Audiences will always eat up a story of redemption. It doesn’t matter if it’s Darth Vader helping his son in the eleventh hour, or the titular redemption at the heart of the Shawshank Redemption, if there is a bad guy turning good, chances are viewers will forgive them. Apple TV+’s latest experiment, Government Cheese, takes this premise and runs with it, telling the story of an ex-con determined to do right by his family and God.
The result is a visually gorgeous, stylistic journey that uses the TV format for all its worth, telling a winding story that’s worth it just for the journey to get there.
Government Cheese is the story of Hampton Chambers (David Oyelowo), an inmate who finds a new purpose through religion, but it’s not any particular denomination: his relationship with the higher power is entirely his own, and he refers to God as “Yahweh” because it’s “less formal.” Upon his release, he wants nothing more than to return to his family and give them a new lease on life, and he has just the thing to do it: the Bit Magician, a self-sharpening drill he claims was divine inspiration. (In case you were wondering, the title refers to Hampton’s never-seen mom, who made amazing sandwiches with just white bread and government cheese.)
However, his family has been doing just fine without him. His wife Astoria (Simone Missick) has been holding down the fort as a receptionist at a interior design firm, and while his younger son Einstein (Evan Ellison) is happy to see him, his older son Harrison (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) is far more skeptical — he’s much more concerned with exploring Native American spiritualism than his father’s newfound religion.
But the story of Government Cheese very much takes a backseat to the style. The series was co-created and (mostly) directed by Paul Hunter, a director best known for his work in music videos, including “Lady Marmalade” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” But in the television format, Hunter’s vision is inspired in equal parts by the Coen brothers and Wes Anderson, blending black comedy and matter-of-fact line readings with Wes Anderson’s symmetric composition, direct address, and use of flat lays and sans serif fonts.
Government Cheese tells its redemption story beautifully, but it never forgets that television is at its core about the episode. Each chapter is self-contained, some containing guest stars like Sunita Mani and Louis Cancelmi, others with extended biblical metaphors that tip quickly into the surreal. Its genius extends even to the smallest details, like a cold open showing a rabbi showing off his synagogue or the backstory of French-Canadian gangsters.
Apple TV+ has become the go-to place for strange and unusual TV, usually in the sci-fi genre. Though it may not have any scenes set in space, this series has an imagination just as big as Severance and Silo, and with its absurdist streak, it could even go farther.
