Atlanta: Season 1/ Episode 6 "Value" – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

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Overview

In a largely Vanessa focused episode, we see the struggles she is going through compared to her friends, and partly thanks to Earn.

Main Plot (with Commentary)

Topic 1: The Bougie Best Friend (Vanessa)

Since at least 5^th grade, Vanessa has been friends with Jayde and their lives seemingly diverged somewhere. Jayde is now, for a lack of a better term, providing services to athletes and traveling the world off their dime. Meanwhile, Vanessa works at a preparatory school, has an on and off live in boyfriend, a daughter, and the combination limits her movements.

Making Jayde almost question Vanessa’s path in life. She says Van has become the girl they used to make fun of. With that, she is all the way pissed and add in Jayde invited two guys, one cute one for her and one who looks like an ugly Stefan for Van, she is done with her for the night. Yet, old friendship are hard to discard and with some good weed they reconcile.

{Commentary}

I didn’t realize till now how much we needed a Vanessa episode. Be it this post-Insecure feeling that we don’t have enough everyday Black women on TV, or simply because post that Bieber episode left me feeling like this show was just seeing what they could get away with. Either way, I loved seeing her and Jayde converse. Partly because, it was like Jayde represented all the over the top drama we are used to seeing with Black women being portrayed, in Reality TV anyway, and Van was herself, the Issas, and the few others like them out there. They may not always understand each other, yet at the end of the day, they are friends and share the joys and tribulations of womanhood.

Topic 2: Calendar Alert (Vanessa, Earn, and Alfred)

Surprise! Van has a drug test today! With that, she is scrambling for she is the only breadwinner in her household and she knows Al isn’t going to start paying Earn no time soon. So she needs, desperately, some clean pee. How desperate? She calls Al, who knows she doesn’t like him, and she decides, when neither he nor Jayde can help, to strain the pee out of her baby’s diapers.

All the while, Earn seems like he may be stepping up. He doesn’t change his daughter’s diaper that morning, but it seems he’ll at least handle breakfast and getting her ready. Though while he gets points for being a decent daddy, by being physically there, unfortunately, Jayde revealed he may be talking to other girls and while Van proudly and blatantly out there dating people besides Earn, it doesn’t seem she likes the idea of him doing the same. So with her finding a picture of a girl on his phone she is a bit perturbed.

{Commentary}

Van is supposed to be the responsible one right? Granted, she needed a break, freedom of some kind from all her responsibilities, but forgetting a drug test was the next day? A part of me feels like her forgetting was an attempt at not making her seem perfect or to complicate her life to set up future storylines. That includes her learning Earn maybe seeing other girls.

Topic 3: Drug Test (Vanessa)

So check it, Vanessa funnels the pee she extracted from her daughter’s diaper into a condom and damn if she doesn’t bust the condom, with her teeth trying to undo the knot, when it is time to submit her pee. To make matters worse, her boss tells her they don’t send the pee out for it would cost too much. However, before her boss can reveal that, Vanessa snitches on herself. Now, does her boss care about people on weed after the first drug test? Hell no. However, with that reveal comes her having to be fired.

Which, considering she is some sort of teacher, being fired from a school could be an issue. Granted, her boss seems like she would give her a recommendation perhaps, but with Vanessa asking for some weed from Al after being told she has a week to get herself together, it seems a downward spiral may be beginning.

{Commentary}

I will be so mad if Vanessa ends up disappearing again for one or two episodes because a lot has just happened to her. Never mind the whole discovery of a girl in Earn’s phone, but she lost her job. She is fired. So what does this mean for her? Will she try to be like Jayde, simply find a new job, or is there a support team we don’t know about? Personally, I wouldn’t mind us meeting Vanessa’s family and hearing their take on her life and relationship with Earn. Though you have to wonder, while Glover seems to have no issue with others being featured more heavily them him one episode or another, would he let one of the characters take over for a little while? Especially considering this is a limited episode series.

 

Question(s) to Readers

1. Where do you think everyone will be by the season finale? I’m not sure how many days or weeks past per episode, but it does feel like the show has barely covered a full month in their world. So can we say there will be much progress by the season’s end?
2. Do you think Jayde provides professional services or is just some type of escort?

Things To Note

I’m having trouble finding the name of Jayde’s actress but will continue the search!

Highlights

The focus on Vanessa was a bit refreshing and helped to ween off any taste the show maybe starting to get stale with the week in and week out weirdos Earn and Al encountered on a, seemingly, regular basis.

Low Points

There is a fear that we aren’t going to get any real follow up on Vanessa after being fired. Note, we may learn what happens, but we won’t get a full on focus on her which really lets actress Zazie Beetz (doesn’t that sound like a good rapper name?) work her magic.