TVSquad

(S02E03) This episode, in which Chris runs for class president, borrowed plenty of quotes from famous speeches about race and race relations. Chris tells his best friend and campaign manager Greg he plans to beat Joey Caruso "by any means necessary," a clever nod to Malcolm X. Later, during a Q&A with the school body Caruso answers every question with a variation of Alabama governor George Wallace's infamous "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" line from his 1963 inaugural speech. When asked what flavor of Jello should be in the cafeteria, he answers: "grape today, grape tomorrow, grape forever." When asked about handicap access, he just repeats the quote with "ramps" in place of "grapes." After swiping the speech Greg wrote for Chris and presenting it as his own at a school assembly, Caruso rattles off quotes from both Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, a stark contrast to his own racist outlook.

While Everybody Hates Chris is obviously a highly fictionalized account of Chris Rock's childhood, I couldn't help but notice a glimmer of real truth shining through this episode. Chris is not the most popular kid in school, but he runs for class president because he wants to prove himself to everyone, to let them know he has something of relevance to say and he's not just that one black kid. When he gets up and delivers an impromptu speech at the school assembly, you get a glimpse of the man he would eventually become, the one that strides across the stage and keeps an audience hanging on his every word, all without the aid of an organ player, which one of his teachers offers to get for him in case he "[catches] the Holy Ghost."

The two subplots were pretty funny, as well. It'll be interesting to see if the show's creators decide to do anymore with the sleazy tenant, a funeral director who takes it upon himself to console every widow who comes to his funeral home in the privacy of his apartment. The other subplot involving a missing ten dollars that Rochelle loses and Drew finds had a lot of hilarious moments, from Drew buying a ten dollar wallet to put his ten dollars in to Julius lamenting to Rochelle, "that's ten dollars worth of dollars."