Review: Legends of Chamberlain Heights “My Father the Zero”

There goes my zero.

Spoilers Below

Grover, Malik and Montrell’s dad is back. His name is Marvin Chaka Khan Khaled. Marvin shows up and presents himself as a righteous, intelligent and honorable man, but it wasn’t always this way. Turns out he used to do blow while getting road head from three women at the same time. Until he got busted by the police that is. Then he did a 7-year prison bid. Montrel isn’t buying his father’s sudden re-appearance, and neither is Grover. Malik understands and wants to give him a chance.At school, Jamal talks some sense into Grover about the importance of a dad and Grover seems to have a change of heart. Malik takes the opportunity to show his dad how he gets his money, by selling drugs. His father approves, as long as its white people. On top of that Marvin whips the boys and the house into proper fashion. He even shows up to the basketball court to teach Grover a thing or two and make him a better player. It looks like Marvin is actually here to do some good for his boys! That’s all Grover has wanted his entire life, but during the heart-warming scene, we see that Marvin might have ulterior motives.

Montrel still isn’t buying it though, and remains skeptical. He try’s over and over to get his younger brother’s to see the truth. But damn, Marvin puts on a hell of a show and even convinces the coach to put Grover in the ball game.  Lo and behold Grover actually makes a shot! Whoaaaaaaaa! On top of that, after the game Marvin takes Grover to buy some new sneakers. Once again, we see that Marvin has ulterior motives and really wants Grover to move in with him. Back at home, shit hits the fan because Montrel is jealous of Grover’s new relationship with Marvin. After Montrell gets his ass beat with a switch, he gets in to a fight with Grover. This causes Grover to declare that he’s going to go live with Marvin. Hm… Anyway, while Marvin is taking a shit, Montrel sees all the texts sent from Marvin’s family, who are all white, and confronts him.  It turns out that Marvin’s plan is to have Grover move in with him to go to a private school because if you bring a black kid, his siblings get in free. Montrell challenges his Marvin to a basketball game.  Damn. Marvin is nice.  But so is Montrell. The game is intense and the score goes back and forth, but on game point, Marvin gets distracted by a girl’s titties and Montrel steals the ball and scores the game winning basket. Holy shit that game was lit though. I know on Montrel’s side there was years and years of built up rage that he was able to channel into winning that game. It must have felt good when he hit that game winner.

In the aftermath of the victory, Montrel tells Grover that Marvin left because he got a new job and hands Grover Marvin’s credit card and tells him to go buy whatever he wants. Grover goes off with Milk and Jamal, and Malik shows up. He already knows that Marvin was going to go and comforts Montrell by taking him out for ice cream.

Aw shit man. This episode was deep. I knew the moment that Marvin showed up that he was going to be in and out of the picture faster than a photobomb, good intentions or not. This episode also paid homage to the movie “He’s Got Game” as well. Even though this episode dealt with a heavy topic they did try to lighten the heavy air with the hijinks of Milk and Jamal, who spent the entire episode trying to get “happy endings” at a local massage parlor. I hate when tv shows play the “dead beat dad who tries to come back into his son’s life only to leave them high and dry card”, but even still it was good to see Montrel put up a fight for Grover. Usually he’s just cracking jokes on him but we see that he actually loves his brother. We even saw Montrell cry a few times, while asking the never-answered question “Why doesn’t he want me?”, and “What would I have become if I had actually had a father?”. I also thing that Malik saw through the smokescreen the entire time as well. It just sucks the boys had to go through that.  I think the best thing that happened this episode was that Grover got to play and actually made a shot. Maybe he’ll get more playing time in the future? As much as I wish such scenarios didn’t exist, they do. Every kid needs a dad when growing up. Be a father to your children y’all.