The Chi [ A Showtime Original Series | Sundays @ 10 | Season 3 ]

Damn what a raw deal on the "food desert" and leaving the block a mess with the Yellow paint.

Makes it seem like Lena doesn't care about the struggle but intends to profit off of it.

Such a shame. I really like her. Stomach is definitely soured.
 
Just watched episode 2 last night. (spoilers below so don't read if you haven't watched yet)

That boy Emmett is going through it. Randomly lets his ol girl pop up with a random baby that he finds out is his. Now he's stuck with the baby and the baby mom is nowhere to be found. Messing up his cash flow & his thot supply. Wonder if something crazy is going to happen after he took that money from the old school cat.

Something tells me the basketball player that got killed in the beginning of episode 1 was somehow tied into that corrupt police officer and the local hood cats. I feel like he was suppose to throw a game so they could make money. Whatever it is, the corrupt cop doesnt wan't the good cop to do much investigating which means he has something to hide.

Random, but Sonja Sohn still looking good enough to pipe down.
 
the wire 2.0 just a different city

Its kinda like enough shows about black pain but its gripping still

I'm in now after this first episode

Jason Mitchell hats off
Wire 2.0? So theyre showing the corrupt institutions & how they help keep the streets ****ed up as well?
 
its only been two eps but showing black people living in an urban environment reminds me of the wire

like how a show about a guy going to live with his rich uncle would remind me of fresh prince 2.0
 
It's too early for any comparisons to The Wire imo. Honestly, I want it to be it's own free from any comparisons to The Wire. I don't want any unfair expectations put on this show. BUT, I will say this, it's a Showtime show, so if it's successful, it will have a good shelf life of about 5-6 seasons then it will tank lol.
 
I find The Wire comparisons sad. Just reminds me there aint been enough great tv shows covering the streets for a while. This show isn't The Wire. I mean damn The Wire wasn't The Wire after one or two episodes.

If the second season of The Chi suddenly shifts to the port of Chicago covering dock workers and the economical shift occurring along with introducing a criminal organization while the cast of S1 mostly play the background then I'll welcome all of the Wire comparisons (I'll probably start them :lol: ).



Anyway, 2nd ep was cool.

Wasn't expecting that sex scene but shorty fine.

The child actors on this show are pretty good. Shout out to every shorty getting bullied/crushed on hard by the fat chick in ya class :lol: Hold ya heads up.
 
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it doesnt have to be a damn 1:1 comparison to remind of the wire

hell the father talking in the beginning reminded me of bubbles

the flashy kid reminded me of naymond and his stunting

the dudes on the stoop reminded me of bodie and how dangelo used to chill on the couches

the stuff about the cop needing shoes i coulda sworn one of the kids said the same thing to prezbo

but nah it aint got marlo or stringer or mcnulty so hell nah it cant remind me of the wire
 
Episode 2 is out? ...
I thought this was a Sunday show.
I was just rewatching episode 1(I loved it on 2nd watch and was meh on 1st watch).

Nice to know I can crack another episode after this.
 
Jason MItchell did his thing but to me the stand out is the little kid Kevin(Mr. Williams).

I just realized that's the same little head from moonlight. He's captivating. His little swag is for this. Seems so real/natural.
 
The Chi is The Wire of 2018

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http://theweek.com/articles/746798/chi-wire-2018

Showtime's new series The Chi opens with Coogie — a gorgeous kid with big hair, a pink headband, and a backpack covered in fuchsia flowers — biking around town listening to Chance the Rapper's "All We Got." He shoots some baskets. He bikes circles around a tough-looking motorcyclist at a red light. He even tries to race him. Director Rick Famuyiwa shoots this stuff like it's lyric poetry; he also knows how to make us feel that innocent high wear off. When Coogie — played by Jahking Guillory — pulls off his headphones to negotiate with the proprietors of the "77th Mart" for snacks, we lose the music too. When he rides down an alley to feed beef jerky to a hungry dog that isn't his, the realities of his life, and the forms of compensatory kindness he's invented, snap into focus. And when — bidding the dog goodbye — he stumbles on a man lying on a street corner under a spreading pool of blood, we see Coogie's gaze drift to his shoes, then his necklace, and then his face. He takes the shoes. He takes the necklace. And he runs.

It's a compact sequence that perfectly illustrates the project of The Chi, which premieres Sunday. This is The Wire if you reverse the relationship between the residents and police. It puts the story before the anthropology, the people before the journalistic exposé, the banal before the sensational. Creator Lena Waithe — who won an Emmy for the exceptional "Thanksgiving" episode of Master of None — has said she wanted to make a show about Chicago from "a very human and grounded and honest perspective" that "put some humanness behind the headlines." The Chioffers exactly this: It examines, with interest and care, how kids and adults live and joke and get crushes and moon around, even (or especially) with violence slicing at the streets around them.

This is obviously something Moonlight did too. As if to drive home that parallel, The Chi's most surprising subplot features Kevin, a kid trying out for the school play because his crush wants him to. Kevin is played by Alex Hibbert, the star of Moonlight's first, most devastating act. Kevin's winsome sullenness almost threatens to overshadow his much-older sister Keisha (Birgundi Baker, funnier in this role than she has any right to be). Keisha, meanwhile, is sneaking around with Emmett (Jacob Latimore), an "entrepreneur" obsessed with status symbols who recently found out he's a father and isn't happy about it. Emmett's mother Jada (Yolonda Ross) is an elder-care nurse who tolerates his girlfriends, but bemusedly shuts down his lazy assumption that she'll take care of his son.

Ross' triumph as a no-nonsense mom who refuses to make mothering her life made me realize that one of The Chi's more singular triumphs — as anthropology and entertainment both — is its rich variety of mothers. For all The Wire's fine work sketching out the devastating effects of the carceral state on a black community, it wasn't much interested in the women left behind to run things. Waithe's project leans into their stories: Besides Ross, there's Coogie's mom Laverne (the remarkable Sonja Sohn), a depressive collapsing under the weight of her life. There's Ethel, a cantankerous old lady who at one point draws a shotgun on a police officer in defense of her grandson, Ronnie (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) — a middle-aged deadbeat with a romantic soul who becomes one of The Chi's central characters. There's Ronnie's ex Tracy (Tai Davis), a bereaved mother hell-bent on revenge.

The Chi is a sprawling ensemble piece whose horizons keep expanding. To the extent that it has a protagonist, it's Coogie's older brother Brandon (Jason Mitchell). A line cook at a fancy restaurant, he eventually wants to open his own with his girlfriend Jerrika (Tiffany Boone).

I won't go into specific plot points; suffice it to say that Waithe structures the show so as to gradually make the viewer entirely complicit in the world view that led Coogie to take those sneakers off a dying man. Tanya Hamilton directs "Quaking Grass," the fourth episode, by swirling around a central event in spirals — not for tension, since it's fairly clear what happened — but to suggest that a tap is running and a bad story is circling the drain in faster and tighter loops. It's a directorial strategy that makes you realize that you might want a particular character to die, just because that person's survival makes things so much messier. In other words, you end up firmly enmeshed in the complicated nest of incentives the characters of The Chi inhabit. If The Wire surveilled its characters, The Chisticks you in the story with them.

This show is a jewel. Watch it.
 
'The Chi' Deftly Brews Up South Side Story

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Alex Hibbert and Jason Mitchell in 'The Chi'

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/entertainment/the-chi-review/index.html

Absorbing and organic from practically the get-go, "The Chi" will inevitably draw comparisons to "The Wire," the definitive drama about the perils of inner-city life. Yet this richly detailed look at intersecting paths, cutting across generations, quickly carves its own niche, one where tragedy begets tragedy, and vengeance comes with consequences.

Created by Lena Waithe, who broke ground as the first African-American woman to win a comedy writing Emmy for "Master of None," this Showtime drama initially feels like a rejoinder to politicians (including President Trump) who have turned Chicago, and the violence there, into a talking point. The series consciously seeks to put faces on statistics, in a humanizing and at times heartbreaking way.

Despite a concept that defies simple description, this South Side story draws viewers in, while making Chicago a central character to what transpires. The plot is set in motion by the murder of a teenager -- an old saw if there ever was one -- another youth who stumbles upon the body, and faulty assumptions that wind up multiplying the pain.

Violence, and the ready availability of guns, are a part of life in this community. There's also considerable skepticism about the police, although one officer (Armando Riesco) takes it upon himself to try to be a positive force.

Those who pass through the story are often put in positions that they didn't seek, or at least didn't anticipate. And while there are clearly bad guys lurking around the perimeters, what makes "The Chi" so devastating is the way it keeps coming back to the idea of decent or well-intentioned people doing foolish, questionable and occasionally terrible things.

Beautifully cast, key players include Jason Mitchell ("Mudbound") as Brandon, a young restaurant worker, trying to find a better life; Alex Hibbert ("Moonlight") as a sensitive young boy, facing adult-sized risks; and Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine ("Treme") as Ronnie, a low-key fellow who spends his days hanging out on the corner before being pressed by the mother of a slain teenager to find out what happened.

Other strands feature children who have learned early not to trust the authorities; and Emmett (Jacob Latimore), whose mother simply rolls her eyes at his sexual conquests, especially after one of them deposits the baby he fathered at their doorstep. Sonja Sohn also provides a direct connection to "The Wire," playing Brandon's mom.

Working with showrunner Elwood Reid and fellow producer Common (who appears in a small role), Waithe has created a series that doesn't provide a clear blueprint for its direction, which is part of what makes the show so bracing. The writing almost instantly gets past clichés to bring real depth to -- and investment in -- the characters.

Although "The Chi" has, as noted, "The Wire" -- and particularly its fourth season -- as a sort-of spiritual ancestor, it's practically a textbook case of a show where execution trumps concept, which explains how the story can feel fresh while touching upon so many familiar themes, among them the vicious cycles associated with absentee fathers, indifferent institutions and access to guns.

Showtime has been all over the map in its recent programming choices, but "The Chi" again demonstrates that a good story, well told, doesn't require a flashy premise. In the process, the show also provides a seemingly necessary reminder of the people behind the headlines when young lives get caught in the crossfire.
 
I feel its pigeonholing and nothing but a handicap to continue to compare The Chi to The Wire 2 episodes in.
 
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I’ve been meaning to actually check the premier, but I’ve been procrastinating.

Whole episode came up as a YouTube ad. Couldn’t turn it off.
 
Brandon's relationship with his mom and her new man reminds me of Baby Boy :lol:

He should be able to take ol dude with his hands even with the set up.
 
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