soothing than bloody Jeep Tours, but Ron was in no mood to listen to reason. While talking about all of this with Barb, he refused to even consider the suggestions that she was making; he wanted to go all in on Jeep Tours. He didn’t even listen to the kind of progress that Barb had made because he was convinced that Jeep Tours was the next big thing (news flash: it wasn’t). Supposedly, a few months after that crashout, Ron went all in on producing Jeep Tours merchandise. His garage was filled with custom t-shirts, Stanley cups, and umbrellas, and he was planning to buy land to expand his business. This had Natalie concerned, but Barb assured her that they needed to support him through this tough hour.
Ron Has Been Doxxed
In the present day, Ron shows the security footage of the Jason-masked guy to Mike, and they both assume that he’s someone from Tecca. Mike says that he’ll be on the lookout for further intrusions, which means that the Jason-masked guy has left for the time being. With that assurance, Ron goes into his house and finds out that Barb hasn’t seen the security footage of the Jason-masked guy; she’s busy relaxing with the help of Susan Asso’s eye massager after a bad meeting with the investors. So, Ron uses that opportunity to delete the copy of the footage from Barb’s phone and even shuts off the alerts so she isn’t spooked out by the Jason-masked guy. I don’t think that’s a smart move, because what if the Jason-masked guy is dangerous and he tries to ambush Barb when Ron isn’t around? What then? I guess we’ll find out later. For now, he tries his best to assuage his wife’s apprehensions about getting an angel investor like the one Susan got and then goes off to make a comprehensive document about Tecca and RBMG.
Ron arrives at the hypothesis that maybe Tecca is smuggling something through their chairs. In order to put this theory to the test, he goes over to Tecca’s website and tries to buy a chair. As soon as he adds a chair to the virtual cart, the website shows that the item has been sold out, which is extremely weird. What’s even weirder is that, the following day, a guy arrives at Ron’s doorstep saying that he is there to buy the 1965 Fab Four figure collection. Ron has no idea what the guy is talking about, but the buyer insists that Ron’s address has been listed on eBay (which means that Ron has been doxxed), and he is heartbroken to learn that it’s all a hoax. After sending that guy away, Ron heads to the office, only to learn that Douglas has gone missing. When Ron went to the Licking County Recorder’s Office to get the deed for RBMG, instead of writing down his own name as the requestee, he wrote Douglas’. Hence, he begins to panic that maybe someone has killed or kidnapped Douglas because they thought he’s the one investigating Tecca and RBMG. But there’s no way to confirm that because, well, Ron has to do his job.
Ron’s Sexual Harassment Case Thickens
During a meeting, we learn from Alon that Ron will need to incorporate a Jim Brown sculpture into the Canton Marketplace in order to honor the city’s football history. Brenda reveals that Jeff has a surprise for everyone to reward the hard work they have done. And Diane introduces Ron to Dr. Stevens, from Loebleene HR Consultants, who’ll be looking into the allegation of sexual harassment leveled against Ron by Amanda for looking up her skirt after he fell down from his chair. Earlier, Ron had said that although he went to the same high school that Amanda did, they never hung out together. Now, a picture of Amanda and Ron has been unearthed where Ron has his arm around Amanda.
As Ron tries to downplay that discovery by saying how poor and miserable Amanda was as a kid (again underscoring how insecure and misogynistic he is), he gets a call from Vendrome Faces Modeling Management, who says that his candidature for a modeling gig has been rejected. Much like he explained to the Fab Four buyer, Ron says that he didn’t apply for that job, and he vehemently insists that there’s been some kind of a mistake. Then he rushes back to his house to check his school yearbook and see what this “scandalous” picture with Amanda is all about. Instead of saying that it’s not as big of a deal as the HRs are making it out to be, he goes on a mini misogynistic rant about Amanda again. Since he’s doing all this in the room, which is Barb’s workplace, she tells him to get out and let her work in peace. And as she starts talking about an investor that she has bagged who’ll be joining them for dinner, Ron acts in a dismissive manner because, of course, he can’t tolerate the fact that his wife might actually be close to achieving her goal.
Ron Keeps Getting Pranked
The following day at the office, Ron’s conversation with Alice about the environmental impact of the mall construction is interrupted by a phone call from Carol, the recruiter for Superstars Etc. Modeling Agency (these are such bogus names), who tells him that he won’t be starring in the advert for Inside Battery because they are going with Bahld Harmon. Ron finally realizes that somebody is impersonating him and sending out all these random requests through an email address that has his name in it but isn’t his official email address, and that “somebody” is obviously Tecca. While freaking out about this, he spots a chair in Dr. Stevens’ room, and he tries to dismantle it in order to prove his aforementioned hypothesis. Before he can make any progress, though, Dr. Stevens shows up, thereby forcing him to leave the scene immediately. He understands that he can’t analyze the chairs in Fisher Robay in public, so he asks the janitor to wheel one out into the parking lot and put it into his car.
The janitor obliges, but his timing is really bad because when he smuggles out a chair from the office, Jeff asks the whole office to come to the parking lot for free beignets. So, Ron has no option but to tell the janitor to abort the mission and go home empty-handed. While pulling up to his house, Ron is shocked to see the police there. He immediately assumes the worst and thinks that his family has been harmed. He heaves a sigh of relief after learning that those who have been pranking him all day via the fake email ID have notified the police that he wants to donate his big green egg to the station. Ron could have told the police that somebody is impersonating him and that they need to put a stop to it. But he doesn’t, because that might hinder his own investigation of Tecca and RBMG. Therefore, he just gives away his big green egg and then calls up Mike to help him get his family out of the house and shift them to a place where Tecca can’t get to them. Mike sends over a guy pretending to be a pest-control expert, and Ron uses that as an excuse to pack everyone’s bags and move into Tara’s (Natalie’s fiancé) house. As soon as we meet Tara, it becomes pretty apparent why Ron dislikes her; she is a female version of Ron (and the fact that Natalie wants to marry Tara might be an indicator of her daddy issues).
Ron Is Not Ready To Give Up
The following day, at Fisher Robay, Ron learns that his advice to Louis to take some beignets over to Douglas’ house was a good idea, because Louis found Douglas trapped under his refrigerator. He is alive and is being taken care of by the relevant authorities. The episode breezes past this detail a little too quickly, and we don’t get to learn if this was actually an accident or an assassination attempt by RBMG and Tecca after they saw his name pop up at the Licking County Recorder’s Office. I suppose we’ll come back to this subplot later on. For now, the focus stays on Ron, who is confronted by Jeff about an email that he has gotten from him where he aggressively asked for a raise. Jeff is clearly offended, and Ron, instead of trying to explain that he didn’t send that email, just apologizes. This shows that Ron can talk over his own wife, and he can freak out in front of random people to assert his dominance, but when it comes to his (male) boss, he becomes spineless as hell.
If this isn’t an accurate depiction of the average upper-middle-class man, I don’t know what is. Anyway, as Ron recovers from the shock of this altercation, he notices an email from Tecca asking him if he has had enough, which underscores the fact that they’ve been behind the pranks that have turned Ron’s life upside down for the past couple of days. Is he ready to give up, though? Well, he does press the “Yes” button, but later that day, when Mike delivers a chair to Ron so that he can analyze it and see what Tecca is probably up to, he takes it. If he wanted to give up, he could have rejected that proposal, trashed the chair, and focused on his family and his work. But it seems like Ron won’t stop until he gets to the end of this Tecca-shaped rabbit hole.
Ron Thinks Tecca Is Smuggling Drugs
After spending the whole day in the garage with that chair, Ron goes over to Tara’s to have a chat with Natalie. They share a really sweet moment, but then Ron’s insecurity rears its ugly head yet again. He comments on Natalie’s decision to marry Tara and how he feels that Tara is doing her own thing while Natalie is sacrificing her dreams to just “support” Tara. And when Natalie points out that Ron is doing the same thing for Barb by doing his day job so that Barb can establish her business empire, Ron gets pretty agitated. He begins rambling about how he has unearthed a criminal conspiracy that proves that Tecca is smuggling oxy-thebaine sticks (a kind of illegal drug) from Hungary to the USA via the hydraulic lever at the base of their chairs. Ken, the CFO of RBMG, is apparently on the board of directors of a pharma company called Brucell Pharma. So, if he can get to him and force him to spill the truth, he can prove that Tecca’s chairs are faulty because they remove the hydraulic lever and sell the drugs that are smuggled through it. Natalie silently listens to all of this and simply turns on the tracker on Ron’s phone so that she can see what he’s doing and where he’s going at all times.
It’s clear that Natalie thinks that this is either a rehash of her dad’s Jeep Tours episode or something more aggressive, and maybe she’s considering the possibility of institutionalizing Ron before he completely destroys his personal and professional lives whilst taking down his whole family with him. At the end of The Chair Company episode 4, Ron and Barb are seen having dinner with the latter’s investor. That’s when Ron gets a call from Steven, who says that he has fulfilled his promise of finding Ken. Without giving it a second thought, Ron and Mike head over to the location given to them by Steven. There’s no way to determine if Steven has actually caught Ken or if he is bluffing on Tecca’s behalf. As for whether or not Ron is imagining this Tecca conspiracy, I think he’s onto something real. I feel that a plot twist where everything from Mike to Tecca is in Ron’s head, which has been caused by that metaphorical or literal bug in his phone, will be too cliche and boring. At the same time, I can’t deny the possibility that that’s what the creators are going for because the show is a commentary on men undergoing a midlife crisis. But those are just my thoughts on the episode. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments below.
