Earn arrives to a meeting late.
The episode opens with Earn and Lottie in a Lyft ride. Their driver is ignoring the directions. Eventually, they arrive to a meeting he’s having with Paper Boi and a potential lawyer.
As the lawyer pitches his services, Lottie is distracted by entertainment on a phone.
The lawyer runs down his resume and the clients he works with. He mentions that a few of his clients are on “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta.”
When he brings up that he would take 5% of each agreement he views, Paper Boi scoffs at this. However, Earn seems impressed.
When they are in the parking deck, Paper Boi tells Earn how he really feels about the lawyer.
“Look, man. I don’t want no janky-a** lawyer putting hands on my contracts and check, aight?” – Paper Boi
Paper Boi says he wants a jewish guy to be his attorney, “not somebody who’ gonna rob me like Don King…” He orders Earn to find one. They then talk about the tour, and Lottie tells him he’s should be headlining.
But Paper Boi says, “Yep, I should be… but I ain’t.”
Earn then reminds him that the moving trucks will be arriving at his place, and Darius and Paper Boi need to be packed.
Earn stresses over Paper Boi moving and catching his flight.
Next, Earn has Lottie in a white truck. He then meets up with the movers. One of them is drinking a beer out of a paper bag. He asks the man “is that a beer?”
“Maybe?” – Mover
Paper Boi brings up the gun that their uncle gave him and Earn puts it in his backpack. Darius then casually brings up that his passport expired. This just worries Earn even more.
Lottie’s teacher gives Earn and Van some blunt advice.
Eventually, Earn leaves with Lottie in tow and they take a Lyft to her school. There they meet Van and Lottie’s teacher. Lottie’s teacher tells Earn and Van that she’s gifted and recommends premiere private school Holy Oak Academy for Lottie to attend for pre-k.
However, they both seem to scoff at this due to the tuition. They ask if Lottie should stay at her current school, the teacher says the place is trash.
“This school is awful.” – Lottie’s teacher
She tells Earn and Van that the school doesn’t have enough money or resources to adequately teach gifted students. She adds, “She is really stunting her education here.”
Earn asks if there is anything he and Van could do the help Lottie that will be more cost efficient.
“Keep her in a happy, two-parent household?” – Lottie’s teacher
Earn and Van seemingly are taken aback by that answer.
At the end of the meeting, Van asks if the teacher would’ve recommended to leave the school if Lottie wasn’t gifted, and the teacher says no.
“If I see a steer smart enough to get out of the pen, I leave the gate open.” – Lottie’s teacher
Outside, Earn and Van talk about putting her into the school. Van brings up that Earn is going out of the country for two months. Earn brings up that the money made can go towards Lottie’s tuition.
“If she goes to this school, she’s gonna need you to show up. More than you’ve been able to.” – Van
Earn agrees. He then helps Lottie into her seat that he put into Van’s car. Before Van leaves, she tells Earn she figured Lottie would be gifted.”
He asks why she said that. Van replies, “You’re smart. I figured some of it would get passed along”
Finally, Van points out the shiner he got from Tracy last week on his eye. But he tells Van that he’s fine.
Earn gets advice from Darius about Paper Boi.
When Earn gets back to Al’s house, he walks in to see two kids playing video games. He questions who they are and they tell him school let out early.
He then finds out the movers brought the kids there only to find them sitting down to eat “lunch.” He tells them to finish packing but they brush him off.
Darius walks in the living room shouting he’s packed and ready to go. Earn tells him to put the luggage in the car, but Darius says, “Oh. No, I meant I’m packed to move, not for the airport.”
This frustrates Earn even further. To get things finally going his way, Earn offers to pay the movers $50 more dollars. The lead mover gets up from the table and tells everyone, including the kids to get back to work.
Once Earn gets that handled he heads to the car but Darius forgets where his keys are. He eventually finds them in his jacket pocket. They then head to the passport place in a jewish neighborhood. In the waiting area, they are surrounded by Orthodox Jews, waiting to conduct their business.
Earn tells Darius, “I didn’t know the neighborhood existed.”
At the window, they are helped by a worker that notices they are rappers, or work with one. Earn asks how does he know, and he mentions that they “fit the look.”
Earn doesn’t take offense to it and mentions he works with Paper Boi. The guy at the window mentions his cousin is an entertainment lawyer.
Earn asks the guy if there’s “a black lawyer around that’s as good as his cousin.” The guy’s answer was very point blank, and the room goes silent.
“There definitely is. But, um, part of being good at your job are your connections, and black people just don’t have the connections that my cousin has. For systemic reasons.” – Passport Worker
Afterwards, Darius finishes his paperwork and Earn praises the company for their fast work. But then the worker says the service is $350, and Earn replies, “Oh. That’s why…”
Darius pulls out his Rush Card to pay.
Suddenly, Earn gets a text message from Van. She says, “I’ve been thinking about moving back to my mom’s w/ Lottie.”
This adds more stress for Earn. Darius notices his stress and mentions it. He asks Earn if he’s okay and Earn replied, “Definitely not.”
He then asks Darius, “Is Al gonna fire me?”
Darius isn’t sure. Earn then tells him he feels his “whole world’s falling apart.”
Darius sits next to him and says Al is blowing up and needs help to deal with the newly found fame. But he’s not going to forget to take care of those with him since day one. Earn tells Darius he doesn’t want a handout.
“I got to provide, too. I’m getting better at this. You know that.” – Earn
“I see you, man. I see you… learning. But… learning requires failure. Al jus trying to make sure you ain’t failing in… in his life. You know, like, y’all both black, so… I mean, y’all both can’t afford to fail.” – Darius
“Do Nigerians get a chance to fail?” – Earn
“Hey, don’t you start that. You know Nigerians don’t fail.” – Darius
He gives Earn a friendly smile and tells Earn that if Paper Boi’s gonna fire him, he won’t do it until they get to Europe and Earn gets to see the world.
Back at Al’s, they’re sitting on the couch and Earn asks if they can talk. Paper Boi tells him that they can’t talk until they land in Europe.
Earn must make a snap decision at the TSA Check Point.
They finally get to the airport and they are rushing to the TSA checkpoint. They walk past two guys offering credit card sign-ups, akin to what Earn did the first season.
Clark County and his manager Luke show up and everyone but Earn daps each other up. Earn insists on heading to the checkpoint so they head there.
They head into the check point with Darius and Paper Boi going in first. Earn is behind them and then Clark and Luke follow. As they are prepping to go into the scanner, Earn realizes his uncle’s gun is still in the backpack. He looks intently and slowly closes it.
He then asks Clark for another bin. Earn then cooly goes through the checkpoint inconspicuous with Paper Boi and Darius. But Clark and Luke get caught up as a TSA worker yells out, “Whose bag is this?!”
Earn gets his answer from Paper Boi.
On the plane, Paper’s relieved to be traveling somewhere outside of Georgia for once. When he and Earn get settled into their seats, Paper tells Earn, “I saw what you did at TSA.”
Paper then seems to let Earn know he’s proud to see him do what he had to do make it.
“Just know that’s exactly what I’m talking about. N****s do not care about us, man. N****s gonna do whatever they got to do to survive, ‘cause they ain’t got no choice. We ain’t got no choice, either.” – Paper Boi
He then tells Earn that he’s the only one that knows what he’s about and he gives “a f***.”
“I need that.” – Paper Boi
Earn slowly nods his head.
Then Clark County walks past. Earn and Paper Boi ask about Luke. Clark tells him that he got caught up at TSA with a tool. He then says the gun looked nice.
“I wish I had one like that.” – Clark County
When Clark heads to his plane seat, Earn whispers to Paper Boi, “I put the gun in Clark’s bag.”
Both of them start side-eying Clark County.
The episode ends with Tracy bringing a girl over to Paper Boi’s old place. He doesn’t realize he and Darius moved out. As he bangs on the door, Paper’s old neighbors cuss at Tracy and he cusses right back.
What are your thoughts on the season finale and season two as a whole?
Darius is one of the best TV characters of all time.
He really is.
Loved this episode. It really did touch on why so many black people have anxiety and are so stressed out. When you realize it’s no room for you to fail, the pressure can be a lot on most days. But you can’t let it break you. We have to survive period. Great season.
I really thought Earn was going to get locked up so this was a twist I wasn’t expecting. The season was very dark so I’m thankful it ended on a high note. Now I hope we see more of the trio together again in season three.
This whole season has been really deep and I’m glad most of the episodes really made me think. I do wish there was more comedy but I get the theme was pretty dark so it makes sense that it wasn’t as funny as it was last year. But I really love seeing all three of them on the couch again. The bottle episodes were well done, it’s just better for us to see them together. I also love how many things tied back to season one and episode one of the season. The writing on this show is almost perfect. It’s nice to see Earn win again. Too bad someone had to be taken down first for that to happen.
When I think back on it, Earn wasn’t that bad of a manger to Al. I mean he did get his song on the radio. He got him put on that streaming service. And I’m sure he got him on that tour as well. He’s not perfect and he’s made some huge mistakes being too cheap at times, but overall he has potential to be a great manager. I’m glad Al sees that now.
Season two was pretty good. Overall, I think I prefer season one but I really loved this finale, the Woods episode as well as the Katt Williams one. I’m excited for season three.
Perfect season finale.