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Chapter 23: Chase Ambrose
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Restart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Memory, and Responsibility
Reputation vs. Reality
Masculinity
Social Hierarchies and Bullying
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
After Chase was kicked out of video club, Kimberly stopped coming to meetings, which makes Brendan sad. He’s even sadder that Chase is gone. The club has gotten much less innovative, and Brendan is mad at the other members for refusing to consider that Chase might be innocent. Though it was bad of Chase to back up Aaron and Bear’s lie, Brendan doesn’t believe he was just pretending to be the other video club members’ friend and collaborator the whole time.
Brendan actually cares more about Chase’s friendship than he does about Kimberly’s affections, which shows that he was Chase’s “real friend” despite Aaron and Bear’s claims to the contrary. Notably, he refuses to believe Aaron and Bear’s frame job not out of loyalty but because he's witnessed the changes in Chase’s identity with his own eyes and finds it hard to believe they were faked.
Themes
To perk up the club, Brendan decides to make a new video. He sees a slug climbing a building and pulls out a camera to film it. When he tries to record, nothing happens, and the viewfinder informs him that the camera’s memory is full—though the club’s faculty advisor Mrs. DeLeo usually requires video club members to download their footage and wipe the cameras every day. Brendan plays what’s on the camera and realizes it’s from his orchestra video project, interrupted by Aaron and Bear. The footage shows both that there was no fire and that Chase hit Joel with the fire extinguisher accidentally. Excited, Brendan texts Chase, Shoshanna, and Joel to come to his house the following morning to see “something important.” Then he sends the same text to Kimberly, adding that Chase will be there.
Everyone except Brendan interpreted Chase’s ambiguous behavior during Aaron and Bear’s frame job according to Chase’s past identity as a bully and his bad reputation. Though Brendan believes in Chase, he can’t convince anyone to share his belief—until he finds video footage.
Themes
