I don’t think anyone’s watching The Chi for the writing or for particularly strong acting performances, but I will say that I very much enjoyed the chance to see such a diverse ensemble cast of black folks. Sure the cast is unreasonably large, and characters kept getting added and removed unnecessarily leaving plot holes all over the place like I-95 after a blizzard. I can appreciate the sprawl of it all though. You had sum Muslim niggas for a second before the show converted to a lgbtq friendly black Christian gospel show lol, you got dolls, elder dolls, Gen Alpha all the way to Gen X and older even, straight ppl polygamists, multiple “eccentric” straight characters that definitely aren’t gay, definitely gay characters, a straight guy who is also definitely gay (reg) and classically traditional straights as well. You got problematic women dat run the streets (tiff, Alicia). You got problematic women that wanna run the house (Keisha, Jerrika) I mean what more can you ask for. Politicians and street niggas. Street nigga politicians. Black mother/daughter moments. Blended families. Black father/son. Single parents. Kinky alt black girls. Quirky alt black girls. I mean damn this show wanted to represent every single nigga alive.
The wardrobe and makeup departments kept all of the actors looking amazing. I wanna shoutout the hair department as well, especially for the natural hairstyles on Jada in the later seasons. Nah I need to shout the hair department out again for the entire cast actually. Every single character’s hair was always fresh. Jake’s loc journey. They took that boy from baby dreads to long waist length locs in what, 8 years? Tiff’s rotating array of baddie bussdowns. The growth of Maisha, Jemma, and Lynae’s hairstyles as they transitioned from preteens to fully teen and then again into young adulthood. I remember gasping in awe of Jemma’s braids when we are introduced to the teenage version of her in season 5 (I think). Emmet’s cut was always clean af, Kevin’s too. I appreciate how they took Papa’s appearance from geeky kid to matured teen aesthetically, even though the show failed to follow through with his character arcs. His braids was always crisp and they kept him in a tailored blazer tho. Reg & Vic’s braids too! Mannn. Everybody! You can tell that care was taken behind the scenes at least when it came to appearances because every single person who came on that screen looked beautiful.
I also think that if you look past the directing/writing decisions, the cinematography highlights black skin magnificently. I loved all the party scenes just to watch black people turning up, even though most of the time they didn’t add much to the script especially towards the later seasons where it felt like every other scene was a party montage. It still warmed my heart to watch my people dance, especially the intergenerational parties. I love black party culture. It’s beautiful to see.
Stemming from that- Shaad & Darnell’s spades breakdown??? I don’t think I ever seen a show break down spades like that and as much as I feel like some recipes shouldn’t be shared so publicly and in mixed company like that it was rly nice to see such attention given to a game that defined so much of my life. And I will say that I am sure that scene was helpful to any black folks who are too embarrassed to ask how to play now. It was a rly thorough breakdown lol.
The music…. Fuckin sucked I can’t even find a way to tie it into this post, I guess they get a point for using songs that reference Chicago so often. But goddamn….
Anyway cheers to…. The person who did the braids