Is Jean-Guy Dead in Government Cheese?

In Apple TV+’s ‘Government Cheese,’ ex-convict Hampton Chambers tries to reinvent his life. He has embraced God and is fully intent on keeping on the straight and narrow, especially with his self-sharpening drill, Bit Magician. Fate, however, seems to have other plans for him. As soon as he is out of prison, he discovers that it is because of the Prevost brothers, a set of very dangerous individuals whom he owes a lot of money. While he doesn’t get to interact a lot with them, especially as he busies himself with a new way of making a lot of money as soon as possible, he does cross paths with the youngest Prevost brother, Jean-Guy. These interactions culminate in a shocking manner in the final episode of the show. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Jean-Guy Meets a Shocking End in Government Cheese Finale

While the rest of the Prevost brothers were all about getting their money from Hampton, Jean-Guy saw a unique opportunity in the man. He and Hampton had been in the same prison before the youngest Prevost brother staged a flooding and a riot to escape. Sometime later, Hampton also made his way out of the place, but he didn’t realise that he had caught Jean-Guy’s eyes. So, while Hampton plans to rob Temple Hillel, Jean-Guy makes him an offer. He wants to buy his drill in exchange for clearing the debt with his brothers. On paper, this sounds like a great deal, but Hampton refuses to part with the thing that he thought would change his life.

However, by the end, he is unable to get the money, so in a desperate attempt to save himself, he offers the drill to Jean-Guy in front of his brothers. The discovery that the youngest Prevost brother tried to make a deal in secret angers the rest, and they break out in an argument that quickly escalates to the point where guns are drawn. At first, Hampton thinks he is done for, and the brothers will definitely kill him. The only one most thirsty for his blood is Jean-Guy, who throws him in the trunk of his car and tries to drive away, only to crash the car at an opportune moment for Hampton but not so much for himself.

While Jean-Guy tries to drive away from the farm, Hampton finds a small knife in the trunk and tries to use it to find a way out. But it is not potent enough to tear an opening in the backseat to let him out. Before he can look for other options, the car is hit, and Hampton is thrown forward into the backseat. Because he was still holding the knife at the time, the impact creates such circumstances that the knife ends up in the back of Jean-Guy’s head. He would have survived the crash, but the injury from the knife is too much, and it kills him moments after she steps out of the car and before he can even begin to comprehend what has happened.

Jean-Guy’s Demise Turns Out to be the Divine Intervention Hampton Needed

Before he went to the Prevost farm, Hampton ran into the mysterious fisherman outside Rocketcorp. He’d met this man after the robbery and before the fishing trip. Back then, the fisherman said something cryptic to him, and says something similar again this time as well. He asks Hampton to have faith in the divine and walk into the belly of the beast without any fear, knowing that everything will be taken care of. At the moment, he doesn’t understand what this means, but when Jean-Guy dies, things fall into perspective.

Hampton thinks that the rest of the brothers will kill, and they certainly would have if it weren’t for the eldest one, who points out that by killing Jean-Guy, Hampton has done their work for them. Jean-Guy betrayed his brothers by going behind their backs, but they couldn’t kill him because they had a rule that they could not kill each other. This would have let Jean-Guy walk away without consequences because he knew this rule, but now that Hampton has killed him, the scales have been balanced. For the eldest Prevost, this is enough to clear Hampton’s debt, which means he can walk away from the whole thing and hope that he never crosses paths with them again, because the next time, he might not be so lucky.