CHI-TOWN, BEYOND THE HEADLINES
Violence dominates perceptions about Chicago’s South Side, but ‘The Chi’ shows real human beings live there, writes
Chicago’s South Side has earned itself an unenviable reputation over decades — it’s most likely to be associated in the minds of readers of news with violence, drugs and a disproportionate number of gun-related deaths. It was the subject of Spike Lee’s controversial Greek tragedyinspired film Chi-Raq in 2015 but in the hands of Master of None writer Lena Waithe and executive producer Common, “The Chi” has now become the background for a show that looks to present its residents and sociopolitical problems in a more humane and empathetic light.
MISTAKEN REVENGE
In its first 10 episodes Waithe’s show takes a sprawling approach that is sometimes frustrating but ultimately dramatically rewarding. This is thanks to a strong cast and a multi-character storyline that takes audiences beyond the shocking headlines and resonates with a truth and ear for the neighbourhood that recalls the work of David Simon’s ground-breaking Baltimore series The Wire. It’s an honest look at the realities of black life in the Windy City that makes liberal use of a number of red herring thriller plot devices to draw the audience into its true project — looking at how a series of unfortunate events affect its characters.
In the opening episode a high-school basketball star is shot, leading to the mistaken death of another young local, when the sports star’s adopted father Ronnie (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine — a graduate of Simon’s Treme) receives incorrect information from a local kid named Kevin (Moonlight’s Alex R Hibbert). Ronnie’s misled revenge puts him on a collision course with his victim’s brother, an aspirant chef named Brandon (Jason Mitchell) whose mother is an alcoholic mess (played by The Wire star Sonja Sohn). From this central tragedy we follow various groups, including Kevin’s high-school crew, Brandon’s family and local lothario and sneaker aficionado Emmet (Jacob Latimore).
THE SHADOW OF DICKENS
Though the series begins with a crime, it soon emerges that it’s not a crime story but about people for whom crime has become a depressingly common part of life. It’s in the details of their everyday lives that Waithe manages to mostly keep us engaged. For a young writer, a multi-level story of the streets, living as it must in the long shadow of The Wire and the even longer shadow of Charles Dickens, is an ambitious idea that inevitably sets itself up for dramatic pitfalls. But she holds things together and as the show progresses it becomes an increasingly rewarding piece of dramatic and honest entertainment. On the whole it succeeds in providing a non-sensationalist but real alternative to the negative image of the South Side and its people.
SECOND SEASON GUARANTEE
Waithe has created a show that doesn’t give us easy answers but also gives us real, complicated human characters to get behind. She’s been rewarded by the strongest viewership numbers for Showtime since its financial thriller Billions and the guarantee of a second season. It will be interesting and certainly entertaining to see what she builds on the back of that. But for now The Chi is one of the more dramatically satisfying, well acted, often gently humorous and relatable television experiences you can enjoy. It’s hard not to feel that its creators have done justice both to their storytelling abilities and the real lives of an all too often misunderstood section of American society.
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