TVSquad

(S02E18) This wasn't the funniest episode of Everybody Hates Chris, but I did like how it explored the dynamic between Chris and his father.

Kurt Vonnegut once told McSweeneys that a male writer should never write about his father: "you learn about life by the accidents you have, over and over again, and your father is always in your head when that stuff happens."

I don't fully understand what Vonnegut was getting at, but I do agree with him. The value of the father/son relationship tends to be measured by things merely suggested or things unsaid, perhaps in part to certain societal taboos that forbid men from expressing their feelings, but I don't see that as detrimental to the relationship. If anything, fathers and sons have an almost preternatural link to one another that no one can really explain, least of all the two individuals experiencing it. There's not a lot of room for words within that relationship, things are just kind of "known."

Case in point: when Chris decides to skip out on a baseball game to go on a movie date, his father simply replies, "cool." The problem is, "cool" doesn't really mean "cool," it means his father just had his feelings hurt. It took me several years to realize my own father even had feelings, much less the kind that could be hurt in some way.

On another note, I really liked Rochelle in this episode. She's a feisty character, and I like that, but sometimes I think she crosses the line and just comes across as abrasive, but this time around her meddling into the affairs of her hairdresser and brother was actually quite funny. As I said, I didn't think this was the strongest episode plot-wise, but strong characters can more than make up for a lesser episode.