"That One Egg Was 40 Eggs?" and more lines that make sense when you watch "I Think You Should Leave"

The joy of the community around the silliest show on television

Jun 07, 2023

Welcome:

Our house is next to a community pool. We moved last April and didn’t get it together quick enough to join last year. We decided to make it a priority to get in this year.

Boy, am I glad we did. We have been loving it. There’s a kiddie pool where my son just goes bananas. It rules. I am looking forward to spending much of the summer there.

One Big Trend: The Blissful Oddity of ITYSL

A very strange game you can really play!

It’s hard to explain a television show. Any show, really. There is so much that goes into the presentation. Of course you have characters, dialogue, and settings to start, which are hard enough on their own to describe. But you also have tone, style, and elements that normal people just struggle to articulate.

This is a big reason why we’re always comparing new television shows to others that people may be familiar with. Yellowstone is Succession on the frontier. 30 Rock is a behind the scenes look at Saturday Night Live. Superstore is like The Office but in a Super Walmart and not a mockumentary. Abbott Elementary is The Office but in an elementary school. This reality show is like that reality show, but with a twist.

Once you become a fan of a show, though, you get wrapped into it. You start speaking its language. You see people through the prism of the show’s characters. You try to figure out which character you are, and sometimes you even steal little turns of phrase. You use their behaviors as excuses for your own. I’d guess quite a few “one too many” glasses of wine were poured as the person consuming them said, “That’s what I do, I drink and I know things.”

I Think You Should Leave is my favorite comedy show at the moment. Starring comedian Tim Robinson, it’s a sketch show that packages a bunch of short, amped up jokes into episodes that are only about 15 minutes or so in length. The sketches don’t tell a single linear story. They do feature similar beats and themes, but with very few exceptions any of them can be viewed independent of the others. That being said, they flow in quick succession into each other. The hits keep right on coming. This makes it easy to watch whole seasons of the show all at once. This only takes about 90 minutes, but given the chaotic subject matter it feels much more dangerous than watching one 90 minute movie or 3 episodes of a sitcom.

The show typically drops you into a very normal situation, a small party or a meeting in an office. Just as you’re settling in, things start to get weird. There’s an uncertainty about how to behave. Someone can’t let go of some minor slight. There is a deep issue that someone feels the need to address…aggressively. The situation swirls and swirls and escalates, usually into either a screaming match or a goofy, bumbling, physical fight.

What is the show like? The sketch-based nature of the show is something like SNL. Its particular brand of humor makes it most similar to Tim and Eric’s recent work on Adult Swim, both on Awesome Show and Bedtime Stories. A recent New York Times piece draws comparisons to Veep and Curb Your Enthusiasm, noting that those shows are a form of uncomfortable cringe comedy.

All of those are valid, but in truth I Think You Should Leave is singular. Robinson and his collaborators gives the show such a specific feeling. The world they create is so almost normal that it makes the jokes all the more strange, the odd-character-out all the more glaring. But the brilliance is that you often sympathize with the characters who find themselves the butt of the joke or caught in an awkward situation. We’ve all felt like we’re the only sane person in the room, that everyone else is just collectively ignoring some very obvious issue we find to be untenable. Maybe we don’t act like the characters in ITYSL, but the thought has certainly occurred to us.

This has all come together to form a really fun community. The ITYSL memes that viewers share with one another add another whole layer to the joy the show brings. It allows viewers to show how they’d like to react to the world around them, if only for those pesky societal norms. The Succession economy is made up of thought pieces and podcasts. The ITYSL economy is made up of memes. This expands the show and brings it into the real world, allowing the audience to become a part of a work that we so appreciate. If you don’t watch, you won’t get it. But if you do watch, you really get it.

The screenshot above is a great example. If you don’t watch the show, it means nothing to you. If you do, you’re laughing not only because of how silly it looks, but because of what you know that egg is about to do. When you see that egg, as goofy as it seems, there’s an instant connection with whoever shared it. The same with any number of screenshots or images of Robinson and his partners. It grows real life affinity. It means so much more than a joke in a TV show. It means that you and that person share the same adoration for a tall, kind man and his very strange sense of humor.

Why should you care?: As we continue to depart from monoculture, the niches that encourage viewers to go deep and then reward them for doing so are going to thrive. When there is less of a mass audience, higher engagement becomes more important. Connection is critical. ITYSL is a great example of a work that you want to hang out with, even if you’re not watching it. That makes it really awesome.

Wrestling Fact of the Week:

Wrestling is always trying to find the fine line between Very Cool Performance Art and Fake Looking Circus. The latest example of this is the Young Bucks pulling off an “Exploding Superkick”

To me? That’s awesome. To some? It was too much. I’d love to know what you think.

Have a great rest of your week.

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