This makes me feel bad for Chris. I mean yeah, she's made some mistakes in her life but I can respect the fact that she's trying to be his true and honest self.
She knows that Barb is dying just like Bob did and she's not sure how to process it. She literally can't imagine a world without Barbara just like she couldn't imagine a world without Bob. He knows the clock is ticking but accepting reality is too hard, so he rejects it. His mother has given him nothing, instead she's leached off his father's social security. She owns nothing and he will inherit nothing. Her home belongs to the bank and once his mother dies she'll be left with nothing. 14 Branchland Court belongs to the government, not Chris. When Barb dies Chris will be on the streets, and he won't survive outside of a group home setting.
Some might think this is perfectly justified and they may be right, but some might think he's a developmentally disabled adult who deserves better than what his guardians provided him. Both might have some truth to them.
I feel such empathy is not warranted for Chris. Yes, they had a sucktastic beginning, but so have a lot of people and despite the obvious mental handicaps of Autism, such things can and have been overcome by people.
With Chris, the Autism card and the bad upbringing card do not excuse him from doing things that he is obviously cognisant are against his long-term self interests but the short term is more desirable, consequences be damned. Case in point: the macing incident. The video recording clearly shows that he went into that Gamestop
fully intending to use that mace
and that he was aware he was still banned from that exact store. Indeed, he does a quick glance around right before macing the employee and then shuffling off, because he
knew what he was about to do was going to get him in trouble without a valid reason and he did it anyway, later claiming he did have a valid reason (Narrator: he obviously never did).
The idea Chris is limited only goes so far, because numerous times people have tried to help him, but he will always retreat into his fantasies and short-term indulgences instead of making do with what he has and going for long-term permanent improvement of his life. It isn't that he isn't capable of changing, its that he simply
refuses to change. In Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is admitting that one has a problem.
Chris never in his entire life has ever admitted he has a problem or otherwise is not
always in the right.
Even in the 'golden age' he was self entitled - the whole Bluespike thing for instance, where Chris had the choice between Julie (who was of course Bluespike all along) or the PSN accounts, Chris chose the former...but not because of any sense of morality, but because Chris had seen it was the moral choice in various media and he expected to get the girl
and the PSN accounts because it was the 'right choice'. Entirely self-serving. And to this day, under the weird-ass video game goddess merge prophet schtick, Chris really hasn't changed at the core.
