For Lena Waithe, The Chi has always been more than television; it’s a love letter to her hometown. And as the series heads into its eighth season, that letter is only getting rawer, more unpredictable, and more real.
The Emmy winner told The Hollywood Reporter that the season seven finale deaths of Alicia (Lynn Whitfield) and Jada (Yolonda Ross) weren’t just for shock value — they reflect life in Chicago and beyond. “Death is a part of life. It just is… We were seeing comments from people saying, ‘I lost my mom, she beat it, and then it came back and took her life.’ If you’re upset, that means you have connected to a character. A lot of people have had real-life experiences with this.”
Waithe explained that Alicia’s fate came down to keeping the audience off balance: “As a television writer, and as a person who’s also a fan of television, that’s what I often look for: Is something unexpected? We sometimes make assumptions, or believe things that sometimes aren’t true, and we act on information that isn’t true, and that can have really tough consequences.”
But amid the heartbreak, the finale also gave fans a jolt of nostalgia with Reg’s (Barton Fitzpatrick) surprise return. “There was a hunger for it from the audience… What was exciting for us as a room was to see all three brothers together. That was probably one of the most memorable scenes of the series, to see Victor, Reg and Jake on that couch smoking together.”
That back-and-forth between devastation and reunion, between harsh reality and moments of joy, is what Waithe says defines both The Chi and Chicago itself. “People know that on The Chi, you don’t know who may leave. You don’t know who is going to be gone. That’s also a signature of the series.”
The show also made history this summer, becoming Showtime’s longest-running Black drama, surpassing Soul Food, with its seventh season. For Waithe, that milestone is more than just a record; it’s proof that stories about Chicago’s South Side can resonate far beyond its borders.
With its eighth season already greenlit, Lena Waithe promises the show will keep tackling the complexity of Black life in Chicago — from family and faith to crime and love — always with an ear tuned to the city she grew up in. As she put it simply, The Chi is still her love letter to the place that made her.
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