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Lena Waithe to Appear on ‘The Chi’ Season 3

TCA 2019: Mystery part will mark creator’s first role on her Showtime series

Jennifer Maas | August 2, 2019 @ 11:14 AM

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“The Chi” creator Lena Waithe will appear on the upcoming third season of the Showtime series, Showtime Networks’ president of entertainment Gary Levine said during the Television Critics Association press tour Friday.

The mystery role — which Levine didn’t give additional details on when announcing the news to reporters during his executive session with fellow president of entertainment Jana Winograde — will mark Waithe’s first time performing on her own show.

Levine further spoke about the third season of “The Chi” when addressing how the show will handle the exit of former star Jason Mitchell, who was fired in May following misconduct accusations during the course of the production.

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“There is a lot of great life in ‘The Chi’ and there’s also death in ‘The Chi’ and that’s how we’ll be dealing with it,” Levine told reporters.

When a journalist followed up with the question, “So he’ll be killed off?” — referring to Mitchell’s character, Brandon Johnson — Levine responded with a nod.

Mitchell was fired from the drama back in May — in addition to being dropped from the Netflix film “Desperados” — following complaints about his behavior from co-stars, including by “The Chi” actress Tiffany Boone, who played Mitchell’s onscreen girlfriend. By then, the show had already been renewed for a third season.

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Summer is the season for mornings at the beach, afternoons by the grill, and nights spending prime time around the fire pit. Though things have changed a bit in recent years, May-early September is still not the time for TV.  

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Scroll through our gallery for the full rankings of summer show's debuts. TheWrap will update this post as more new broadcast series start. Find our Fall TV version of these rankings here and the midseason list here.  

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