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| Photo: Guy D'Alema/FX |
Actually, the two cousins have been hurtling toward that uncomfortable couch conversation ever since Earn first approached Alfred about managing his career. Back then he expressed understandable skepticism, saying Earn was "too Martin" when he needed a Malcolm X-style personality for the job. And as we've seen over the last season and a half, Alfred's initial fears were right. From getting punked out of a club appearance fee to bumbling through meet and greets at Not Spotify, Earn has been barely competent a best, and well, "North of The Border" at his worst.
Judging from the band aid strapped across his nose, not much time has passed since the life-threatening/life-altering events of "Woods." Alfred's new attitude toward his career now has him questioning Earn more than ever, especially given his latest promotional strategy involves driving up to a college in Statesboro to perform for free at a campus party called Pajama Jam. Also, they won't be laid up at a hotel, but at the apartment of a fan named Violet and her girls. Legit right? Alfred grumbles but goes along with it despite his less-than-thrilled reaction to a future $60K payday Earn dangles in his face. And because he's just that type of dude, Tracy invites himself along as well.
Things appear to be going well at first, until Violet invites Alfred into her room and tells a bizarre dream in which Al is a white crane and Violet's a crocodile. Then her crocodile eats his crane, and a light shoots out of her belly, a sure sign they were meant to be together. Chile...and can we talk about the mysterious footprint on the ceiling? But hey, if he can live with Darius, Alfred can certainly tolerate this temporary weirdness, and everything still appears to be chill for the crew post-Pajama Jam performance.
Well, everything except for Tracy, who in the spirit of Day Day, is doing the most after Alfred deemed him "security" for the trip (and offered him $200), going all "Nigga who is you?" on Clark County and watching the perimeter like he's in the secret service. "This nigga really thinks he's a security guard," Earn balks. "He just trying to earn his money. I can understand that," Al counters, side-eyeing Earn yet again. I mean no shade but shade.
Shit starts to go sideways when Violet pours water on Alfred and his silky T-Boz pajamas after seeing him talking to another girl. Tracy confronts her and escalates things by nearly pushing her down the stairs, before Earn catches her and is thanked in the form of a sound-barrier cracking slap. Damn, another day, another L. Things go from bad to worse when Violet's brother and his friends chase them out into the quad; Earn tries to mediate the situation, but Tracy fucks that up by nailing Violet's brother with a one-hitter quitter, screaming for them to run as our foursome take off down a hallway to escape.
Dodging a beatdown but still on campus and weedless, they stumble upon a white frat house, where the guys promise to smoke them out. In an instantly memorable WTF moment, we find the guys in a room that includes an elephant rifle, a giant Confederate flag and nearly a dozen naked pledges with their heads covered. The WTF turns LOL (I swear I'll stop writing like a tween like totes right now) when, after expressing his love for ATL's snap era, one dudebro orders the pledges to pop their digits to D4L's "Laffy Taffy."
It's the last genuinely funny scene in the episode, because once dudebro leaves to further torture the pledges, Alfred lowers the boom, laying tonight's fuckery squarely at Earn's feet. Earn responds by laying blame on Tracy, and while he didn't help the situation at all, it's still ulimately Earn's fault; Tracy would've never been at Pajama Jam in the first place had Earn actually asserted himself for once and told him straight out that he couldn't come, and if Alfred objected, breaking down the reasons why Tracy shouldn't come. Just as he practically shrugged his shoulders out of his relationship with Van, Earn's passivity is again his undoing. "Look you family, and I'm tryin' to ride with you. But sometimes that shit ain't enough bro...I don't think you're cut out for it," Alfred explains. Earn walks away without a word.
The next morning offers no end to his humiliation. Violet and her girls have cut up the guys' clothes and tossed them out into the yard. But Earn really loses it when he discovers his laptop is missing, almost kicking in her door and pulling the fire alarm in an attempt to bring her out, which of course fails. On the ride home Tracy's being Tracy, talking shit, cackling and mocking Earn's disbelief he stole an old gun from the frat house. Now it's on, and if you're like me you were pretty sure fighting Tracy wasn't going to end well for Mr. Marks. But if you're like me, part of you really wanted it to.
But Atlanta ain't that kind of show, and we, along with Darius and Alfred, watch resigned as Tracy proceeds to beat that ass. The scene isn't played for laughs. Instead, it's portrayed exactly for what it is; the act of an angry, desperate man, needing to pry some semblance of a win out of the universe's cold, indifferent hands but coming up empty yet again. Earn slumps back into the car, bruised, broken and defeated.
Fuck...all that's left is to fit him for one of Uncle Willy's robes.
Other Thoughts:
- It's a testament to the quality of this show that although we haven't really spent time with him for weeks, I actually felt genuine sympathy for Earn for the first time in who knows when watching this episode. Don't get me wrong, Alfred made the right choice; but while all the other main characters seemed to have taken away some larger lesson from their low points, all Earn could think to do was try and scapegoat Tracy.
- Looks like we're heading back in time to the '99 and the 2000 for next week's "FUBU."
- Not to be outdone, but Darius's Left Eye jammies were also on point.
- Darius also shares Earn's belief Clark County is an industry plant. I'll accept that.
- Is anyone surprised the white frat didn't have a clue what Pajama Jam was? Didn't think so.
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