Honestly, if you haven’t sat through a faculty meeting where three people are arguing over the placement of a comma in a mission statement, you might think The Chair is a satire. It isn't. Not really. It’s more of a documentary with better lighting and Sandra Oh.
When Netflix dropped this six-episode gem, it felt like a specific, sharp needle pricking the balloon of academic prestige. It’s about Pembroke University—a fictional Ivy-adjacent school—but the mess is universal. You’ve got Ji-Yoon Kim, the first woman of color to chair the English department, trying to steer a sinking ship while the crew is busy fighting over who gets the biggest cabin.
It’s messy. It’s fast. It’s incredibly uncomfortable.
The impossible job of Ji-Yoon Kim
Ji-Yoon isn't just a boss. She’s a professional firefighter in a building made of old, dry parchment. She inherits a department that is hemorrhaging money and students. The dean, played with a perfect level of bureaucratic sliminess by David Morse, basically tells her to fire the "expensive" (read: old and tenured) professors to save the budget.
It’s a classic setup. The glass cliff. You give the "impossible" job to a minority candidate just as the floor starts to give way. Sandra Oh plays this with a vibrating energy that makes you feel like she hasn't slept in three years. She’s trying to protect the legacy of her mentors while pushing for the tenure of a brilliant young Black colleague, Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah).
But then there’s Bill Dobson.
That Bill Dobson "incident" and the cancel culture trap
The inciting incident of The Chair is one of those things that makes you want to hide under your desk. Bill Dobson, played by Jay Duplass, is a grieving, chaotic, genius professor who makes a mock Nazi salute during a lecture about absurdism and fascism.
💡 You might also like: Why the Saturday Night Live Pandora Skit is Still the Gold Standard for Musical Impressions
Someone films it. Of course they do.
The show doesn't take the easy way out here. It doesn't tell you Bill is a monster, but it also doesn't say the students are "snowflakes" for being upset. It shows the vacuum of communication that happens in the digital age. Bill thinks his intent matters more than the impact. The students think the impact is the only thing that exists. Ji-Yoon is stuck in the middle, trying to explain "nuance" to a mob with iPhones and a dean who just wants the PR nightmare to go away.
It’s a brutal look at how quickly a reputation can dissolve. One 10-second clip can erase thirty years of scholarship. Whether you think Bill deserved the fallout or not, the show forces you to watch the slow-motion car crash of a man who thinks he's too smart to be "canceled."
The reality of the "Aging Professor" trope
We have to talk about Joan Hambling and Elliot Rentz.
Holland Taylor and Bob Balaban are absolute legends here. Joan has been at Pembroke for decades. She’s brilliant, she’s salty, and she’s been shoved into a basement office next to a rattling HVAC unit because the department doesn't know what to do with her.
Her frustration is palpable. She burned her bras in the seventies so Ji-Yoon could have a seat at the table, yet she’s being erased. Meanwhile, Elliot is the quintessential "Old Guard." He’s a Melville scholar who refuses to change his syllabus even though his enrollment numbers are in the single digits.
The tension between "relevance" and "tradition" is the heartbeat of The Chair. The show asks a really hard question: What do we owe the people who built the foundation when they refuse to stop using the old blueprints?
Is it actually a comedy?
Netflix labels it a "dramedy," but the laughs are usually the kind where you wince. Like when Joan tries to track down the student who left her a bad RateMyProfessors review. Or the sheer absurdity of the "distinguished" guest speaker, David Duchovny (playing a hilarious, narcissistic version of himself), who thinks his acting career qualifies him for a PhD.
It’s funny because it’s true. Academia is a world where people with massive brains fight over tiny pieces of territory. It’s "The Hunger Games" but with elbow patches and better vocabulary.
Why the ending felt so divisive
A lot of people hated how things wrapped up. Without giving away every beat, the resolution isn't a "victory" in the traditional sense. It’s a compromise.
Some viewers felt Ji-Yoon gave up too much. Others felt Bill didn't learn enough of a lesson. But that’s the point of the show. In these high-pressure institutional environments, nobody really "wins." You just survive until the next semester. You find a way to keep the books on the shelves and the lights on in the library.
The final scene in the department meeting is a masterclass in tone. It suggests that power isn't about the title or the office. It’s about who is actually willing to do the work.
Real-world parallels that made the show "scary" to academics
When the show aired, Twitter (now X) was flooded with professors saying they had to stop watching because it gave them PTSD.
- The Budget Crisis: Small liberal arts colleges are actually closing at an alarming rate. The pressure Ji-Yoon feels to "trim the fat" is a daily reality for department chairs across the country.
- The Tenure Struggle: Yaz McKay’s battle for tenure—having to do ten times the work for half the recognition—is a documented phenomenon in higher education.
- The PR Machine: Universities have become brands. When a brand is threatened by a viral video, the "intellectual mission" usually takes a backseat to damage control.
What you can learn from Ji-Yoon Kim’s "failed" leadership
If you look at The Chair as a leadership study, it’s actually incredibly educational. Ji-Yoon’s biggest mistake wasn't her politics; it was her belief that she could protect everyone.
She tried to be the bridge. The problem with being a bridge is that people walk all over you from both directions.
She didn't set boundaries with Bill, which clouded her professional judgment. She didn't push back hard enough on the dean early on. She tried to manage by consensus in an environment that was already at war.
How to approach the themes of The Chair today
If you’re watching or re-watching the show now, there are a few ways to really "get" what creator Amanda Peet was going for.
- Watch the background characters. The students aren't a monolith. Look at the difference between the ones who are genuinely hurt and the ones who just want to be part of the chaos.
- Pay attention to the physical spaces. The contrast between the lush, wood-paneled offices and Joan’s basement tells the whole story of institutional priority without saying a word.
- Research the "Glass Cliff" phenomenon. It’ll make Ji-Yoon’s arc feel a lot more tragic and a lot less like a personal failure.
The show is short—only about three hours in total. It’s a binge that leaves a bitter, intellectual aftertaste. It’s about the death of the humanities, the chaos of the internet, and the simple, human desire to be seen and respected in a world that is moving too fast for anyone to truly listen.
If you want to understand the modern university, skip the brochure. Watch this instead.
Immediate steps for a deeper dive
- Read the essays of Sara Ahmed. She writes extensively on the "diversity work" that Ji-Yoon is tasked with and why it’s designed to fail.
- Check out the "Professor Is In" blog. It provides a sobering look at the real-world academic labor crisis that mirrors Joan and Yaz’s storylines.
- Re-watch the scene with David Duchovny. Seriously. It’s the perfect critique of how "prestige" has been replaced by "celebrity" even in the most hallowed halls of learning.