Pilot

"We start off riding through the city with Coogie (Jahking Guillory), a playful 16-year-old with a wild mane of hair, on a canary yellow bicycle with a banana seat... we see Chicago through his eyes. We’ve already seen in the news what the city is, at least on corners like this one. What it can be — the vibrant place of possibility that Coogie sees — gives The Chi its heart and its heartbreak."

"The Chi performs an important service: It transforms the word 'Chicago' from something approaching an epithet into a three-dimensional place, a city in which a believable array of human beings live their lives and try to overcome the difficulties in their paths."