How many episodes are in The Chi?

The Chi has 10 episodes in this listed season.

When does The Chi premiere?

The Chi premieres on 2026-05-22.

Is The Chi a new series?

The Chi is a returning series (Season 8).

The Chi(2018)

Archived · Showtime

7.5

TV-MA10 eps

S08

Drama

ON AIR: MAY 22Season 8Archived listing

What to Expect

Premiere Lens read

The Chi builds its drama from the ordinary rhythms of a south side Chicago neighborhood, where a morning routine or a small financial decision can tip into something permanent and irreversible. The pacing is deliberate, letting scenes breathe long enough that when consequences arrive, they land with real weight rather than procedural efficiency.

Across eight seasons, the story accumulates through intergenerational relationships, the friction between personal ambition and loyalty to the people around you, and the quiet pressure that elders, parents, and young adults place on one another without always saying so directly. Redemption here is not a single moment but a slow negotiation, earned across many small choices that the show refuses to rush.

Best for

coming-of-age grit, neighborhood loyalty and Drama

Story lane

Drama

Commitment

Season 8 · 10 episodes

Where

Showtime

Official Premise

On Chicago's south side, an average day finds kids prepping for school as their parents head off to work, young adults trying to make a living, and the elders keeping an eye on things from their front porches. But in this tough neighborhood, real dangers threaten daily to squelch dreams, and the simplest decisions can have life or death consequences. From Emmy® winner Lena Waithe, The Chi is a timely coming-of-age drama series centered on a group of residents who become linked by coincidence but bonded by the need for connection and redemption.

Watch Next If This Is Your Lane

Start with the closest match, then check out two more shows with a similar feel, pace, mood, or theme.

The Red Line

CBS • Mar 26 • 2019

DramaCrime

Follows three Chicago families as they journey toward hope and healing after an unarmed African American doctor is shot by a white cop.

View show

Strongest Match

The Red Line keeps the same kind of neighborhood grief pressure as The Chi, where ordinary days get interrupted by violence that changes everyone’s choices. Three family threads converge around a single act of loss, and the tension comes from rebuilding lives and relationships, not from chase scenes, with a slower, more intimate emotional reckoning.

Crooks

Netflix • Apr 14 • 2024

DramaCrime

Charly's quiet life with family in Berlin disrupted when past associates threaten them, forcing him to steal coin. Charly and driver Joseph, fatefully collided, now flee with family to escape danger.

View show

Why This Pick

Crooks delivers the same working-class danger as The Chi, where loyalty to family turns every decision into a high-stakes gamble. A quiet domestic life collapses into nonstop flight and pursuit, and the story stays grounded in husband-wife and father-son pressure, with faster momentum and more relentless movement than The Chi’s day-to-day sprawl.

Power Book III: Raising Kanan

STARZ • Jun 12 • 2021

DramaCrime

Power Book III: Raising Kanan is a prequel set in the 1990s that will chronicle the early years of Kanan Stark, the character first played by executive producer Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.

View show

Why This Pick

Power Book III: Raising Kanan shares The Chi’s focus on family loyalty under lethal neighborhood rules, where love and ambition keep colliding. The mother-son survival tug-of-war plays out through street-level decisions across a serialized run, with revenge and protection driving the tension, but it’s colder and more gangster-shaped than The Chi’s broader community web.

Want the bigger picture?

See the Top 20 Most Recommended Shows See 3 more shows like The Chi

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