Today, we look at how Chris surprised his dad with the perfect present on the Everybody Hates Chris Father’s Day episode
This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.
This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.
All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.
Everybody Hates Chris was a sitcom (very) loosely based on the life of comedy icon, Chris Rock. Rock served as the narrator of the series, with Tyler James Williams (now killing it on Abbott Elementary as an adult) as young Chris.
The great Tichina Arnold and Terry Crews played Chris’ parents, Rochelle and Julius.
In Season 1’s finale, “Everybody Hates Father’s Day” (written by Rodney Barnes and Ali LeRoi, the co-creator of the series who also directed the episode), it is Father’s Day, and Chris wants to get his father something, but Julius surprises the family when he is asked what he wants as a gift (after first joking, “I’d like for you to pay one of these bills”) is that he’d like a day to himself, just to relax.
Rochelle takes issue with it, as she thinks he is saying that he wants to celebrate being a father by…not being a father. However, he eventually convinces her to take the kids for the day, so Julius can just have their home to himself. Meanwhile, Chris splits from his motm and his two siblings because he is set on finding the perfect gift for his dad (which is tough, as how do you buy something for the man who wants nothing?). At first he buys him a digital watch, but then his father ends up with a digital watch from a friend who found it in the trash, and Chris has to get him something else.
In the end, Chris surprises him by…paying for a bill! Chris uses the money he saved up to pay the electricity bill that month, and Julius gives him a rare approving smile.
Of course, then Julius is so proud of Chris that he says, “I think you can probably start paying one bill a month from now on.” D’oh!
This was a fun, and charming episode, with great performances from Crews, Williams and Arnold (Arnold is such an underrated actor).
Okay, if I’m going to have 325 more of these (and 17 more this month), I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!
