The 16 Best I Think You Should Leave Season 3 Sketches, Ranked
Tim Robinson's brilliantly ridiculous, ultra-quotable sketch show "I Think You Should Leave" returned to Netflix on May 30, 2023, after a two-year absence from the streamer. The show has already cemented its cultural legacy thanks to the virality of moments like Robinson dressed in a hot-dog costume, proclaiming, "We're all trying to find the guy who did this." Fans now appreciate complex shirt patterns, tell each other about their "Tables!," and fret about their alcohol consumption by relating too much to Patti Harrison's line reading of, "I can't stop having wine!"
Thankfully, Season 3 more than lives up to the hype; there's not a single dud in the bunch. It's as quotable as ever, and at this point, its unique blend of stupidity and genius is finely honed. Robinson gives some of his best performances this season, somehow equally as compelling when he's doing over-the-top voices and character work as when his characters are more subdued. Read on for a look at the 16 best sketches in "I Think You Should Leave" Season 3, ranked from worst to best.
16. Pay It Forward
One of the funniest things about any given "I Think You Should Leave" sketch is that it usually goes one of two ways: either Tim Robinson plays a weird guy in a normal world, or else it's a world full of weirdos. A lot of times, sketches on this show take a while to reveal themselves; you're never quite sure which mode you're in until — suddenly — it all becomes clear. That moment of realization can make an otherwise just-decent sketch really sing.
In "Pay It Forward," Robinson portrays a guy at a drive-thru who offers to pay for the car behind him. He has an ulterior motive, however. The second he receives his order, he speeds around the parking lot and gets back in line, planning to take advantage of his recipient's expected generosity. At the top of his lungs, spittle flying from his mouth, he orders, "55 burgers, 55 fries, 55 tacos, 55 pies, 55 Cokes ..." It goes on like that for a while. His total comes to a cool $680.00, and he pulls forward.
While Robinson gets in a dispute with the man in front of him — a guy in a pickup truck who's livid that someone would order so much — the woman behind Robinson realizes they're in a pay-it-forward situation. She slams it in reverse and amends her own order: "55 burgers, 55 fries, 55 tacos," etc. Ah, this is that kind of sketch. It's a thing of beauty.
15. Sitcom Taping
"Sitcom Taping" centers on a man (Robinson) attending — what else? — a sitcom taping. A stagehand instructs the crowd to laugh at the actors' jokes, but she also mentions, "Millions of people are going to hear your voice." Robinson's character sees the audience mic as an opportunity to finally get the word out about some business establishments he feels have wronged him. To the consternation of the production crew, while everyone around him chuckles obediently, Robinson bemoans the shady business practices of TK Jewelers, L&L Limos, and Avani Suits.
TK Jewelers, he says, sold him fake jewelry. "Watch exploded on date," he narrates carefully. He spins an elaborate tale about L&L Limos involving what seems to be a wall separating him from the other side of the limo, and he claims to have seen a hand bearing a Super Bowl ring reach under the separator to grab some of his ice. Eventually, production stops, with Robinson asked to explain himself.
Does "Sitcom Taping" approach something like ... poignancy? Sure, it's silly, ridiculous, and absurdist, and all of the things that make the average "I Think You Should Leave" sketch so great, but something about Robinson's performance in this one gets you on his side. He wins over his fellow audience members too, and by the time we see flashbacks to his watch exploding and "150 springs [hitting her] in the face," it's oddly sweet.
14. Banana Breath
Robinson kills it when he plays exaggerated, heightened characters, but the show sometimes works in a subtler register too. In "Banana Breath," Alison Martin plays Cam, a woman suffering through the kind of stultifying human resources training that often provides the setup for an "I Think You Should Leave" sketch. When the facilitator asks for ways that a woman can fend off a coworker's uncomfortable advances, Cam offers up a suggestion for something the lady in the training video can say. "Back away, banana breath. What the hell did you just eat, a banana?" she says. A few of her coworkers chuckle politely.
But Cam can't stop giggling about her moment of comedic brilliance. Desperate to recapture the high of being the funny one, she tries to whip up some camaraderie among her fellow office-dwellers, even designing them all commemorative t-shirts that celebrate her joke.
This sketch feels relatively quiet for this show, but it's no less funny, from the guy who can't draw computers to the exasperated way Cam's colleagues look at her. A deep sadness abides here too, which shows up in a lot of "I Think You Should Leave" sketches about people acting out at their workplaces. I'd buy one of Cam's shirts, weird computer drawing and all. She seems nice.
13. Richard Brecky is Jellybean
There are two things I know in this life: Zendaya is Meechee, and Richard Brecky is "Jellybean." In this sketch, which takes the form of an infomercial for the actor's live shows, we learn that audiences will see Jellybean perform 73 stories using only gesture and emotion. His love of physical actors like Charlie Chaplin has led him to this life, a career where he refuses to speak during his sets... unless you can goad him into breaking character.
As the sketch goes on, it comes unglued. Richard Brecky's Jellybean is being haunted and harassed by gangs of frats — just like The Driving Crooner. (More on him later). Frat guys, it turns out, just love to jeer, "What is it?! What are you doing?!" until Richard Brecky can't help but blurt out whatever it is that he's play-acting. His increasing desperation is classic "I Think You Should Leave" — surreal, sorta sad, and supremely silly.
This show sometimes tends to lean too hard on the infomercial format crutch, just like "Saturday Night Live" can't seem to stop themselves from doing a game show parody every week. Is there a version of this sketch that's better in a different form, like an "E! True Hollywood Story?" On the other hand, in a certain light, the infomercial frame that falls apart at the seams adds to the absurdist delight of it all. No complaints here.
12. Supermarket Swap, VR Edition
Ayo Edibiri makes her "I Think You Should Leave" debut in "Supermarket Swap, VR Edition," the sketch that opens the second episode of the season. It's a game show parody, this time for a "Supermarket Sweep" knockoff with a virtual reality twist. After correctly guessing that Kraft Toaster Strudel Pop'ems cost less than Tyson Corn Dog Minis, Mr. Mitchell (Robinson) wins a VR shopping spree. He gets strapped into VR gloves and goggles, and tasked with grabbing no more than $500 worth of items from a virtual grocery store.
Unexpectedly, the trip to virtual reality sends him into a full-on psychotic crisis: he can't remember how to breathe. At first, this sketch lives and dies on Robinson making some unholy screeching noises and thrashing around in his chair, and what can I say? The man excels at what he does. However, it quickly morphs into something darker, as only this show can do. Robinson sells his character's existential despair perfectly, his tongue lolling out and his eyes screwed up in confusion. It's a quick sketch, but it resembles a tiny, punchy "Black Mirror" episode. The fact that it debuted mere days before Apple announced Vision Pro suggests that this sketch will only look better as we tumble headlong into our technologically-isolating nightmare of a future.
11. Volcano
"I Think You Should Leave" loves to mine absurdist comedy from corporate monotony. In these sketches, interchangeable, pleasantly diverse characters work in interchangeable, pleasantly overlit office spaces. In "Volcano," Robinson's character Randall finds himself literally shaken from expense-report tedium by a rumbling air conditioner. His coworkers claim they thought the sound was thunder or a truck. Randall tries to riff, and he manages to come up with, "I thought it was like a volcano erupting, what the hell?"
His coworkers seem skeptical, but Randall insists that he really thought there was a volcano. Amanda (former "SNL" writer Sudi Green) takes pity on him and offers helpfully, "Wish I could be in this guy's brain!" Randall is fascinated. To everyone's chagrin, he begins to claim he thought stuff was other stuff, from a pen he thought was a little knife to a highlighter he thought was a little pimp.
Everything escalates until a superior reprimands Amanda for her kindness. "Do not say anything he says is interesting or good. Otherwise, he's gonna keep picking up stuff and saying it's other stuff," she chides. The sketch was funny enough when this seemed like new, desperate-to-fit-in behavior. The revelation that this guy does this specifically weird thing all the time? A brilliant touch. Moments later, the button on the sketch shows us that Randall really does see the world this way, proving that "I Think You Should Leave" flies highest when it just keeps heightening its premises.
10. Don Bon Darley, King of the Dirty Songs
Sometimes, all an "I Think You Should Leave" sketch needs to succeed is a super-specific silly name. Who can forget Bart Harley Jarvis? In the second-to-last sketch of Season 3, we meet another all-time great character name: Don Bon Darley (Alberto Isaac). At first, he's an enigma, referred to only as "something that me and my old high school friends used to do" and "the thing I got coming." Someone wonders if Robinson's character has gotten them cocaine, but it's even better: it's Don Bon Darley, King of the Dirty Songs! In he walks, doing something the subtitles caption as "[making nonsensical sounds]." "My uncle showed him to us!" Robinson offers unhelpfully. (Tim Robinson: King of the Non-Sequitur!)
The group settles in to watch Don Bon Darley perform, but the older man confesses that he hasn't done this in a while. "I hope I remember 'em!" he says in a way that sounds like a setup. Sure enough, he can't recall any of his dirty ditties, and the group slowly realizes just how sad the whole endeavor is. "I should have prepared," he offers as a mea culpa, "but I just watched TV." Thankfully, though, the sketch keeps the silly-name thing going; his songs are built around the characters "Old Bart Dogf***" and "Arthur James MacLeish." One wishes Don Bon Darley remembered the rest of the "Old Bart Dogf***" song; it sounds like a bop.
9. Tasty Time Vids
A lot of the best "I Think You Should Leave" sketches revolve around a recognizable Robinson persona. He gets annoyed about something usually small and specific; he makes some silly expressions; he does a shouty voice. It's like Woody Allen and "Woody Allen," the nebbish, neurotic, always-very-similar character he plays in many of his films. Sometimes, though, he gives someone else the "Woody Allen" role, and it can be interesting to see a new take on the old persona.
In the third season of "I Think You Should Leave," Robinson proves that he can play straight man to someone else's "Tim Robinson." "Tasty Time Vids," the season's final sketch, hands the reins of the persona over to Conner O'Malley, a comedy writer who has written on "How To with John Wilson" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers," among others. O'Malley plays Draven, a man who seems to be a toddler trapped in an adult body. He pouts and does what the subtitles call "[muted shrieking]" when he realizes his coworker (Robinson) doesn't follow him on Instagram. However, when he takes it upon himself to follow his account from Robinson's phone, he instantly crumbles under the pressure of having to produce entertaining content. He ends up making a series of vertical video sketches that revolve around accidentally sleeping with "Frankenstein's chick." ("Oh noooooo!") Robinson serves as a great straight man in the sketch, but O'Malley knocks it out of the park.
8. Club Haunted House
"Club Haunted House" — another sketch that finds Robinson playing the straight man to a fellow actor's more absurdist character — guest stars the great Tim Heidecker as a doctor who gives Robinson's character a heart monitor. "I had a heart attack from dancing as hard as I can at Club Aqua," Robinson deadpans. Heidecker monitors Robinson's heart rate and sends him texts asking what's going on. Despite his repeated insistence that he was just jacking off, the doctor becomes suspicious that his patient is going clubbing without him. Determined to check out Club Haunted House, he won't leave his patient alone until he gets in.
The sketch is wrapped in an infomercial frame, but it probably doesn't need to be. A lot happens. Robinson seems to be giving heart-monitor testimonials because of his job as a construction worker, but he's also an architect who built the back deck at Club Aqua. It's disorienting to slip between branded medical-device commercial shots and regular shots of the two at the club.
Still, this sketch lands so high because of the absolute reverence with which the characters talk about Club Aqua and Club Haunted House. It's as if these are the most prestigious nightlife spots in the world rather than kitschy jokes, thereby elevating Club Haunted House to iconic status. I'd tell my wife to go home if I were the only one who could get in too.
7. Barley Tonight
Something about the idiosyncratic writing on "I Think You Should Leave" makes the dialogue highly naturalistic — full of fits and starts, packed with clauses that don't fit together quite right — yet also a voice all its own. "Barley Tonight" puts the spotlight on a TV pundit named Barch Barley — another one of those instant-classic "ITYSL" names. It also represents a great "Tim Robinson does a silly voice" sketch. Though Barch Barley claims that he never met a fight he didn't like, whenever a guest challenges him, he just goes on his phone. The whole sketch doesn't particularly heighten the premise beyond that, but it's gut-bustingly funny thanks simply to the highly specific way Barley talks about his phone.
"I have so much stuff on my phone," he says. "Music, apps, games obviously, a medieval game obviously, obviously a jousting game." He then launches into a detailed explanation of how he syncs information between his phone and computer in case he needs to upgrade someday, declaring, "I have everything on this phone. I always just look at it."
Punctuating the whole thing? Instantly memeable shots of Robinson reclined in a chair, staring intently at his phone as he cycles through a series of ridiculous facial expressions, each funnier than the last. As the first sketch of the season, it provides a brilliant reintroduction to the show's unique sense of humor.
6. Rat Mom
Perennial "I Think You Should Leave" favorite Patti Harrison appears in "Rat Mom" as Candy, an office employee who wants to bring her rats to work. We don't know that for a while into the sketch's runtime; instead, we watch, fascinated and tickled, as she finds increasingly deranged ways to terrorize a cardboard cutout of her boss Robert. She tosses shot after shot of vodka into its mouth; she shines a laser pointer directly into his eyes; she fills a cup with electric-blue glass cleaner and pours it into the mouth.
The sketch's brilliance lies in the tension between what we see and what we don't. In playing its cards so close to its chest for so long, the sketch functions almost like a horror short until we get the catharsis of learning that this boils down to a mere disagreement over what counts as an emotional support animal. "Dogs are to Steven what rats are to me," Candy insists, and Harrison delivers the line with her trademark over-commitment. Unlike a lot of "I Think You Should Leave" sketches, which give us flashbacks to confirm what a character's worldview looks like, "Rat Mom" climaxes with a conversation about Candy keeping her rats in a drawer so she can put food on the edge of her desk and brush it into the drawer. It's like one of those "Family Guy" moments that plays with your expectations of an oncoming cutaway gag, except ... you know, actually good.
5. Darmine Doggy Door
While "Rat Mom" generated laughs thanks to what we don't see, "Darmine Doggy Door" ranks as an instant-classic sketch because of what we witness. Yet another "infomercial" sketch, it casts Robinson as a pitchman selling the Darmine Doggy Door, from Darmine Devices. It opens based on a chip on your dog's collar, so it won't let in raccoons or intruders ... "and you're definitely not gonna get this thing." What walks through the doggy door, doing what the subtitles call "[inhuman squealing]," is an unholy abomination of a creature sublimely executed with practical effects. It bears an almost-human face and limbs made from what appear to be mounds of flesh, and scraggly hair hangs from its body. "Cause I saw that thing," Robinson's character says. "That thing came in here when I was on the couch."
The creature turns out to be a pig in a Richard Nixon mask, but that's beside the point; for 50 seconds, Robinson's character believed it was real. He whips himself into a frenzy as he tries to explain why he thought it to be an actual monster. This is a great "Tim Robinson does a silly, shouty voice" sketch too. If one line from this season of "I Think You Should Leave" will stick with me forever, it's this: "My life is nothing I thought it should be and everything I was worried it would become, because for 50 seconds I thought that there was monsters on the world."
4. Nude Egg
The relatively short sketch "Nude Egg" proves that if your concept is punchy enough, you don't need a lot of time to craft a bizarre world and make people laugh. This time, Robinson plays Marcus, a nondescript office manager who spends his time at work grinding away at a game where he must drag eggs from a basket into another egg's open mouth. It's an incredibly basic design, created as an actually playable game by comics artist Alec Robbins. Robbins provided alternate designs to Vulture, and he explained that they ultimately decided to go for what he described as "the old black-and-white vintage Mac look." He explained, "It does feel like the sort of thing that would just be on an office computer, where you're like, 'What the hell is this? This is just on the desktop?'" It's the right move.
As staff members try to complain to Marcus about work, he becomes even more absorbed with the game, clicking wildly. Strangely, the number of eggs doesn't have any correlation to the progress he makes in the game, and it seems to fascinate him. Then the anthropomorphic egg bends over and shows its butthole.
What more do we need? Well, if you want more, "I Think You Should Leave"'s idiosyncratic dialogue drives the sketch home. "Porn?!" Marcus protests when his characters see the egg's naughty bits. "That's a nude egg I won from my game!"
3. Shirt Brothers
The best three sketches of "I Think You Should Leave" Season 3 share one common element. Rather than being infomercial parodies, game show parodies, or short, punchy setups, the best three are basically short films. In "Shirt Brothers," Robinson's character attends his daughter's fourth-grade concert. He meets her friend's grandparents, and her grandfather Shane (Biff Wiff) is wearing the same shirt. "Hey, shirt brother," Shane says, gleeful about their coincidental connection.
During the concert, Shane pulls Robinson out of the auditorium and shows him a ransacked classroom. Shane explains, "This one was open, so I was just like, 'What if I just trash this place?' You know, just f***in' go nuts in here." He recently heard a song that says there are no rules. He's been unable to shake the idea, and he wants to know if his shirt brother thinks it's true.
This sketch gets more space to breathe than the majority of "I Think You Should Leave" segments, and it's all the better for it: poignant, but also packed full of fantastic lines in that idiosyncratic "ITYSL" style. "Promise me you'll do everything in your power to never do anything that's a rule again," Shane begs. It all climaxes with the song that changed everything. As far as "ITYSL" is concerned, Shane might be right when he tearfully concludes, "I think that there just might be no rules." A mantra we can all live by.
2. House Party
Another short-film sketch that closes out an episode, "House Party" welcomes Jason Schwartzman as a guy at a polite house party who finds himself bringing up his kids in conversation too much, almost as a crutch. "You know what? Do me a favor," he tells everyone. "Next time I'm talking about my kids too much? Please. Stop me." Unfortunately, Robinson overhears. "You're not gonna talk about your kids an ounce," he warns.
Sure enough, during the party, Robinson turns up any time Schwartzman mentions a kid. Robinson begins to cause distractions that range from pretending to ride a dog to pretending the dog is blowing him. What he doesn't expect, however, is that the other guys at the party will go along with whatever kooky stuff he thinks up. Soon, a roving gang of hangers-on just wait for him to think of the next thing to do. "I keep having to do wild stuff to stop you from talking about your kids!" Robinson yells. "Now you made me too popular here!"
The brilliance of the sketch lies in its absurdist party dynamics. It sometimes borders on a horror movie, the groupthink among the partygoers, like something out of "mother!" or "Beau is Afraid." At the same time, it's supremely silly, a shining example of the "Tim Robinson does a shouty voice" brand of "ITYSL" sketch. Just fun all around.
1. The Driving Crooner - Episode 1
Oh, Driving Crooner, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how long this sketch takes to reveal itself. We start all the way back in a corporate setting, where Robinson's character Andrew Topecchio learns that his coworker got a DUI. Inspired, he hands out business cards and lets his coworkers know they can always call him for a ride. A coworker named James does just that, and Andrew picks him up quickly. And then Robinson makes an inexplicable silly gesture, wiggling his fingers and puckering his lips. He is instantly furious as a car tries to pass them. "F***, they're trying to make it look fake!" he screams. "Godd*** it!"
Andrew, it turns out, moonlights as the Driving Crooner. He's put decals of a hat and a cigar on his driver's side window, and when cars drive next to him, he pretends to puff on the cigar. That's it. That's the gig. "I bet you didn't know you were driving with The Driving Crooner, did you?" he says proudly. From its slow setup, the sketch keeps building. Frats, it turns out, want to kill him. And he just can't seem to figure out how to make money on this. "I really want to!"
Each new line reveals more about the character and his universe, an ingenious exercise in worldbuilding. "Some people hate this, James," the Driving Crooner says mournfully. Not me. I can't get enough of the stuff.