In the very first sketch of his cult hit comedy series, I Think You Should Leave, Tim Robinson plays a man faced with a problem so trivial its not really a problem at all: He pulls on a door thats meant to be pushed. Rather than change course, however, he digs in his heels. He insists the door swings both ways. He tugs until hes drooling from the exertion. He eventually breaks the hinge entirely. In trying to save himself the fleeting discomfort of admitting he was wrong, he humiliates himself in far more spectacular fashion.

That refusal to let anything go, ever, that tendency to double down to the point of self-destruction over the dumbest shit imaginable, is a central pillar of Robinsons comic persona. In this summers Friendship, about a man who grows obsessed with his neighbor, he and director Andrew DeYoung stretched the punchline to feature length. Now The Chair Company, on HBO, expands it even further, to eight half-hour installments. As with the rest of Robinsons oeuvre, its a purposely uncomfortable experience, as likely to make you squirm as laugh. But those already turned onto his brand of weirdness are in for a bracing ride. The comedy-thriller, co-created by I Think You Should Leaves Zach Kanin and directed in the premiere by DeYoung, begins, as so many Tim Robinson plotlines do, with a small but embarrassing mishap at the office. Ive been asked not to divulge the details here, but suffice it to say its the sort of thing that could happen to anyone, that most people might vent about to their loved ones later that evening and forget all about by next week.

William Ronald Trosper, however, is not most people. Ron, as hes usually called, is a Tim Robinson creation. So while he tries at first to brush it off with a joke, its immediately obvious that Ron is never going to get over it. Desperate to prove hes anything but a fool, he convinces himself that hes the victim of a grand conspiracy, and then the hero whos finally going to bring it all into the light.

It is at this point that you might be tempted to compare The Chair Company to the larger state of the world, and you wouldnt be wrong to do so. Ron is a middle-class, middle-aged white man so thin-skinned hell destroy his own life in search of someone, anyone, else to blame for his own misfortunes or mistakes. The need to see himself as righteous and respected is so overwhelming that hell neglect his mostly fine reality for a dark and twisted fantasy. Hes not unlike a lot of people whove been in the news lately.

But while Rons anger may be directed outward, it pierces inward; his actions frustrate his colleagues and worry his family which include wife Barb (Lake Bell), son Seth (Will Price) and daughter Natalie (Sophia Lillis) but they only ever truly harm himself. Positioned this way, hes less a threatening anomaly than a funhouse reflection of the impulses and insecurities buried within all of us. Who among us hasnt fantasized in the shower about exacting elaborate revenge for petty upsets, or lain awake trying to reframe our humiliations as epic tales of triumph?

Besides, though Rons behavior is extreme, it isnt unique. His reality, a few degrees drabber but also stranger than ours, is one populated by socially awkward nerds taking life of the party classes, an acting coach who squats in a students spare room, a henchman (Joseph Tudiscos Mike) whose favorite pastime is listening to two men scream X-rated obscenities at each other on the radio. Even folks who seem to have it all together, like Rons slick CEO Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips), only ever seem one twinge of embarrassment away from falling off the deep end.

The difference between Ron and most of us is that in this case, hes right. There really is something going on, which feels a bit like if the Hot Dog Guy actually did manage to find the guy who did this. As Ron starts tracking down leads and paper trails increasingly neglecting both his job and his family to do so he finds himself hounded by eerie coincidences, and stymied by forces as menacing as armed thugs and as mundane as unreasonable customer service hold times.

What these clues ultimately add up to is unclear, as of the seven half-hours sent to critics, and probably irrelevant. The conspiracy is murky and convoluted enough that I could only sort of explain it to you even now, and the stakes so vague it barely seems worth the effort. But it functions beautifully as a vehicle for throwing Ron into all manner of absurd situations, from nonsensical arguments to confused fisticuffs. As in Robinsons other works, what elevates them from amusing to sublime is the way theyre performed, often by unfamiliar but wonderfully offbeat character actors through overly broad smiles, wild-eyed smirks, strange pronunciations.

It feels sometimes as if everyone is an alien wearing a skin suit and trying to mimic human behavior, with varying degrees of success. I mean that specifically about the show, but Id be lying if I said Id never felt that about myself or the world around me and therein lies the draw of The Chair Company. The cringing mortifications and unsettling unreality make the series a tough sit. But for those tuned into the peculiar wavelength put out by Robinson and his collaborators, theyre also what make it irresistible. Ron and his show are the embodiment of an intrusive thought: the thing you cant seem to shake no matter how silly and absurd you know it is, no matter how much you might wince if you dwell on it too long.