No two sketches on I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson are alike. That’s been the case through the first two seasons of this Netflix series and it remains true in season 3.
Sure, there are some recurring elements. In any given sketch, Robinson’s character is likely to raise his voice, break important social norms, and alienate the folks around him. But the real appeal of Robinson’s superb sketch comedy vehicle is how you’ll never guess the truly wild directions each joke will spin off to.
In season 3 alone: photos of cigars somehow lead into a ponytail past the anus, professional wrestlers’ penises explode, and 40 eggs end up equaling one egg. Like we did with season 2, we decided to rank every single sketch from I Think You Should Leave season 3’s five episodes (which feature 27 total sketches).
Enjoy and let us know what we got wrong!
27. Don Bondarley King of the Dirty Songs
Episode 6 Sketch 3
Sometimes you see the vision and sometimes you just don’t. Regretfully, we didn’t see the vision with Don Bondarley, king of the dirty songs. Poor Don has been out of the game for awhile and can’t quite recover the magic art of dirty songs. The ending moment in which Don talks himself into the false reality that the party’s stunned silence must mean they love the songs is funny enough (as is his subsequent offer to turn around so they can jerk off). But overall this episode 6 sketch is season 3’s slightest offering.
26. Surprise Party
Episode 3 Sketch 5
Through three seasons, Patti Harrison has been one of I Think You Should Leave‘s most lethally guest stars. Her previous three sketches (The Capital Room, Her Job is Tables, and New Copier) are all all-time greats. This season 3 sketch, however, quite simply doesn’t give her enough to do. It’s generally amusing to watch Patti’s character treat a cardboard cutout of her boss as a low rent voodoo doll but it never crescendos into the dextrous verbal nonsense you’d hope for.
25. Street Sets
Episode 1 Sketch 4
Street Sets has absolutely the right idea but not quite the best execution. It wisely understands that the joke here isn’t just about Fred Armisen beating up a fake child (though that would be pretty funny) but rather his frustration with the company Street Sets’ amateurish follow through. If anything this sketch could have used a followup look into Street Sets’ presumed spinoff business Jump Junkies.
24. Team Building Workshop
Episode 1 Sketch 2
An I Think You Should Leave skit is often at its best when a character involved breaks kayfabe and takes stock of the sad mess their life has become. Episode 1’s second sketch has one such great moment in which team building the workshop water attacker realizes “What is even going on? My life is out of control. I take everything too far. I got too hyper.” When even the orgy-imagining Tim Robinson character concurs, you know you’ve gone too far.
23. Danny Green’s Photo Wall of Metal Metal Motto Search
Episode 6 Sketch 2
Longtime Tim Robinson collaborator Sam Richardson is just so good at … everything. His mere presence is enough to elevate any sketch and it does so here. Unfortunately this one bears too much in common with several game show formatted sketches from previous seasons and doesn’t add much else to the table aside from some slick animation. We will say though that one of season 3’s most underrated laughs come from the tight closeups of the mustachioed man in the Metaloid Maniac costume here.
22. Sounds Like a Volcano
Episode 5 Sketch 1
This episode 5 opener provides a privileged look into what an ITYSL Tim Robinson character actually sees when they view the world. While at first it may seem like a bit when Randall says the AC kickstarting sounds like a volcano, it’s never just a bit for a Robinsonoid (that’s the term I will now be using for Robinson characters). In this case, the guy really does see the world that way and it’s weirdly beautiful that he wants his co-worker Amanda to see all the volcanoes, little pimps, and blood cocks the world has to offer too.
21. Banana Breath
Episode 6 Sketch 1
One of the most charming aspects of ITYSL is how co-creators Robinson and Zach Kanin delve deep into the Hollywood catalogue to find little-known older actors who haven’t had their chance to shine yet and then gives them to space to do so. In this episode 6 opener, it’s Alison Martin’s turn to shine and boy does she ever! Her Cam’s simple banana breath joke at the HR harassment seminar becomes a rallying cry to build a whole workplace community around. Now if only her dumbass co-worker Rick could properly draw a computer for the shirts.
20. You Can’t Park Over the Sidewalk (Ponytail)
Episode 2 Sketch 3
This sketch, which can probably just be called “Ponytail” for simplicity’s sake, really is a grower not a shower. At first glance this Will Forte-starring experiment is a little too weird to properly appreciated. But like Forte’s garish ponytail itself it really leaves an impression in the long run. Why does this guy have all those photos of cigars on his phone? Why does the maître d’ at the restaurant know the Google SEO for imagines of diarrhea? And why does this one ponytail man hate the other ponytail man so much? All valid questions to consider.
19. Summer Loving Farewell
Episode 4 Sketch 4
Summer Loving Farewell is just a nifty little bonus that we probably could have left off the list entirely or just combined it with its proper entry (much) later on. But the quick cut clips of Robinson’s perfectly comedic body flopping into the water over and over again deserves another shoutout.
18. Gelutol
Episode 4 Sketch 3
Robinson’s flat “No.” when a bald man asks him if he and another bald man are talking about hair restoration treatment “Gelutol” is one of season 3’s best abrupt jokes. While the rest of the sketch can’t quite achieve the same highs it remains a fun little parable about the kind of petty, inexplicable hatred that ITYSL does best.
17. Talk About Your Kids
Episode 5 Sketch 3
There are many other names we could have given this sketch. Perhaps “Hey, the dog is blowing me!” “Godzilla the Gorilla,” or even just “The One With Jason Schwartzman” would have sufficed. Whatever you wanna call it, this is season 3’s longest sketch and it makes the best of its extended runtime. What starts as a joke about the Robinsonoid taking a request to stop a guy when he talks about his kids too much quickly blows up into an epic about one man’s increasingly strained attempts to entertain and distract the party. If ITYSL were a more meta show we might say this was commentary from Robinson on the challenges of capturing comedic lightning in a bottle over and over again. But it’s not that kind of show. It’s the kind where someone’s kid shoots a gorilla in the zoo because he was such a big fan and “wanted to own his life or something.”
16. Dog Hair
Episode 3 Sketch 2
Here I must confess that I would have had this sketch lower initially if it weren’t for the tireless advocacy of Den of Geek‘s own Kirsten Howard. Upon reflection, I believe Kirsten rightfully realizes that “Dog Hair” perfectly captures the lunacy of the average ITYSL experience. The show is strange enough to begin with that the Robinson’s cocker spaniel hair doesn’t even register. But then the sketch becomes very explicitly about that dog hair before culminating in the damn near perfect closing joke. It’s a good’n.
15. The Driving Crooner
Episode 1 Sketch 5
An I Think You Should Leave sketch doesn’t need the threat of violence to be great but it sure does help. This episode 1 closer’s premise opens strong. Tim is the Driving Crooner and he will be god damned if anyone steals his decals. But it doesn’t hit another level until a group of youths make good on Tim’s previous prediction that “There’s people that want to kill me, James.”
14. Barley Tonight
Episode 1 Sketch 1
Oftentimes, it can be hard to tell just how funny an ITYSL sketch is until the internet gets its hands on it and memes it half to death. With that in mind, we expect that season 3’s very first sketch “Barley Tonight” might have the most growth potential. Rather than being ITYSL’s first real political satire, this quickly devolves into a perfect cacophony of goofiness. You don’t understand: if you’re winning the argument, Barley will get on his phone. He has no problem with it. The image of Barley slumped over in his chair, thumbs tapping away at the screen is really something to behold.
13. Pacific Proposal Park
Episode 4 Sketch 2
“Pacific Proposal Park” is the kind of sketch you’d like to know the creation process behind. Was the first joke about grass soft enough to get down on one knee to propose or were the wrestlers a part of the equation the whole time? Either way, the marriage (no pun intended) between the two is blissfully goofy. The work from the real life professional wrestlers in this is superb and Sam Richardson clearly has the time of his life playing off their madness.
12. Friend Group
Episode 4 Sketch 1
No one fills out an ill-fitting suit quite like Timmy Robinson. The set up here is pretty funny to begin with. Beck Bennett’s character is clearly part of some sort of exploitative friendship cult. But this baby (of the year) doesn’t start to sing until Robinson enters the picture to intimidate Beck’s new friends? Did this friendship group leader really need to fart while smacking the table? Probably not. Did I laugh so hard I had to start the sketch over to watch it again? Yep.
11. Richard Brecky “Jellybean”
Episode 3 Sketch 1
The funniest Tim Robinson characters are the ones that get bullied to within an inch of their life. With that metric in mind, Richard Becky is one of Robinson’s best-ever creations. All poor Richard wants to do is silently perform his one man show “Jellybean” in peace. But frats and bachelor parties won’t let that happen. Brecky’s increasing exasperation at the chorus of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” screams gets funnier and funnier throughout the sketch.
10. I Just Slept With Frankenstein’s Chick
Episode 6 Sketch 4
One gets the sense that Conner O’Malley is I Think You Should Leave‘s “break glass in case of emergency” comedic performer. Really nothing about this sketch should work. It’s too all over the place. Why is the workplace here a campaign office for the fictional Karen Ochoa? Where are there so many extraneous characters at the beginning before the real action begins? Once O’Malley enters the scene though, none of that really matters. His earnest quest for viral video fame with “I Just Slept with Frankenstein’s Chick” absolutely delivers. So too does the sketch’s ending that finds him selling his channel to his creditors so that his beloved father won’t be beheaded (like Kim Kardashian tragically will be later on this list).
9. Shirt Brothers
Episode 4 Sketch 5
“I’ve been listening to this new song from a band I’ve never heard before and they said there’s no rules. Do you think that’s true?” God, I hope so, I really hope so. Much like his work in ITYSL season 2, whimsically named character actor Biff Wiff steals this one. Shirt Brothers is about many things: shirts, brothers, panicking in small classrooms, and the mind-freeing power and rock & roll. It’s just great.
On a serious note, Wiff is unfortunately battling a recurrence of cancer at the moment. His Wiff family-approved GoFundMe for medical expenses can be found here.
8. Egg Game
Episode 2 Sketch 4
So much of the best humor on I Think You Should Leave revolves around words and the seemingly infinite ways you can deploy them to create something unfamiliar, jarring, and ultimately hilarious. Egg Game is the rare skit that utilizes mostly visual humor. Just about everything in egg game works. The initial sight gag of Robinson’s corporate drone playing is plenty funny. Then it escalates into bizarre mathematical quandaries before culminating into seeing a pixelated egg’s whole bush and asshole. Indeed we should be allowed to look at a LITTLE porn while at work. And failing that, we should be able to play the actual Egg Game.
7. TKK Jewelers and L&L Limos Are Scams
Episode 2 Sketch 5
This sketch, which could also be called “Live Sitcom Taping” is another stealth climber. It didn’t make me laugh as hard as some other skits on first watch but long after it wrapped I’ve been pondering the mystery of TKK Jewelers and L&L Limos. It takes a minute for this one to get rolling but once it does it leads to some of the most bizarre visuals from this season (and yes, I know I JUST wrote about an egg’s butthole). The imagery of a watch exploding and a beefy hand wearing a Super Bowl ring reaching for ice in a limo have haunted my dreams for days.
6. Supermarket Swap VR Edition
Episode 2 Sketch 1
Hey, it’s The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri! If Supermarket Swap VR Edition has a flaw it’s that it doesn’t utilize the sketch’s guest star well enough. But when Robinson is firing on all cylinders like he is here you mostly just want to stay out of his way. This is incredible physical humor with Robinson’s lack of oxygen being subtle enough to really build the humor. “I don’t know how to work the body,” Robinson’s character notes upon being released from a VR supermarket world. After viewing this skit, I’m not sure I do either.
5. Wedding Photo
Episode 5 Sketch 2
It’s always a pleasant surprise when a familiar comedian pops up on I Think You Should Leave and immediately gets the vibe. And few other major guest stars outside the Tim Robinson Extended Universe appear to have gotten the vibe better than Tim Meadows does in this sketch. Wedding Photo works because the SNL vet knows how to crank things to 11 immediately. There’s just the scarcest of set ups here: Meadows’ character is gonna pop in to his daughter’s goofy Photo Booth style wedding shoot. But when things go wrong they go REALLY wrong. Tim shoves a purple feather done his throat, immediately pukes, screams about not getting enough time to prepare, and then boasts of all his various business deals. That’s just solid fundamental ITYSL stuff.
4. ABX Heart Monitor (Club Haunted House)
Episode 3 Sketch 3
While Tim Robinson’s style of humor is incredibly distinct it still does borrow quite a bit from the dadaist nightmare visions of Tim Heidecker. It’s only fitting that Tim has invited other Tim onto his show for three consecutive seasons. Even though the other Heidecker skits have worked out quite nicely, season 3’s immediately jumps to the top of the pack as the best. Everything in this one is calibrated to perfect lunacy. Tim Robinson suffering a heart attack at Club Aqua is funny. His doctor then being obsessed with Club Aqua and Club Haunted House is also funny. Tim constantly assuring his doctor he’s only jacking off and not dancing is even funnier. And then the coup de grâce: Club Aqua’s Robinson-built deck collapses, beheading Kim Kardashain offscreen. If there were ever a Robinson/Heidecker sketch that showcases each comic performers’ sensibilities, it’s this one.
3. Summer Loving
Episode 1 Sketch 3
“Summer Loving” presents compelling evidence for why Tim Robinson didn’t last long at Saturday Night Live and while the world is all the better for it. At first glance, there is so much parody-rich material when it comes to summer-themed dating shows like Love Island. Robinson, however, wisely side steps all of those tired, cliche, and daresay SNL-esque opportunities in favor of something far more satisfyingly goofy. What if this goober just really wanted to go on the zipline over and over again? And so Robinson does just that – wetshirt, expressionless face, 360 rotations and all. “Summer Loving” is the perfect combination with the visual and verbal as Robinson’s acrobatics are funny but “He’s just too excited. He’s too rough on the rope.” is even funnier.
2. Pay it Forward
Episode 3 Sketch 4
Weirdly enough, “Pay it Forward” might be among the most “conventional” I Think You Should Leave sketches ever. At its center there is a very simple “set-up + punchline” joke structure. Set-up: guy pays for the next order in the drive-thru line to “pay it forward.” Punchline: he immediately tears back into the line to order $680 worth of fast food. If “Pay It Forward” were only that, it would probably still be a mid-tier season 3 clip based on ingenuity alone. As it stands, however, it’s the second best skit of the season because it does what all great ITYSL skits do: it ups the ante. The specificity of Tim’s fast food order is hilarious, as is an unrelated customer’s effortless parroting of it. The best moment of all though is the final one in which Tim’s character finally realizes that he’s not bound to stay in his car and pay for the fast food. “Oh! I can just run.” It’s the “if it sucks, hit da bricks” meme come to glorious life.
1. Darmine Doggy Door
Episode 2 Sketch 2
There’s a certain amount of intellectualizing that goes into crafting a list like this. For our number one choice, however, the reasoning is simple. This one made me laugh the most. By far. Hell, this might be in a tie for season 2’s Ghost Tour for the ITYSL sketch that made me laugh the hardest ever. The shock of seeing the Nixon Pig Monster for the first time is scream-out-loud hilarious. And it just absolutely does not let up for there. “I’m not a stupid fucking idiot. I know it was a pig. But for 50 seconds I thought it was real,” Tim’s character says. Well, for the roughly 128 seconds of this sketch, I thought I was going to die of laughter.
I Think You Should Leave season 3 is available to stream on Netflix now.
The post I Think You Should Leave Season 3: Ranking Every Sketch appeared first on Den of Geek.
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