Lena Waithe Got to End Her Show; Not All Black Shows Do

[This story contains spoilers from the series finale of The Chi, “The Last Dance.”]

After eight seasons, The Chi has aired its last episode. And for creator Lena Waithe, the series has been a hyper-personal journey. When the show premiered on Showtime back on Jan. 18 in 2018, Chicago’s national reputation was less than stellar. Even as Obama served two terms as POTUS, the city was dogged by gun violence, with 20 or more people being shot or even killed over a weekend.

Just three years before, New Yorker Spike Lee made the city’s gang violence the focal point of his film Chi-Raq. Waithe — fresh off becoming the first Black woman writer to win the comedy Emmy for Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series Master of None (in which she also starred on) — decided to put on her Olivia Pope cape to address how the city’s Black community has been represented on screen in the last several decades, most memorably with the 1970s series Good Times.

The Chi debuted amid a slew of diverse Black shows: Insecure, Snowfall, Dear White People, Atlanta, Queen Sugar, black-ish, Power and She’s Gotta Have It. Few maybe would have picked The Chi to still be standing eight seasons later as the longest-running Black ensemble drama in premium cable history, and one of the longest-running shows in Showtime’s history. And there was a lot of reason to doubt if it could continue.

From the beginning, it was a hard show to categorize. As its name suggests, the city — specifically the South Side of Chicago — was the main attraction. But the show itself could not escape how Chicago was viewed. For two seasons, the storyline revolved mostly around Straight Outta Compton breakout star Jason Mitchell’s character Brandon Jackson’s struggle to make it beyond working as a line cook despite the pull of the streets to avenge his younger brother Coogie’s (Jahking Guillory) murder by the older Ronnie (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) who, coincidentally, was avenging the murder of his ex-girlfriend Tracy’s (Tai Davis) son Jason (Lucien Cambric). Brandon’s girlfriend Jerrika (Tiffany Boone) was also a huge part of his mission to succeed.

Friendship and neighborhood ties bonded others in the group that included Emmett (Jacob Latimore), Emmett’s mother Jada (Yolonda Ross) and the younger Kevin (Alex Hibbert), along with close friends Jake (Michael V. Epps) and Papa (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Kevin’s older sister Kiesha (Birgundi Baker), who had a romantic link to Emmett from the first episode. After Mitchell was hit with inappropriate behavior allegations from co-star Boone, Brandon was killed off and the series changed dramatically.

Over the various seasons, so many big names have come in and out of The Chi. Some were Chicagoans themselves, like Common (who also produced the show), former NBA star Iman Shumpert, Cory Hardrict, rappers Vic Mensa and Da Brat, comedian Lil Rel Howery, Jason Weaver and Waithe herself. Others have included Lynn Whitfield, Kandi Burruss, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Tabitha Brown, La La Anthony, Leon, Rotimi and Karrueche Tran, among others.

The core cast, however, includes original castmember Latimore, who was No. 1 on the call sheet as Emmett this final season, Birgundi Baker as Kiesha, Hannaha Hall as Tiff, Michael V. Epps and Shamon Brown as Jake and Papa, the latter who have grown from kids to adults on the show, as well as Luke James as Victor, and Weaver as Shaad. It’s a big cast with vast storylines that range from Chicago street gangs and crime syndicates — led by the likes of Douda (Curtiss Cook) and Nuck (Cortez Smith) — the violent deaths of Alicia (Whitfield), Rob and Douda, along with women and men mental health circles, as well as Emmett maintaining and growing his restaurant Smokey’s, his ex-wife Tiff and Rob’s woman expanding her cannabis business, and finding and losing love and blending families. It’s been a lot to take on. And on top of just making it The Chi a good show on its own merit, Waithe and team took on the challenge of paying homage to Black TV shows and movies in storylines.

The Hollywood Reporter hopped on Zoom with Lena Waithe to discuss all of this, including the process of ending the series, honoring other Black shows, and both her the show’s journey across all of these years. She also reveals how she could have kept the series going two more seasons.

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The Chi has always paid homage to other Black movies and TV shows. In addition to the big finale of Emmett and Kiesha’s wedding, in the series finale, Menace II Society is a focal point with Bakari essentially in Caine’s role. It didn’t look like Bakari was going to beat Caine’s deadly but then, at the very last minute, Bakari lives and makes it to Atlanta. How and why did you make that decision?

Obviously, that was a back-and-forth conversation in the room because the writers were like, “Lena, do it. Don’t be scared!” Also, they know how much I love Menace II Society. I love Boyz n the Hood. I grew up on those movies. They really influenced and inspired me to do what I’m doing, and I’m a big believer in paying homage.

I don’t have this idea that I’m new or that I came out of nowhere. I’m raised by these movies that weren’t afraid to shed light on what was going on in certain neighborhoods. But at the same time, I like those characters. I like listening to them hang out and be friends. People forget the humor in those movies. It’s dark, but it’s there. [Seeing characters] watching Dead Presidents on one of the screens, and watching Cooley High and things like that, which is what I also did, feels like Black homes. We’re watching ourselves on screen.

But you guys changed up the ending from the original. Why?

We rewrote it a little bit. Even though we’re paying homage to Menace II Society, we know how that movie ends. I’m grateful that the audience gets a pleasant surprise. They know I’m the type of artist who doesn’t pull punches. They’ll punch me in the chest sometimes for not doing that. I want to be very clear that I’m an artist who governs myself. I’m not going to be policed by the people in that way. Because if artists allow themselves to be told how to show up in the work, the work is not going to do its job.

It is our job to agitate. Our job to push. I’m not here to coddle anybody. Sometimes because people want to be liked, and that is understandable, the work is a reflection of that. And mine has never really been [like that]. When you are queer growing up in Chicago, people are not going to like you. That’s just what I know about life. So in my work, there’s an element of not being worried about [not being liked]. But this being the first show that I’ve ended from the first episode of something I’ve ever written, what I also know, being a student of television, is, as an audience member, there are things the audience wants. I had to grow and say, “It’s not about me anymore.” It’s almost the first time I want the audience to feel pleased, complete and to feel good.

Black audiences also deserve finales or proper goodbyes for Black shows. That track record has not been good. A lot of times, the shows end with no planned finale. No closure.

You’re right. A lot of our shows go out with a whimper. I was working [as an assistant] on the eighth season of Girlfriends, and our show didn’t come back. Mara Brock Akil’s talked about it publicly how it was a heartbreak [not to get a finale]. And Living Single didn’t get its due at the end; same thing with A Different World which had a bit of a clunky ending. Cree Summers and I talk about that on [my podcast] Legacy Talk. So, in essence, this is for them. This is for Susan Fales and Debbie Allen [A Different World], Mara Brock Akil and Yvette Lee Bowser because they also raised me as a television writer.

So knowing that you would get a proper finale, how did you and your team plot out this final season?

It was interesting because there was a moment where they were trying to make a deal with us for eight and nine, which we’ve never done before. We always do one season deals. So now I’m thinking about the ending of eight as how to launch into another season. Then I thought about it longer [and was like], “Okay, that’s cool if they want to do a deal for eight, but do I want to do a deal for eight and nine?’ Then you’re also telling me I’m going to do a 10th season?” That’s just crazy, so I really asked myself, if I wanted to do two more years.

What people don’t always realize is that I sold the show and it took two years for it to get up. So, I wrote it. There was another pilot we shot, we did a mini [writers] room. So, for me, it’s been a decade. For the audience, it’s been eight seasons. Some people are like, “Why not just do two more?” I’m like, “Well, then it’ll be 12 for me.”

Did you go away on a retreat? What approach did you and your team take to wrap up The Chi?

I had to get out of my own way. What do I want to do? And it ain’t about me. This is about everybody who has been watching the show for all this time. It’s about these amazing women who didn’t get the opportunity to close the curtain the way they deserve to. I really was like, “Wait a minute, let me give the audience a hug,” because we’ve both earned it. I’ve earned an embrace, and I feel that embrace when I’m outside, and when I’m online.

You’re right, Black people deserve. And that can be an interesting word. What does anyone deserve? But we’ve not gotten our due with a lot of our great shows. So this [was] an opportunity to give us another one of those Fresh Prince of Bel Air moments, which I know we all love. We had a couple of endings that we were [looking at], so I hope this is one of those finales]that people remember, and that makes them feel good. Because I think you’re right, we do deserve it.

One of the major themes for this season — and especially in the last two episodes — is about allowing these characters to grow, and even seeing the unredeemable redeeming themselves, particularly when we talk about Reg. We don’t often get to see that kind of an evolution for Black characters. Can you talk about that?

That’s a beautiful question, and thank you for asking it. That was something I wanted to incorporate because we had the footage. We’re having these [flashback] scenes that I can assume y’all remember, but I took a little bit of that liberty to say, “These last couple of episodes, let’s be a little nostalgic. Let’s throw back.” We used to go through photobooks and that’s kind of what those flashbacks feel like. Like all the pictures we took and got developed, and put in plastic. It’s looking back at what we used to be and how far we’ve come, and also understanding we still we still got some growing to do.

One of my favorite lines from The Chi is, “even though I’m grown, I still got some growing up to do.” I’m 42, but a 50-year-old would be like, “You still got a lot of life to live.’”Debbie Allen still calls me a baby. So in all areas of your life, you feel like you know something, and then 10 years later, you realize, “I just I don’t know what I thought I was doing then.” I was 31 or whatever when I sold the show and I’m 42 now again. People have watched me learn and grow on the job.

What is that feeling?

Y’all met me at the beginning of this journey, and now here I am at the end of it, in a completely different place than when I started, so I relate to the characters as I’m growing with them, especially Emmett. Emmett is one of those people we met as a teenager, and Jacob Latimore has grown up a lot on this show. We as people, as artists, as colleagues — and the same with Hannaha [Hall], who played Tiff, and with Barton — we’ve all grown up together, even though we’re technically grown-ups.

We have so much to learn from each other, so much to learn from these experiences. What I hope people understand is that we got to give each other grace as we grow. That is a big thing that I really hope the show shows — that there’s no one who is too beyond being redeemed. There’s always something you can do, even if it’s hard. Usually, it’s hard. But I think who you are is on the other side of fear.

As someone who watches a lot of television, I don’t think I’ve seen a show end in this way, in terms of paying homage to blended families, and showing an inclusive environment where people don’t lead with their sexuality and can be accepted as a person. When do you think you made that shift?

I think it began in season three. We went through a lot of changes in our show from the first two seasons to season three and on, in terms of showrunners as well. With season three, it became: “Okay, who are we now? And that’s what Justin Hillian, who came in and is still [co-]showrunner all the way ‘til the end, [asked].

I really wanted to get rid of the cop stuff. I’m not a procedural girl. Never have been. I like slice of life stuff. He said, “The quickest way to get rid of cops is make a Black girl disappear.” And when he said that to me, I said, “Okay, right.” That’s what I’ve always wanted the show to be — one that asks questions of its audience, like, “Why are the cops not looking for this young Black woman that we care about?”

I always think of Chicago as a community. People don’t realize it’s a city, but it’s communal. Maybe because of the Southern hospitality. I told him I wanted to make it feel communal, like an ensemble. He said, “That’s what’s going to bring the community together. They’re going to find her!”

That’s what season three was, and then season four was figuring out: “Now we found her, what are we doing?” Then season five was about love, and the guys got mad and said: “This is just for the girls. Y’all are tripping. What’s going on? It’s too soft.” Then with season six, we got extended, and I was like, “We turn the heat up a little bit more.” And then with seven, you bring in Reg.

I realized we can talk to the audience in a way that doesn’t make it feel too preachy. Sometimes it’s hard not to come off like we’re in the pulpit. But we have your attention so, what are we going to do with it? We want you to have the same conversations we’re having on the show, and you may not know how to.

I think the beauty of this season in particular, and all the seasons leading up to it, is you see the interiority of the characters’ lives. You see what people are feeling and you feel a lot of love. A lot of tragic things do happen, but you still feel a lot of love over this entire season.

Thank you. That means a lot to me. I wanted to infuse the show with that. And I had to show up as that. I think that [goes back to] talking about growing up. I [had] to understand that how I showed up is going to affect how everybody on the show showed up, too, and sometimes people do get frustrated. They feel like, “Would that really happen? Would a dad really say that?” And I’m like, “Look, I need to write us as we are.” I want to be honest about certain things, but at the same time, I also know who we have the potential to become. I wanted us to see us and to go, “I recognize that.” And then see some things and say, “I’ve never seen that before.”

All eight seasons of The Chi are streaming through the Paramount+ with Showtime plan.