"We've been crying," Jacob Latimore said, and the room agreed. The actor, who stars as Emmett Washington, spoke plainly about the emotion behind a weekend gathering at New York City's Paradise Club where the cast marked The Chi's eighth and final season after wrapping filming last week.
Latimore was surrounded by colleagues who have spent years inside the show's South Side world — Yolanda Ross, Jason Weaver, Zaria Imani Primer and others — and his short statement landed like a verdict: the end of a run that has stretched eight years and changed careers. "We literally just wrapped last week … It's bittersweet, but you know, we're proud of what we've done," Latimore added, tying the rawness to a sense of accomplishment.
The numbers and the faces underline the moment. Eight seasons, eight years on screen; Weaver, who joined in season four as Rashaad “Shaad” Marshall, described the final season as "the cherry on top of this beautiful cake that we've baked throughout the course of season 8 and throughout the course of the series." He told the room that the bonds forged on and off camera matter: "These amazing people that I've been blessed and fortunate to work with for the past four seasons truly do mean something to me."
That emotional tally is the story's weight: a tight-knit ensemble closing a long, public chapter. Ross, who has portrayed Jada Washington since the series debuted in 2018, framed the ending in personal terms — "full-circle, wonderful moment," she said — and called the show's resonance with viewers the reason the goodbye feels so large. "When you start, you don't expect a major end like this, you don't expect anything," Ross said, later adding that fans "see themselves in our characters, in the situations that happen."
Context matters and it comes now: The Chi was created and executive produced by Lena Waithe and has spent eight years dramatizing life on Chicago's South Side. The cast's celebration in New York followed a final week of filming; they gathered at Paradise Club to mark a series that built steady viewer loyalty and recurring conversations about what comes next. (For a look at the season already rolling out, see The Chi Season 8 Episode 2: Paramount+ First Look at 'White Russian' and BET's Goodbye Headline.)
There was, however, an edge to the celebration. Primer, who appears in a recurring role as Lynae, called the mood "very bittersweet" and said she will miss both the stories and the daily craft: "I'm gonna miss telling stories like these and just being around these people every day and just getting to perfect my craft every day." Her remarks threaded the tension: the cast is commemorating a finish line, but the goodbye felt like loss.
That bittersweet note was echoed by Weaver, who spoke to the ordinary intimacy that underpinned the show's life: "It goes past just us being cast members. I love all of these guys. There are moments that we've had, even offscreen, where we build these really strong bonds, and I'm going to miss being able to interact with people and being a part of their lives every day." The celebration was therefore both party and grieving ritual, proof that professional endings are personal ones.
Fans, Primer said, are already asking for more — "fans have already been clamoring for a spinoff" — and that demand is the single unresolved fact after the Paradise Club toasts. No spinoff has been announced. The cast left the night with congratulations and wistfulness, and the only firm next step is public waiting: viewers and the performers will now look to creators and producers for any formal plan, but as of the New York celebration there was no confirmation that the world of The Chi will continue in a new shape.
The honest ending is simple: the actors have wrapped, and for now the story rests with their work. They celebrated the close of a series that ran for eight seasons, celebrated friendships and craft, and acknowledged how much they will miss one another — while the question of a spinoff, though loudly wanted by fans, remains unanswered.
