‘The Chi’ Season 4, Episodes 6 and 7 recap: Kiesha names her baby, Nina comes clean

SPOILER ALERT: This recap of Season 4, Episodes 6 and 7 contains explicit plot details.

There’s a lot going on at the Williams household on “The Chi.”

Adultery, a new mouth to feed and Kevin’s ongoing descent, to name a few.

Here’s what has gone on during episodes six and seven:

• Kiesha (Birgundi Baker) decides to start dating again, but at her own pace — and no one can blame her for that. She decides to take her child — a boy — back from Octavia, played by Tabitha Brown. She names him after Ronnie (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), the man who saved her from the man who kidnapped and assaulted her, while fathering her baby. (Ronnie was murdered during season three.)
• Nina (Tyla Abercrumbie) sleeps with a woman she meets at a bar (played by Chicago rapper Da Brat) because after confirming Dre (Miriam A. Hyman) is lying about her whereabouts, she sees her comforting Jada (Yolonda Ross). Dre later discloses Jada’s cancer diagnosis as the reason why she lied to Nina about her whereabouts.
• Emmett (Jacob Latimore), no stranger to secrets and lies, urges Nina to come clean to Dre.
• Kevin (Alex Hibbert), while fighting Jake (Michael Epps) in class over his romance with ex-girlfriend, Jemma (Judae’a Brown), inadvertently hits a teacher who tries to break up their fight, and is kicked out of his school. And in the aftermath of so many life-changing events, he meets another young lady who shares his interest in video games.

Showtime

As for the rest of the cast, there’s plenty of content to go around:

• Jada — in the midst of cancer treatment — shaves her head.
• Emmett and Tiff‘s (played by Hannaha Hall) marriage seems to be in a better place these days as they attend a work event together.
• Jake and Jemma take their relationship to the next level.
• Trig renames the trap house after Trinity, the young girl Imani (Jasmine Davis) tried to help.
• Community Protection takes a hit when a couple from a previous call who’ve been attending counseling/conflict resolution end up in a deadly encounter that hits Trig (Luke James) pretty hard, causing him to question the cause being an alternative to the police.
• And, we also see how Community Protection seems to have a positive effect on the community at large.
• Mayor Douda (Curtiss Cook), recovering from being shot by Laverne (Sonja Sohn), Brandon’s mother, deals with the issues surrounding the trap house Trinity lived in.

Storylines to think about:

• How will Kevin bounce back after so much emotional stress in such a short period of time?
• How will Nina’s revelation upset an already fractured dynamic within the Williams household?
• What other evolving is ahead for Tiff and Emmett’s open marriage?
• What will Tracy (Kai Davis) and Trig’s plan for Community Protection consist of after they helped Jamal (Vic Mensa), who later murdered a man?
• What’s next for Maisha, played by Genesis Denise Hale, after she ended her relationship with Papa?

Episode seven, named “Black Messiah,” is most likely an ode to “Judas and the Black Messiah,” the 2021 film detailing how William O’Neal became an informant who gave the FBI information that led to the 1969 murder of Black Panther Party Illinois chapter chairman Fred Hampton by the Chicago police department and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Like Kevin, O’Neal was a troubled teenager when the FBI enlisted him to join the Panthers and track their whereabouts. But Kevin seems to want not to end up heading toward a negative path — a path Nina described in full detail in episode four.