‘Tires’ Season 3 finds unexpected heart beneath the crude comedy

Season 3 of Netflix’s Shane Gillis-led sitcom Tires debuted this month, and three seasons in, the series continues to defy expectations about exactly what kind of show it wants to be.

The series, which premiered in 2024, follows the misadventures of Will (Steve Gerben), who has been tasked with managing the West Chester location of his family’s struggling auto-repair chain, Valley Forge Automotive Center. Along for the ride is his cousin and mechanic Shane (Gillis), plus an increasingly impressive who’s who of modern comedy talent dropping in as guest stars.

What began, at least on the surface, as an attempt to capitalize on Gillis’ white-hot popularity has gradually transformed into something considerably more interesting.

Gillis has spent the past several years becoming one of comedy’s biggest names through sold-out tours, his hugely popular podcast, television appearances, commercials and an everyman persona that has made him particularly appealing to audiences who see themselves in his brand of humor.

Initially, Tires seemed content to build a workplace sitcom around that persona. Three seasons later, it increasingly resembles a quarter-life-crisis indie movie that just happens to feature a tremendous number of jokes about sex, cars and stupid people doing stupid things.

Season 2 was a major step in that direction. Despite Netflix affording the show a larger budget and scope, its storytelling actually became more intimate, narrowing its emotional focus and finding more to say about its characters.

That isn’t to suggest Season 1 was bad. Far from it. But it became apparent that Tires couldn't coast forever on outrageous gags and Gillis' charisma alone.

Season 3 understands that.

This time around, Shane finds himself staring down life in his mid-30s: single, childless, working as a mechanic and increasingly haunted by that nagging suspicion familiar to anyone who has watched their 20s disappear in the rearview mirror.

What if this is it?

What if everyone else figured adulthood out while you weren't looking?

Worse: What if you are now simply the sum of all those opportunities you didn't take?

Will is wrestling with much the same thing from a different direction. He finds himself second-guessing the decisions that led him to Valley Forge in the first place, including passing on joining his friends' startup because he was afraid to leave the security of his insurance job.

That job fired him anyway.

Now the startup is wildly successful, his friends have moved on and Will is left wondering what his life might have looked like had he simply taken the risk.

Shane, meanwhile, attempts to reconnect with an old high-school flame, now a recently divorced mother of three. They have a genuinely good time together, but she ultimately cuts him loose because Shane, at 34, still lacks the maturity and direction she needs from a partner.

That rejection becomes particularly interesting when contrasted with one of the season's funniest relationships.

Earlier, Shane hooks up with Lucy (Sofia Hasmik of The Pitt), a bartender in her 20s whose lifestyle he immediately begins criticizing. Her laundry is piled everywhere. She gets high and watches cartoons. She doesn't seem particularly interested in settling down or starting a family.

To Shane, she's immature.

The joke, of course, is Shane.

Here is a 34-year-old single mechanic with little idea what he wants from his own life lecturing a younger woman because she hasn't figured out hers.

That contradiction becomes central to Shane's character and, surprisingly, to what Tires seems increasingly interested in saying.

Shane functions both as a fully realized character and something of a stand-in for a portion of Gillis' audience. His comedy has attracted plenty of fans who bristle at younger generations and changing cultural attitudes, and Tires quietly turns that perspective back on its protagonist.

Shane can mock Lucy for her politics, her generation and her lack of ambition, yet underneath those differences they're struggling with many of the same insecurities. Both are trying to figure out what adulthood is supposed to look like while watching other people seemingly pass them by.

There's something surprisingly poignant about that.

If Season 2 largely belonged to Will, Season 3 belongs to Shane.

That doesn't leave the rest of the cast without plenty to do.

Thomas Haden Church remains hilarious as Phil, Shane's father and Will's uncle, delivering nearly everything with a bone-dry detachment that makes even mundane dialogue funny. Stavros Halkias continues to steal scenes as recovering sex addict Dave, while H. Foley and the show's assortment of supporting players make the most of their appearances.

The series also finally gives Valley Forge employees Cal (Chris O'Connor) and Kilah (Kilah Fox) more room to breathe. Both receive some of their best material yet, allowing characters who once functioned primarily as additional joke delivery systems to become more rounded members of this strange little workplace family.

Still, it is the combination of Gillis, Gerben and newcomer Hasmik that allows the season's biggest swings to land.

Gillis has relatively little traditional acting experience, but there is an unaffected quality to his performance that works perfectly for Shane. He doesn't appear to be reaching for dramatic moments, which makes them considerably more effective when they arrive.

His chemistry with Hasmik is particularly good.

Lucy could easily have been written as little more than another stereotype for Shane to bounce jokes off of. Instead, Hasmik gives her enough warmth and personality to challenge both Shane's assumptions about her and the audience's assumptions about where their relationship is heading.

By the finale, that relationship delivers a surprisingly emotional payoff.

And that's the great trick Tires has managed to pull off.

This is still an unapologetically irreverent, filthy workplace comedy. There are scenarios this season that are genuinely laugh-until-you-cry funny, and nobody should mistake the show's newfound emotional depth for an indication that Gillis and company have suddenly become respectable.

Thank God.

But underneath all that vulgarity, Tires has quietly become melancholy.

These are people realizing they're getting older. They're watching friends succeed, relationships disappear and possibilities narrow. They're comparing themselves to everyone around them while pretending they don't care. And, increasingly, they're discovering that maybe growing up isn't about finally having everything figured out.

Maybe it's simply realizing that you don't.

The brisk 12-episode season also demonstrates an impressive knack for setup and payoff, planting seemingly insignificant jokes and character moments before bringing them back around in ways that are sometimes hilarious and occasionally moving.

By the time the season drops its bombshell finale, Tires has traveled a remarkable distance from the low-budget workplace comedy Netflix picked up three years ago.

It turns out there was considerably more mileage in this thing than anyone might have expected.

Netflix has already renewed Tires for a fourth season, and after Season 3, that renewal feels less like the streamer keeping a successful Shane Gillis vehicle alive and more like an opportunity to see where these characters go next.

For a show about people who feel like they're spinning their wheels, Tires has become remarkably good at moving forward.