Everybody Hates Chris: Everybody Hates The Gout

I'm hoping that UPN (soon to be the CW) has some kind of mysterious plan for Everybody Hates Chris that only it understands, because I've been genuinely confused by how the last few episodes of this season have been doled out. The show has been in reruns, but once in awhile, like last night, they'll toss a new one out there. On the surface, it appears as if UPN has abandoned a show they once touted quite enthusiastically by sneaking new episodes past fans. I'm hoping that isn't the case, that perhaps the show is just ending its first season with a fade out in preparation for a big second season.

Last night's episode focused on two storylines, Chris' father getting the gout from eating heavily-salted food, including, according to one sequence, "chicken-fried bananas" and Chris himself getting an F in math and trying to fool his parents into thinking he got an A. Math is the only class in which Chris can't get a passing grade, as his all-white school seems to give him a free pass as long as all his reports have to do with Martin Luther King, Jr. Taking advantage of the ignorance of white people is a reoccurring theme on the show. Everybody Hates Chris doesn't just focus on blatant racism, it also points the finger at those who work feverishly to seem "black friendly" but ironically ignore the individual. When Chris is at home, or hanging out with his friend Greg at school, he's just a regular kid. It's when his teachers single him out in class to talk about black history, or the basketball coach asks him to join the team without seeing him play, that he becomes a "black kid." Chris Rock has said before that races have much more in common with one another than people realize, and that when its all laid out, the differences are few and inconsequential. That seems to be the guiding ethos of Everybody Hates Chris, and it's what makes the show both hysterical and thought-provoking.