TVSquad

(S02E05)

Malvo: It's hard to rob a gun store. They got guns.

This wasn't one of the funniest episodes of Everybody Hates Chris I've seen, though I chalk that up to the show having a somewhat more serious point to make than other episodes. Chris, after being allowed to tend the corner market for the first time by himself, ends up robbed by the neighborhood's repeat offender, a thug named Malvo who's constantly in and out of jail.

I'll give Chris credit for (eventually) being brave and turning Malvo in, because if it were me I don't think I'd have the guts, nor would I have ever returned to work. Actually, I probably would turn the guy in, but I'd quit my job and do some kind of "face switch" with someone else a la "Silence of the Lambs," change my name and live out the rest of my years in some remote part of Ohio.

While the main story this week was a bit more serious, the subplot involving Julius bringing home a Betamax yielded a couple funny moments. Even in 1984, the Betamax is already obsolete, but Julius can't resist a bargain. Chris' friend Greg even gives Chris some old Betamax movies his family had been using as doorsteps, and Caruso, the school bully, gives him a copy of Birth of a Nation, telling Chris that it's "hilarious."

My favorite moment, however, was when Chris approached his father to tell him what happened and that he had been fired for not saying who had robbed the store. It was hard for Chris because his father never lost a job, and still had the first job he ever took: cut to a scene of a full-grown Julius riding a bike through the streets and tossing newspapers on doorsteps.