Crime
Smoke
Where there’s smoke, there’s going to be fire. And where there’s Apple TV’s ‘Smoke,’ there’s going to be content issues.
Hampton Chambers knows the drill.
That’s not a figure of speech. Hampton literally knows the drill. He came up with the concept of a self-sharpening drill in prison—a gift, he believes, from God. (The idea for the drill, that is, not the prison.) He designed it while serving his sentence. Once out, he built the thing from scratch in his garage. (Pretty convenient, given that his wife, Astoria, is making him sleep out there.)
Yes indeed, this drill—this revolutionary power tool—will be Hampton’s ticket to respectability. Legitimate wealth. Why, it might even help him patch things up with his wife and kids.
Well, just as long as the Prevost brothers don’t use Hampton’s drill on Hampton’s face, that is.
Let’s back up just a bit.
Just before Hampton was about to be paroled in 1969, a prison riot broke out. And during the riot, Hampton accidentally stabbed his best friend, Rudy, with a screwdriver. (Whoops!)
Well, Rudy died. And accident or not, you’d think that would’ve spelled the end of Hampton’s impending parole. But oddly, some other guy took the fall for the killing, and Hampton was set free, right on time.
Turns out, he owes the Prevost brothers—a fearsome crime family made up of seven French-Canadian brothers—for his release. And, given that they’re a fearsome crime family, they’re not interested in a simple “thank you.” They’d like Hampton to cough up the $2,000 he already owed them. And if he can’t come up with the cash, they’ll be forced to kill Hampton with their unique form of French-Canadian zeal.
Très tragique, n’est-ce pas!
But as much as the Prevosts would like Hampton to suffer, their animosity is pretty chill compared to that of Hampton’s own family.
The Chambers aren’t entirely estranged from their paterfamilias. Einstein—Hampton’s brilliant, quirky, pole-vaulting son—doesn’t mind having his pops back in pocket. But younger son Harrison is a different matter. Truth is, Harrison always liked Rudy better. You know, the best friend whom Hampton accidentally killed with a screwdriver. And Harrison’s grievances go on from there.
As for wife Astoria, well, she’s been waiting for Hampton to grow up and step up for most of their marriage. Hampton’s prison stint was just the latest example of her hubby’s irresponsibility. So when Hampton insists that he’s a changed man? Well, it’ll take more than a self-sharpening drill to fix their marriage.
But Hampton knows he’s gotta start somewhere. And a drill is as good a place as any to begin.
Government Cheese has been described as a “family comedy” by some. And if you define a family comedy as a comedy about a family, that’s fair enough. But a comedy for a family? That’s a stretch.
Language is the biggest issue here, with characters using strong profanity (including the f-word) at times. And thanks to the Prevosts’ violent ways, a nasty killing or maiming seems always just a one erreur away. In the second episode, we learn that Astoria’s seeing another fella, too—so add woo wife back to Hampton’s to do list … and marital infidelity to ours.
But in spite of those issues, Government Cheese also comes with surprisingly a thick slice of good intent.
This comedy, for all its surrealism and absurdity, is anchored in one important theme: redemption. Hampton is trying to change. He is trying to do better. And he’s pushing forward in spite of all sorts of opposition—from the Prevosts, from his own family, even sometimes from what seems like fate itself. He’s not a perfectly repentant sinner: Both the drill and the Prevosts can lead Hampton into questionable decisions. But ultimately, Hampton wants to be the husband that Astoria thought she was marrying, and the father that his kids both need and deserve.
And as the story unfurls, Government Cheese unabashedly leans into some big, important and yes, spiritual themes.
It’s not always Christian spirituality, mind you: Hampton totes around a Bible, but he initially started following Yahweh because the name felt “less formal.” Son Harrison dabbles with Native American animism. Hampton’s friend Bootsy muses that time is an illusion. Government Cheese uses religious and metaphysical elements as a baker might use icing to put a smiley face on a gingerbread man: It gives the thing a little color and character. But that said, its mere inclusion does remind its viewers that, hey, life is full of mystery—and God may play a bigger role in our stories than some would want to say.
The show’s title comes from the first episode, as Astoria watches with grudging admiration as Hampton works on his drill. Astoria tells her boys that Hampton gets that zeal from his mother: “She made the best sandwiches out of nothing but government cheese and white bread,” she says.
This show is about taking what you’ve been given and turning it into something special, be it cheese or drills or ourselves. And in spite of the show’s myriad issues, that message comes through.
Hampton gets out of prison and returns home—filled with faith in God, a yearning to do right and a desire to build his exciting new invention. But when he gets home, Hampton discovers that two-thirds of his family—his wife and son, Harrison—would’ve rather he just stayed in prison. Oh, and the dastardly Prevost brothers are asking that he pay them back the money he owes them in two weeks. Or else.
Before converting to Christianity, Hampton reads the book of Jonah and asks a fellow inmate why “God is so reckless” when He messes with man (using a much stronger term than “reckless”). “Is it God who’s reckless? Or is it man?” the inmate responds. And then he tells him a long, rambling story about God’s workings within that very prison—orchestrating a bunch of outlandish events to free the place of a notorious bully. (Note: This story is somewhat undercut by the fact that the bully was stabbed to death with a spoon.)
“To God, we are all just pieces on the chessboard,” the inmate tells Hampton. “And if you let God move you, He always leads us out of the misery of humanity. … But if you don’t follow His path, God will f— you up.”
The inmate tells Hampton that he can call God by any number of names, including Allah. Hampton chooses Yahweh for the name’s informality. Thereafter, Hampton references Matthew 17:20 and the mustard seed therein. He places his precious family pictures and messages in his Bible, and when a workshop floods, he races (and ultimately swims) desperately after it.
When he returns home, Hampton tells his family that he received a “vision” of the self-sharpening drill from “Yahweh Himself, but more importantly, the strength to guide this lost flock—our family—back on the righteous path.” (Einstein tells his father that Jesus is a “neurotransmitter and a UFO.” Hampton tells Einstein that he’s probably “skipped a few paragraphs” in the Western mysticism/quantum mechanics books he’s been reading.)
The Prevost brothers have a picture of their “patron saint, Jean Baptiste (John the Baptist)” hanging up on their wall. Hampton tells a criminally inclined friend that he’s “not doing smash-and-grabs anymore! I’m on the righteous path!” (“The what?” his friend says in bewilderment.) An environmentalist steals Hampton’s bike while chanting “Protect Mother Earth!” When Hampton asks for a sign from God, he sees a frog leap over a pole vault bar several feet into the air. Hampton translates that as God wanting him to take a “leap of faith.”
We see someone stabbed to death with a spoon. Hampton stabs someone with a screwdriver in prison. Dozens of inmates attack one another. An enemy of the Prevost brothers is shot offscreen. Hampton is thrown from a bike.
One inmate purposefully sabotages the prison’s sewer system. (We briefly see inside the mucky sewage holding tank.)
Harrison, Hampton’s son, smokes a marijuana bong in his room. (The activity is not corrected by either Mom or Dad.) A character drinks beer. Hampton’s new self-sharpening drill is dubbed the “Bit Magician.” A prospective business partner asks Hampton to bring him the “best Scotch you can find.” Astoria pours herself a martini or two. Characters say the f-word six times and the s-word twice. We also hear “a–” and “d–n a couple of times apiece.
After we get a bit of backstory regarding the Prevost brothers, we follow Hampton as he tries to A) partner with an important rocketry business; B) finagle some money to appease the Provosts; and C) start patching up his relationship with his family. The first step for C)? Making the family dinner. But alas, A and B get in his way.
In a flashback, we see Mama Prevost give birth to her seventh and final baby boy—as she’s chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The baby lands on the kitchen floor, accompanied by a great deal of fluid. The woman hands the baby to the father and then walks out the door, never to return. Later (but in the same flashback), we see a Prevost brother bloodily shoot someone. We also hear about one of the more creative ways that another victim met his end.
We learn that Astoria is seeing another man, and she leaves to spend time with him at a martini bar. Bootsy, a friend of Hampton’s (and part of his former life of crime), tries to get Hampton to help him rob a Jewish temple. Harrison and Astoria swap stories about what a terrible father/husband Hampton’s been in the past. “He took me to a Hell’s Angels barbecue for my birthday,” Harrison says. “He pawned my engagement ring,” Astoria counters.
Hampton somehow gets a bottle of fine Scotch as a business bribe. Manny, his fledgling business partner, returns with good news. “He liked the Scotch. A little too much,” he adds. “I think he might have a drinking problem.” Hanpton tells him that that’s not their problem. (He lies and misleads elsewhere, too.)
We hear a reference to Jesus turning water into wine. Characters say the f- and s-word twice each. We also hear one use of “a–.”
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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