The Chair Company: The new Tim Robinson comedy thriller perfectly portrays "The Butterfly Effect" - here's how

Tim Robinson's new workplace comedy thriller, The Chair Company, has been garnering quite some social media attention ever since its premiere last month. With a unique plotline and intense storytelling, the HBO show is breaking all conventions of a while, consistently maintaining suspense as a major element.

The story revolves around an honest, decent yet eccentric family man named Ron (Tim Robinson), whose recent promotion at work becomes the starting point of all the troubles in his life. The Chair Company is undoubtedly the perfect example of how The Butterfly Effect works - a small change in the initial conditions of a system can lead to absolute chaos, and that's exactly what happens to Ron over the course of time. Keep reading to find out more.

Why The Butterfly Effect perfectly justifies the plot of The Chair Company

The Chair Company starts with the protagonist Ron getting promoted to the role of Project Manager at his construction firm, Fisher Robay. Overwhelmed by the recent developments of his professional life, Ron tries to keep his calm before the initiation of a big project - a lifestyle centre and shopping mall.

But things go awry right after his project initiation speech as Ron's chair breaks down in front of a huge crowd (filled with seniors and dignitaries), leaving him embarrassed and sunken with shame. Apparently, he does not handle the whole thing pretty well and goes into a state of desperation to find out the root cause of what led to his humiliation. In an attempt to do so, Ron starts digging into "The Chair Company" that made the chairs in his office.

Hardly did he know that his "not so necessary" investigation would bring him in contact with the underworld. As it turns out, The Chair Company does not only make chairs but is at the forefront of something illegal and huge.

From storming into vacated Tecca buildings to digging up information on every prominent name in the firm, Ron finds his life upside down. Moreover, it soon becomes evident that the people behind The Chair Company's illegal trade are onto Ron and start interfering in his personal matters - even his family.

The whole thing fits pretty well with the famous mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz's chaos theory, commonly known as The Butterfly Effect. A very minor deviation in "the initial conditions of a deterministic nonlinear system" might lead to a state of chaos.

It is not how one wrong thing directly brings a bad and huge change in the dynamics of the system. It is rather the series of events and how one leads to another, resulting in something big and unprecedented:

"A butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world could, through a chain reaction, cause a tornado in another part of the world."

Now, comparing the theory with what we see in The Chair Company, it seems to be well-explained. Ron's humiliation at work drives him to dig up all information on The Chair Company, and it does him no good.

Because neither is he able to get a way to complain to the manufacturer of the chairs, nor is he able to get any compensation for his embarrassment. Ron triggers a small change in a complex system that leads him to frame a conspiracy theory against Tecca.

Though it might be one hundred percent true, it is something that was not required. So, it causes one problem after another (starting from his workplace to his family), and Ron soon finds himself hanging in the balance while juggling his two lives.

Moreover, as seen in The Chair Company Episode 4, Ron is now close to having his first breakthrough in the case of a potential drug racket operating worldwide. But is it really worth it? Ron getting obsessed with the broken chair is the butterfly flapping its wings, and his ending up in the middle of a dangerous and illegal global trade is the tornado that could destroy everything.

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