Government Cheese is a 2025 surrealist comedy-drama series streaming on AppleTV+ that takes an unconventional and often quirky approach to family drama, as we follow a man named Hampton Chambers’ struggle to make it big in life. Recently released from prison, where he was held for burglary, Hampton dreams of creating an enormous business empire based on his incredible innovation that could be groundbreaking if sold properly. The first 2 episodes of Government Cheese see Hampton have his much-awaited reunion with his family, while he learns of new troubles that have been waiting for him outside prison.
Spoiler Alert
How does Hampton manage to get out of prison?
Government Cheese begins with the protagonist, Hampton Chambers, walking up to his prison cell amidst loud cheers from the other inmates, who are all clearly very friendly with him. Although it seems like Hampton is being cheered because he is about to be released from prison, the reality is that the man is only returning to his original cell from a few days in solitary confinement, and this occasion itself is a reason for great celebration in the otherwise mundane lives of the inmates. His cellmate, and also best friend in prison, Rudy, welcomes him back with a special drink and then also gives Hampton some important advice about holding on to hope and courage in order to make it through this difficult time. Hampton admits that he is struggling to survive the tough life in prison, and Rudy advises him to find support in religious faith and to think of his family to feel better.
When Hampton starts visiting the church in prison and reading the Bible there, he is not convinced by the teachings and has to be specially helped by the pastor, Gus. It is Gus who tells him about the Gospel of Kenny Sharp, which the pastor himself had come up with and which taught about the importance of having faith and trusting that God’s plan for every human will help them in life. According to Gus, Kenny Sharp was a convict living in the prison a few years ago who was having similar difficulties with faith as Hampton while also having trouble with a violent prisoner, a bully, named Willie B. Because of his gentle and somewhat timid nature, Kenny got picked on by Willie a lot, and no matter how much Kenny prayed to God for this bullying to stop, it seemed to do no good.
However, one day when Kenny sat down to lunch and started praying, Willie appeared and landed a solid punch on his face, which made him slide down the floor between the other tables inside the cafeteria. Incidentally, Kenny stopped sliding right in front of another convict, known as Little Roland, who bent down to check on the man, only to find a metal spoon lying on the floor beside Kenny’s unconscious body. Since Roland had also grown tired of Willie’s incessant bullying, the spoon happened to be a great opportunity to take some action, and Little Roland stabbed Willie B to death with the small piece of cutlery.
Once Gus finishes narrating this story, Hampton is understandably confused about why he has been calling it the Gospel of Kenny, while the story is clearly about Little Roland. But the pastor clarifies that God’s plan for us often puts us in greater stories that are seemingly about others, but we play the most significant part in them. On the day that Roland killed Willie, he had found the spoon only because he had bent down to check on Kenny, meaning that it was technically Kenny who had facilitated the great victory over the bully. Hampton himself seems to go through a similar experience some months later, when he is preparing for his release from prison as his sentence is soon about to end. But on such a day, the water from the pipes and drains suddenly overflows, flooding the prison, and an inmate named Jean-Guy also starts a violent riot by hitting a fellow prisoner with an iron rod.
Hampton fears that the designs of his new invention, a self-sharpening tool bit drill, will either get stolen or lost in the chaos of the riot, and so he guards them with everything he’s got. He also has to protect himself from getting attacked, and so he picks up a knife and keeps it ready to use whenever needed. However, when Rudy comes to him from behind, the spooked Hampton does not even check who is calling him and straight away drives the knife into the man, killing his best friend in the process. Although he fears that the unintentional murder might keep him behind bars for longer, the matter is not investigated much, and so the protagonist is allowed to leave prison once his sentence has been served, just a few days later. Thus, Jean-Guy suddenly comes into his life in an indirect manner and creates a number of strange situations, some of which will bother him in only some time, but Hampton Chambers is most excited about his release from prison and for the warm family reunion that must be waiting for him.
How does Hampton’s much-awaited reunion with his family go?
Before leaving his prison cell, Hampton remembers to pay his final respects to Rudy and then retrieve the photograph of his wife, Astoria, that he had stuck on the wall at the beginning of his sentence. Just like Rudy had advised him, Hampton had indeed comforted himself with the thoughts of his family and how lovely their reunion would be once he was released from prison. Following the same train of thought, he returns to his humble home in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, but does not have anyone rush out to cheerfully welcome him, like Hampton had been expecting. Astoria answers the door for him, but she does not appear to be too pleased to see her husband after this long, and when he notices how the refrigerator seems to be broken, she replies that most of the appliances are almost out of order.
It becomes clear that Astoria’s heart and trust have been broken numerous times by her husband, and she later reveals that Hampton had even sold off her wedding ring because of his unlawful ways in life. Hampton’s criminal endeavors, like burglaries and cash frauds, were what had landed him in prison for a lengthy sentence of three years, and although his family visited him towards the beginning of the sentence, they had had some kind of falling out over the years, which will probably be revealed later in the series. It is not just Astoria’s coldness that Hampton has to face after his return home, but his eldest son, Harrison, is also incredibly angry and upset with him. Harrison does not even accept Hampton as his father anymore and therefore has no respect for him whatsoever.
While Harrison’s rebellious nature can also be attributed to his age, as everyone becomes bitter and questioning of everything around them in their teenage years, he is genuinely frustrated at his father for not having been with him or supported him in his growing years. The younger son, Einstein, is much more welcoming of Hampton, and it is also because of him that Astoria opens up to her husband later on. It is not like the family lacks love for Hampton, but they are fed up with the man’s ways in life and so are actually quite wary of letting him back into their lives so easily. Astoria still has some love, and even admiration, for Hampton’s skills with using tools and inventing new stuff, but she and her sons still do not show too much enthusiasm about his innovative tool bit device to ensure that he goes through with the plan and does not abandon it.
Hampton surely does not receive the grand welcome that he had been expecting from his family, and he is even made to sleep in the garage, making it clear that Astoria has not forgiven him for his mistakes yet. He tries to bond with his sons, but Harrison outright refuses to talk to him, while Einstein is a bit too erratic to have a proper conversation with. Incidentally, Hampton also has to deal with the news of his younger son not wanting to pursue higher education, despite being intelligent enough to have been selected at Harvard, only because Einstein wants to pursue pole vaulting as a career.
Who Are The Prevost Brothers?
While episode 1 of Government Cheese itself has Hampton Chambers visiting the Prevost Brothers at their ranch outside of town, episode 2 introduces the family properly, with a caricature-ish segment on their history. Hailing from rural Quebec, the family had had to go through severe hardships because of generational poverty and also because the Prevosts already had six young sons to feed. The patriarch was naturally the one coaxing his wife into having just one more child every time, and she had already made up her mind to leave the family if she birthed another son instead of a daughter, as she always wanted. Unfortunately for her husband and children, she gave birth to a baby boy once again, and having had too much of this kind of life, she left the family forever. The stern and strict father had to raise his seven sons all by himself now, which soon led to the brothers feeling that violence and stiff-arming were the solution to all their problems.
The Prevost Brothers realized at a young age how they were almost unstoppable if they stuck together, and thus they entered the realm of hard crime and violence as young men. After taking over businesses in Canada by sheer force and committing a few murders in the process, they moved to the San Fernando Valley in California, where they established a stronghold over all the local small businesses and institutions, essentially meaning that they now ran the place. At present, when Hampton’s old friend and business partner, Bootsy, takes him to meet the Prevosts, he clarifies that the protagonist now also owes the dangerous family a significant sum, since it is because of them that he is now a free man. Incidentally, a convict who was already serving a life imprisonment sentence had been passed off as the killer of Rudy during the riots, because of which Hampton did not face any legal trouble and was released in time.
The reason behind this arrangement becomes clear when Hampton meets with the Prevost Brothers at the ranch, and he is told that he owes them a whopping 2000 dollars, which needs to be paid at the earliest. It seems like Hampton had told Bootsy about his trouble regarding the accidental murder, and the latter, who was already working with the Prevosts, arranged for this deal without telling his friend about how he would have to pay them 2000 dollars. Hampton asks for two weeks’ time to clear this debt, although he knows that it is going to be an impossible task. He had neatly stacked all the money that he had stolen and burgled before his arrest inside his house, but after his release, Hampton realizes that Astoria had (quite naturally) used up this money to provide for herself and their two sons.
Meanwhile, the youngest Prevost, Jean-Guy, visits Hampton at his house one night and reveals that he was the one who had started the riot in prison. When the Prevosts had gotten into trouble with the local law, the eldest brother, Patrice, had made Jean-Guy alone the fall guy, and the young man was locked up behind bars. Jean-Guy had felt spurned by this betrayal and has been plotting to bring down his family since then, but he has had to go back to living with his brothers after getting released from prison. Jean-Guy now wants to buy off Hampton’s drill bit machine in exchange for paying off his debt to his brothers, but the protagonist obviously declines the offer. While parting, Jean-Guy indirectly threatens to expose Hampton’s secret to the world, as he had seen him kill Rudy during the riot.
Why does Astoria refuse to give another chance to her husband?
In Government Cheese episode 2, Hampton promises to cook dinner for his family in order to prove to them that he is making genuine efforts to fend for them once again, and he sets about to turn his life around, having left behind all his criminal and illegal ways. But the loan from the Prevosts concerns him to such an extent that he fears for the safety of his family members, because of which he plans on earning money legitimately and as fast as possible. His first plan is obviously with regard to his drill bit invention, and he even manages to get his old acquaintance, Manny Brinks, on board with him, and they together manage to get the esteemed industrial company, Rocketcorp, to approve them as an official vendor.
While establishing his own business will naturally take some time, Hampton looks for menial jobs at his parole office during a meeting and even takes up the task of removing scales from fish only to earn some money for his family. He then heads over to a bank to try and get a business loan of 2,500 dollars, which he clearly intends to use to pay off the dangerous Prevost Brothers. Although the loan is not immediately approved, since he will have to provide collateral for the mortgage, Hampton learns of a new scheme, applicable only for the day, in which new customers at banks are getting toasters as gifts. Thus, he drives around the whole town, collecting as many toasters from as many branches as possible, and then pawns off the toasters for cash.
All this makes him very late for dinner, and after returning home, he learns that Astoria has gone off to have dinner with a man she has been dating recently. This makes Hampton realize that his wife is not willing to give him any more chances, but he does not understand her struggles with life at the moment. Astoria has been feeling like she has been stuck in a rut since her employer does not give her the respect or the opportunities that she deserves, and her husband has let her down far too many times already. Therefore, she cannot again welcome Hampton back into her life so easily and feels that he will be unable to bring any significant change to his life for now.
