Review: Everybody Still Hates Chris “Everybody Still Hates Cheat Codes; Everybody Still Hates Halloween”


OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Chris finds a possibly shortcut to getting an NES, and later has to go to a Church party to try and woo Tasha.

OUR TAKE

We got another Chris Rock Childhood Trauma Double Feature, but this time one is technically a Halloween special! Though despite my initial optimism about this show in the last handful of episodes, this week I’m feeling kind of lukewarm on this pair. I don’t know if it’s because my expectations have been adjusted, starting low when I first began covering it so I was pleasantly surprised but now I know what to expect, or if these episodes were just kinda meh, but this week definitely did not leave much of an impression. It could also be that this schtick of Chris Rock throwing in only tangentially related quips and jokes is getting to be more annoying than funny, and it was barely funny to start with. Still, the show is mostly decent thus far, so I think it could just be that I’m getting wise to its usual tricks. But we’ve got fourteen more episodes left to cover over the next seven weeks, so maybe there are still at least a few surprises left to uncover as we go through this weird animated sequel revival spin off or whatever. Surely they didn’t just bring this show back after fifteen years to just do the old bits and then disappear again, right?

Anyway, as usual, the main focus of these episodes is Chris, with one episode being about him grappling with the ethics of cheat codes as a shortcut through life, while the other has him still trying to get with Tasha. Also, while I kind of figured that Tasha was a returning character from the live action show, what I did not know is that she was actually originally made as a replacement for another character, Keisha, who was young Chris’ original love interest before she left the old show after the first season. From there, Tasha was basically in the same Will They Won’t They dynamic with Chris that we’ve seen her in here, except they apparently also dated briefly near the end of the series. I bring all this up, not JUST to fill in the word count on this review, but also to point out that none of that history really feels present in this latter episode, which could be good or bad depending on where things end up going. For now, it seems like they’ve finally put the romantic side of their dynamic to bed, which is pretty mature of them, though I guess we’ll see if anyone else fills the void of love interest before too long.