Thoughts on "I Think You Should Leave" S3's "Shirt Brothers" sketch
or: an excuse to make offhanded references to music while writing about comedy
Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave is back to show us once again that sincerity is comedy's deepest well.
Since the show’s third season was released on May 30, I’ve seen reactions ranging from instant love for the season and reluctant head-scratching about the show’s absurd sensibilities. A friend of mine who has already seen the season multiple times remarked that the sketches, for whatever reasons, get better and better upon multiple rewatches. Another friend of mine—who has also already seen the season multiple times—said that while only about half the sketches worked for him initially, the ones that didn’t work grew on him upon repeat viewings.
Why is ITYSL so rewatchable? And what is it that imbues many of the show’s sketches with that element of slow-growing potency?
Certainly much of ITYSL’s rewatchability comes from its structure and sequencing. There’s no hosting, no explaining, no segues other than soul music bumps that last all of a few seconds. Sketches rarely exceed four minutes so it’s easy to sit through the ones that don’t quite hit. (Its closest analog that I can think of is Tierra Whack’s Whack World, as far as its rapid-fire structure and commitment to ending an idea as soon as it’s been conveyed.)
These repeat viewings allow for a given sketch’s focus to, over time, reveal itself to viewers underneath its absurd writing and performances. I suspect what makes ITYSL so endearing is that the show’s comedic sensibility is, at its core, wholly committed to sincerity.
While Season 3 has a handful of highlights—Ronnie on the zipline, the drive-thru pay-it-forward scheme, Ronnie on the zipline again over a “ramp guitar” solo—I am firmly of the opinion that the “Shirt Brothers” sketch that closes episode 4 is the season’s strongest, and demonstrative of the show’s strengths as a whole.
“Shirt Brothers” features Tim playing the sketch’s “straight man” opposite the impeccable Biff Wiff, whose masterful comedic timing animated Season 2’s endearingly bone-headed Detective Crashmore. The sketch’s bit is established in the first scene: Tim’s unnamed dad character is at a school play to see his daughter and “Shane” (Wiff) is there to see his granddaughter, when “Shane” notices that Tim is wearing the same, very dad-like, dark blue polo shirt. “Hey, look at that! We got the same shirt on. Shirt brothers!” This is Biff’s first line of the sketch, and already it teeters between hilarious and sweetly sincere, in large part thanks to Biff’s commitment to conveying Shane’s excitement about finding his other half, his lost-long Shirt Brother.
“‘Hey, hey, Shirt Brother. Nice to meet you!’ I like this guy. Shirt Brother. He’s got good taste!” A reaction shot from Tim’s character conveys, That was kind of weird, but whatever. The sketch moves on to the children’s performance. Tim turns around once to see “Shane” staring right back at him with an aggressively friendly grin. When Tim turns around again, he notices “Shane” is missing—which is when “Shane” appears right beside Tim with a cry for help: “Shirt Brother! You gotta help me. I’m in deep fucking trouble here. Come on, Shirt Brother!” The music intensifies, the camerawork unsteady to match the tension, and we follow Tim and “Shane” to a classroom that has been trashed. A bewildered Tim asks, “What happened?”
Biff Wiff’s line readings in response are among the best of the season: “I thought… why don’t I just trash this place. You know, just, fucking go nuts in here. I started spinning around, going nuts, moving my head all around. I tried to rip the Wright Brothers off the ceiling, brother!”
“Shane” is so believably desperate when he needs help cleaning up and asks Tim, “So… where should we start?” At this point in the sketch, “Shane” is still just the sketch’s strange weirdo who Tim’s straight man gets to react bewildered to. And then, Biff delivers the line that flips the sketch’s dynamic on its head:
“You’re the only person I can talk to here.”
It’s a line reading that is earnest in its own right, and serves to highlight how sad and hilarious it is that “Shane,” who has a literal wife, has found his deepest connection in someone who happens to own the same polo.
Tim softens. “All right, maybe I can try and help you. Can you tell me why you really did this?”
“I’ve been listening to this new song by this band I’ve never heard before, and they’re saying… there’s no rules. You think that’s true?”
“Shane” hands Tim his phone to play the song, and not even a full second into the song playing tinnily from the speaker we hear “Shane” banging a classroom table, joyfully exclaiming, “There really are no rules!”
Tim exclaims, “Hey hey hey what are you doing!”
“Shane” responds, with the most pure frustration, “Well, turn it off then!”
And there lies the sketch’s second bit: “Shane” is an old man at the complete mercy of a Blink-182-sounding song that suggests there are no rules.
Tim is utterly sincere in response.
“You go through life and everything starts to feel really flat. Then you read something or you see something and you wake up, you feel inspired.”
“Shane” continues in his absurdly worded vulnerability:
“Hey Shirt Brother… promise me you’ll do everything in your power, to never do anything that’s a rule… Promise me a million times that you will never do another rule.”
From here, the sketch begins to build towards a climax that is equal parts hilarious and heart-wrenching.
“You go listen to your daughter’s solo… it’s too late for me. I’m awake now.”
Turnstile’s “Listening,” a song they recorded specifically for this sketch, begins playing. Tim is slow-motion running down the hall to see his daughter’s solo, his wife looking for him nervously. Purple neon-lit children sing and dance onstage together. “Shane” finds himself alone in the classroom he trashed. Tim makes it just in time to hear his daughter’s rap solo. Her friends embrace her onstage. It’s all very sweet and affecting, an unabashedly soulful sequence with zero gestures towards bitterness or irony. And none of the sweetness or sincerity is undercut by the sketch’s punchline, in fact it only amplifies: “Shane” sees “FOLLOW DIRECTIONS” on a whiteboard, and screams.
End episode.
. . .
A similar sensibility underlines the “Gift Receipt” sketch from Season 1 featuring Steven Yeun: Tim’s “Lev” has a cloying need for honesty that upends the birthday party, and he’s the weird one, until it turns out the entire party has the same need for honesty, and now Steven is the weird one.
This show has always been that good.
The first ITYSL episode I watched was Season 2 Episode 1, and the sketch that left the strongest impression was the Haunted House Tour sketch. When the sketch ended, I was so confused. Every sketch I’d seen leading up to this one was so absurd, and now I’m watching a really sad, lonely, sheltered guy make an ass of himself on a corny haunted house tour. Why am I so sad? Why am I laughing so hard?
I messaged my friend who initially put me onto ITSYL (thank you, again) about this sketch, and she labelled it “anti-comedy,” a fair assessment given Robinson’s unconventional approaches. This brings to mind the history of musical innovation in jazz music. (“[Detective Crashmore] kind of moves to the beat of jazz.” - Santa Claus) From Charlie Parker to Miles Davis to J Dilla, jazz music’s greats are those who broke established rules and created new ones in the process. In this sense, Tim Robinson is a true innovator of comedy. ITYSL is endlessly memed upon in the Twittersphere in a way that is organic, unforced in its virality. In the post-”Hotline Bling” Tik Tok era of content built for “watch ‘til the end” virality, this is an achievement in its own right.
We are so lucky to have Tim Robinson. For ITYSL fans who haven’t already seen Detroiters: Watch Detroiters.
Lastly: Please consider donating to Biff Wiff’s cancer recovery fund.
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