What I’m Watching: The Chair (Season Finale)

The Chair: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Chair” (B+)

I’m choosing to consider this a season finale since I think it would be a true waste to have this fantastic cast around for only three hours total when they could easily return for years and years to examine how things have changed at Pembroke and in their lives. I didn’t expect Ji-Yoon to be telling her life story to her daughter’s therapist, but, to be fair, Ju Ju wasn’t too into it either, pausing only to offer the therapist poison. After Ju Ju said some harsh things to her mother and Bill made out with her only to then get very angry about her not going to bat for him, things actually turned out surprisingly well. Bill gave what Dean Larson described as a lecture in his semi-defense, and then Ji-Yoon did go ahead and align herself with him, which meant that he ended up being fired after all and her future wasn’t looking too good. Joan’s unwillingness to go ahead with the vote of no confidence was fortuitous, and Ji-Yoon actually went along with the idea pretty easily since the job wasn’t all that great, and Joan would be a great choice since it came with an office, solving the main problem that Joan had all along. Somehow, Bill didn’t get himself into more trouble by making Dafna believe that he thought she was there to have sex with him, and he was so concerned about getting to teach again that he even refused to take the settlement. There’s absolutely room for more story here, and I sincerely hope we get that.

Season grade: A-
Season MVP: Holland Taylor as Joan

What I’m Watching: The Chair

The Chair: Season 1, Episode 5 “The Last Bus in Town” (B+)

I was curious when David Duchovny was finally going to make his appearance, and I’m happy with how his character was handled. He does have some depth but not all that much range – or maybe it’s the other way around – and he barely even registered most of Ji-Yoon’s comments about how he was out of date and he couldn’t just teach a course on the one subject he happened to know. She did manage to come up with a very creative solution that he seemed amenable to, but that doesn’t mean that others were open to it, namely the very irritated Dean Larson, who was ready to fire Bill and likely to do the same with Ji-Yoon. It’s unfortunate since there are multiple fires that she’s not even aware are burning and is going to have considerable trouble putting out, including the mutiny of the “dinosaurs” who wanted to stage a coup rather than be pushed out even though Ji-Yoon was doing literally everything she could to keep them employed, even the one who can’t stay awake long enough to have a conversation. It makes sense that Yaz should pursue other opportunities, and even if she can’t understand Ji-Yoon’s experiences, she has a right to choose how she wants to go about her career. Bill coming to the party was a disaster, though somehow he ended up having his house cleaned even though he interfered in a one-year-old’s career decision where his input was very much not welcome. It was sweet to hear Ji-Yoon’s father’s response to Bill asking about what she picked and how it worked out perfectly.

What I’m Watching: The Chair

The Chair: Season 1, Episode 4 “Don’t Kill Bill” (B+)

I’m so impressed with the ensemble on this show and the way that they’re all utilized so well. Elliot is so dry and seems so lost in the present time, but he also has a supportive wife at home who is pushing him to accept reality as it has happened. He’s not, however, investing any of the time or energy he should be in understanding how much Yaz has to offer and that it could be a good thing, much to both his and her detriment. She was right to speak up to Ji-Yoon, whose own experiences of being overlooked and overshadowed by men have shown her how she has to act to get ahead in some way but not nearly enough to make any real progress. On a far less impactful note, the news that David Duchovny was going to be taking over Bill’s classes didn’t land well with either Ji-Yoon or Bill, and while they were quickly distracted by Juju’s unknown whereabouts, Ji-Yoon going into his office to steal his lecture notes to give to David will surely come up again. I very much enjoyed Bill and Juju delivering each other’s apologies, and Juju took advantage of Bill’s immaturity to put him in an unfortunate situation where his only consequences seem to have been running into a right-wing student and being spotted by the dean. Horatio helping Joan track down the student who was writing horrible reviews about her was great fun, and she didn’t hold back when she chewed out the apparent culprit in front of a very engaged crowd.

Take Three: The Chair

The Chair: Season 1, Episode 3 “The Town Hall” (B+)

What Bill did to get himself into hot water didn’t make a lot of sense and shouldn’t carry much weight because of how little thought he gave it, but his inability to just admit that it was a mistake that doesn’t reflect his values is only going to get him into more trouble. Dafna tried to advise him that it wasn’t a good idea, and, despite breaking into “Springtime for Hitler” while previewing what he was going to say at the town hall, Bill seemed to have some strong ideas and good sentiments. Unfortunately, it took a sour turn when he couldn’t just apologize, and the poor timing of Dean Larson and the campus police showing up turned it into a very problematic spectacle. Ji-Yoon couldn’t contain her anger about the dean having his wife select David Duchovny as the lecturer, and she didn’t want to believe that he was actually a bestselling author, especially since she had to correct the dean on his use of “to who.” Elliot flailed when his students called him on not taking issue with the personal actions of the writers he was venerating, and Yaz had a perfect response to that which should enable her to feel some control over the classroom again. Holland Taylor really is terrific as Joan, dryly alleging that the evaluations said she was too exciting before literally burning each one. I was happy to see Bob Stephenson from “Ultrasound” as the IT guy who was happy to help her read the reviews that turned out not to be so positive and in some guys, very graphic in a way that took Joan a few moments to understand.

Round Two: The Chair

The Chair: Season 1, Episode 2 “The Faculty Party” (B+)

There’s clearly a lot to be explored on this show, and it seems like a shame that this is only going to be six episodes. That’s doubly true given the lack of urgency from our two primary protagonists, who spend almost an entire episode without realizing – or caring, in Bill’s case – that they didn’t have their phones with them. I’m not sure what the necessity of that Nazi salute was, but now Bill’s become a meme, and there’s not much he’ll be able to do to save face at this point. That they were debating the optics of entering into a romantic relationship moments earlier only further complicates things, particularly because someone saw them wrestling on the couch earlier and might report that as an indication of Ji-Yoon’s questionable judgment. She did pretty well when forced to deliver a toast while under the influence, and she certainly set Yaz up for success, even if Dean Larson promptly condescended to her by mispronouncing her name. I knew I recognized her from somewhere, and that’s because actress Nana Mensah was the creative force between “Queen of Glory,” a Tribeca standout in which she also starred. While Ji-Yoon’s daughter scarring the babysitter was perhaps a runner-up, the most memorable scene of the episode was Joan getting herself into hot water by eviscerating the woman whose job it was to decide whether her Title IX case had any merit, which I have to imagine will result in a flat and unambiguous no, and maybe even lead to a new case against her.

Pilot Review: The Chair

Check out my one-minute take on every new pilot, which is embedded below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.

What I’m Watching: Dead Pixels

Dead Pixels: Season 2, Episode 2 “The Chair” (B+)

I like that this show is true to who its characters are, but I think I do want to see the spinoff that’s never going to be made where Alison goes out into the world only to constantly come home and find her roommates refusing to leave their rooms because they won’t stop playing video games. She was rather blunt about her own personal life in this episode, and I loved the response Nicky gave when she told him that Meg was coming to the gym with her, a quite unexpected development. I think the best moment of this episode was definitely Meg trying to follow up on her crush on the water guy by asking him out for a drink at precisely the moment that she realized that she had drunk way too much water, prompting a hilarious rejection from him in the form of a declaration that she absolutely did not need any more liquids. Nicky wasn’t in much better shape, of course, agreeing to Russell’s excitement at buying his avatar so that he could use it primarily to fart, a feature apparently designed for children, so that Nicky could continue his endless collection of crates. Meeting a female character who enjoyed brutally killing him over and over again seems to have completely redirected his interest, and I hope that translates to a real-life rendezvous. Usman hiding out in a closet because his family thought he had to go to work was typically absurd, and the pest inspector giving him a salute to affirm his enthusiasm for the game was a great ending to this episode.