I Think You Should Leave season 2

 2021, created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin - netflix

There are a LOT of thinkpieces out there about Tim Robinson's sketch comedy I Think You Should Leave, it's six-episode second season having just debuted on Netflix.  My favourite take is from the Guardian's Rachel Aroesti, who likens the sketches in the show as a reflection of internet behavior but in a real world situation.  Whether it's repeating an opinion ad nauseum whether anyone wants to hear it or not, or always believing yourself to be correct no matter the situation, or gleefully looking for an opportunity to curse regardless of how inapprorpiate, or repeating a barely-joke over and over until someone acknowledges it, or dismantling a joke because you don't understand it... etc. 

It's a show of sketches that center, typically, around a single person behaving poorly (or, rather, ineptly) in any given situation, and it's always, ALWAYS the suspense of whether the people around them are on board with them, or against them...or sometimes against them, but then on board with them.  It's like internet culture where there seem to be tides that just turn for no other reason the the persistence of some very loud voices.  The root of many sketches is inept pleas for understanding for belonging.

I can understand this obsession Robinson has. We seem to be an ever insular society, where we can't handle differing opinions of any sort, and taking ownership of one's flaws or misdeeds is never an option, so doubling down is the only route.  People become obsessed about the most bizarre things and they become so fixated it becomes their entire reality, all they want to talk about (like the intricately patterned shirts one of Robinson's characters is willing to sacrifice everything for).  People wind up in subcultures that just serve their confirmation bias, and any outside opinion or even attempt to help extracate someone from their limited world view is seen as an outright attack on ones very being.  The absolute rage some of Robinson's characters (or the Robinson archetype that other performers stand in for) is always unfounded.  On its face, on a per sketch basis, it's pretty funny stuff, but as a whole it's an exposed nerve, the failure of our society, how the disconnectedness of engaging online has influenced real-world culture reflected over and over again in sketch comedy form. And, I should point out, the internet, phones, or computers rarely come into play at all in the show.

It's kind of a reminder that we don't know how to act around each other anymore, we don't know how to converse or engage, and sometimes, while watching the show, I forget how to laugh even though it's really quite sharply funny.  Another unique thing about Robinson's sketches is they don't typically have punchlines, they're more about the moment, the mood, and/or the personality that dominates it.  It strikes such an unsual tone and format that it shouldn't work, but at around 16 or 17 minutes per episode, no sketch outstays its welcome (with the exception of the "Calico Cut Pants" sketch which seems to live too long, then comes back around), and they almost always leave you wondering how that situation resolves itself.  If anything that's the brilliance of I Think You Should Leave, it often leaves it up to the viewer's imagination to close out the sketch.  

That all said, the nonsense of "Sloppy Steaks" is my favourite thing from Season 2.