Tires is a show set at an auto repair shop run ineptly by Will (Gerben), one of several owned by his father. Gillis plays Will’s cousin, Shane, an employee who spends most of his day taunting, demeaning, and undermining him. As we begin, Will has incorrectly ordered 500 tyres, which he attempts to justify by mentioning that he received a bulk discount. Returning them does not seem like an option.
Kilah (Kilah Fox), a receptionist who appears to be smoking cigarettes and looking angry, and Cal (Chris O’Connor), the only one of them who may be employable elsewhere, are also working at the garage. Stavros Halkias portrays the district manager, who is constantly on-site or on the phone; he is a huge, long-haired, unkempt thorn in their side.
Business is down, if it was ever up – the danger of someone losing their job or the shop itself closing exists throughout the season. They are horrible at upselling consumers, which appears to be the backbone of the vehicle repair company, but one wonders how they have any customers to upsell to at all given their poor service. Certainly, you wouldn’t drive there more than once.
Gillis and company press some buttons, either to reflect the brand or to demonstrate that “offensive” humour has a place in the streaming realm. (The Netflix guide refers to “Tyres” as “deadpan” and “raunchy.”) We get, among other things, “gay” as a pejorative, Shane putting on a poor Japanese accent, the word “pussy” in two senses (neither of which has anything to do with cats), an Italian slur, a joke about Jewish noses, a lot of talk about breasts and bottoms (not the terms used here), and a lot of sexual jokes.
One could argue that these are characters that do not reflect the authors’ and actors’ actual preferences, or that there are people like this in the world — presumably some of whom are lovers of Gillis’ comedy — and that the artists are simply being honest. Some of them are obviously stupid. I believe we are intended to perceive Shane as a nice, even respectable person who is self-possessed and in control of a situation (albeit to little beneficial effect), in contrast to Will, a classic schlemiel. Gillis’ best moments, however, occur when he stops being a jerk and becomes truly helpful or kind; he has a surprising softness. He has an engaging screen presence.
The issue of what defines a joke and how to interpret it is, of course, central to much professional — and political — discourse these days, and people are constantly telling others that they just don’t get it, or that they’re being too sensitive or not sensitive enough. I wasn’t angry; the humour, like the characters, is too overtly infantile to take seriously. Still, I did not laugh once. Humour is funny in this way. The season had a joyful ending. It has to do with the tyres.
Shane Gillis
Shane Gillis is a controversial comic, not in the Lenny Bruce sense, but because he was cast as a featured player on “Saturday Night Live” in 2019 and removed from the show before his first performance, when remarks surfaced that I’ve heard described as “racist, homophobic, and misogynist.” I’m not sure what those remarks were or in what context they were made, but my hunch is that they were meant to be funny. In February, he returned to the show as a guest host.
Gillis is now the star and co-creator (together with co-actor Steve Gerben and director McKeever) of “Tyres,” a six-episode Netflix comedy that has already been renewed for a second season. Given that 1) Gillis is popular, if not universally popular — unpopular performers do not host “SNL”; 2) this is a relatively inexpensive show, shot almost entirely in a single location; and 3) Netflix, in its quest to destroy the rest of television, wants to capture every possible audience, this is not surprising.