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Showtime's The Chi, the South Side Chicago drama series that debuted in 2018, has seen many character deaths, but none like Jason Mitchell's Brandon Jackson.
Brandon Jackson was one of the main characters on the show and fans were looking forward to seeing his upward journey as a chef with his own restaurant.
However, their dreams of seeing Brandon flourishing in the show were shattered when The Chi Season 3 premiered with Brandon's funeral and it was revealed that the character had died off-screen.
The fans were clearly not happy with this treatment of Brandon's character and blamed the show for the killing of a beloved character. However, as the fans later learned, the writers of the show had to write off Brandon's character due to Mitchell's inappropriate behaviour on the set, which led to his firing from the series.
While it was not shown how Brandon died, it was hinted that he was murdered by Douda off-screen after The Chi Season 2.
More on this in our story.
How was Brandon Johnson written off in The Chi?
Fans were naturally shocked when The Chi Season 3 opened with Brandon Johnson's funeral, where his tearful mother was giving a sad eulogy about her son's tragic death, blaming the city of Chicago for it.
Brandon was an up-and-coming chef in the show and a few of the morally upright characters on the show. He was trying hard to live a normal life in the South Side of Chicago. After opening a food truck in Season 1, he quickly turned into a sympathetic character, and fans were even rooting for him to open his restaurant in future seasons.
However, in The Chi Season 2, Brandon came under the radar of schemer Otis "Douda" Perry, who managed to become the Mayor of Chicago.
While things did not look good for Brandon in the Season 2 finale, where he was dumped by Jerrika and arrested by the police, it was expected that he would cut a deal with the police and would help them catch Douda.
However, fans could not see this materialise in The Chi Season 3 as it opened with Brandon's funeral, where his mother gave the following eulogy:
"I never should've raised them in a city that would rather see their likeness painted up on a brick wall than to see them graduate from college... They were all I had, and this city took them from me."
While the show adapted Brandon's death as its continued critique of Chicago's South Side, this seemed hollow because the fans knew that their beloved character's death was due to behind-the-scenes drama and was in no way important in the story.
Why was Jason Mitchell fired from The Chi?
Unlike his likable character on-screen, Jason Mitchell was reportedly a troublesome presence on The Chi's set and was often involved in inappropriate behaviour with the cast and executive producers.
These allegations turned serious when Mitchell was allegedly accused for s*xual misconduct with many female staff on the set, including actress Tiffany Boone, who played the role of Brandon's girlfriend (Jerrika). The matter escalated to such heights that Boone even wanted to quit the show.
As creator Lena Waithe commented on the Breakfast Club podcast:
"There was definitely a conversation where I called him and got really real. You need to be respectful of any woman on set. You need to be respectful of everybody... Don't treat any woman differently the way you would treat me.'"
However, when she felt that she was becoming the target of rage and inappropriateness from the actresses in her unit, she reported Mitchell to HR, and the actor was eventually fired from The Chi.
Explaining his stance (following his firing from the show), Mitchell commented on the Breakfast Club podcast:
"I really hate to say this, because I'm all for the Me Too movement... I have two beautiful daughters who I would like to be in the business, so I'm all for the Me Too movement. But I think in this situation, they tried to use it as a really, really ugly weapon."
Following this incident, Mitchell was dropped by his talent agency.
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