The Pitch: It’s hard to describe just what makes I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson so damn special. The SNL alum, along with co-creator Zach Kanin and a phalanx of writers that include Patti Harrison and John Solomon, have built two gut-busting seasons to date centered around breaking down our carefully-crafted, exceedingly brittle senses of social cool and running roughshod over them.
Now, they’re back for a third helping, with six more episodes and nearly thirty sketches covering everything from virtual reality’s liminal space, the crushing obligation of following a coworker’s social media page, and the bone-deep bond that occurs between men who just happen to be wearing the same shirt (“shirt brothers”).
I’m Really Crossed Up: As usual, the season’s inaugural sketch sets the high-concept tone for what Robinson et al are doing here. In a VR-based take on Supermarket Sweep (hosted by The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, one of many welcome guest stars), Robinson straps on some virtual reality goggles to zap into the CG supermarket, only to suddenly forget how to breathe in this new world.
Not only that, the experience sends him into an existential spiral about the relationship between our physical and metaphysical selves. “How do we move our bodies ever?” he muses quietly. It’s the undercover prosthetic prank show sketch from Season 2 all over again, the weight of our physical existence suffocating someone who’s just been reminded how fragile our meat-bag bodies really are.
From there, it’s a cavalcade of strangeness, buoyed by an array of signature Robinson weirdos either played by the man himself or one of a host of great guests. Connor O’Malley returns to play on his own rep as an out-there YouTube comedian, now as a clingy weirdo who crumbles under the self-imposed weight to “be funny” to an audience of one (Robinson) who doesn’t even want to follow the guy’s Insta. Tim Meadows pops up as a frazzled dad at a wedding reception undone by the pressure to do something funny with the props at the photo booth: “Three seconds to think of something silly! That’s not enough time!”
But whether it’s Robinson or one of his many avatars, the show delights in its usual mix of goofy slapstick (see: Robinson’s reality dating show contestant, who’s not there for love but for the house’s amenities) and subversive probing of our insecurities and pride (the debate show host who boasts that he will just start going on his phone when he starts losing the argument).
I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix)