![]() Here, I Think You Should Leave innovatively weaponizes the visual language it so mundanely established in the opening moments, hijacking the narrative and formal conventions of the courtroom drama to give the sketch a wider canvas, as Brian's titular hat takes a beating in the present and in the flashbacks. And then on a shallow-focus shot of the prosecutor standing before the courtroom audience, the sketch plays its hand: the prosecutor reads the text, "Oh my God, did you see Brian's hat?" In conjunction with this line, the camera's focus sharply shifts from the prosecutor to Brian, a man sitting in the courtroom audience (played by Robinson) wearing what can only be described as a fedora with a flap on the back.Īs the prosecutor continues to read the text messages, any trace of the insider stock trading conversation vanishes as the texts and their corresponding flashbacks now focus entirely on the defendants discussing the stupidity of Brian's hat. As she continues to read the detailed messages, her voice gradually reels viewers in. ![]() These flashbacks are color-graded a deeper hue of blue, another stylistic trope of traditional courtroom dramas that I Think You Should Leave is exploiting.Ĭrucially, even as the editing cuts back and forth between the flashbacks of the text messages and the reactions of the defendants in the present, the prosecutor's voice reading the texts remains a constant. As the prosecutor begins to read the text messages before the full courtroom, audiences are treated to flashbacks of the defendants engaging in the insider trading their messages center on. It is straight out of an episode of Law & Order everything about it lulls viewers into a sense of comfort in the familiarity of what they are seeing. This entire setup, from the narrative to the craning establishing shot of the courtroom being intercut with shallower-focused singles on the individual players, is the kind of thing audiences have seen dozens of times before. The prosecutor proceeds to read aloud from a list of text messages between the two defendants, which she claims will prove the illegality of their unloading of Qualstarr stock. The sketch opens with a series of shots played straight, all setting the table: viewers are thrown into the middle of a traditional courtroom drama, centering around insider stock trading. ![]() It takes Robinson and Kanin's penchant for establishing genre-fare only to immediately undermine it, their love of foregrounding escalating anxieties and blends it all together in the name of an engagingly absurdist work. ![]() Robinson's unfaltering commitment to the performance, the escalating editing, the crescendoing dissonance of the musical score it all works in unison of the juxtaposition at the heart of I Think You Should Leave.Ĭoming right in the middle of season two, "Brian's Hat" is a startling culmination of all of I Think You Should Leave's greatest strengths. And yet everything about its execution is positively anxiety-inducing. "Both Ways" is incredibly accessible and relatable on a narrative level a nervous individual making a common mistake as they leave a job interview. Robinson and Kanin's writing delights in taking the discomfort of nominal everyday occurrences and ratcheting up the tension to this absurdist, heightened degree. This is a pretty perfect representation of the series as a whole.
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