Watercooler talk, polite jokes, grumbles about a demanding project: These are the mundane exchanges that grease the social wheels of a traditional 9-to-5 job. At best, they lend a pleasant sheen to the workday; at worst, they act as a mind-numbing refrain. But I Think You Should Leave, the hit Netflix sketch show whose third season recently debuted, regularly distorts this supposedly familiar environment, revealing an underside that is both strange and hilarious.

The series is the brainchild of Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, who first met while writing for Saturday Night Live. Yet ITYSL doesn’t feel like an outgrowth of that sketch-comedy institution. It has little interest in releasing the awkward tension of any jokes; instead, they get escalated until they veer into the surreal. More often than not, premises focus on someone’s mounting anxiety—specifically the kind that stems from misunderstanding banal situations, such as a first date or a party—and the extremes they’ll pursue to escape that humiliation. There tends to be a lot of yelling.

Throughout ITYSL, the office has been a prime setting for unleashing uncomfortable characters who grate against unspoken social codes. “There’s so much built-in status and hierarchy” in a typical workplace, Kanin told The New Yorker in 2021. “And it’s a great place to be embarrassed.” Countless sketch and situational comedies, including SNL, The Kids in the Hall, and The Office, have explored the goofy possibilities of corporate...

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