S01.E06: Value

[Empress1]

Van's clean urine process was innovative but so gross. I liked taking a closer look at Van though, particularly through the eyes of her Basketball Wife friend.

[Dee]

This was a perfect episode.

Everything clicked, from the wardrobe, to the music, to the acting, to the jokes, to the writing. Everything.

And I'm with Zazie Beetz in wanting more Alfred and Van scenes. They were great together.

[ridethemaverick]

I loved this episode. So funny, and real. These writers must hang out at For Harriet or lipstick alley because that opening conversation was so spot on. 

And yes, Van and Alfred are gold.

[Amethyst]

Excellent episode.  Van really owned this one.  Her encounter with Jayde was brilliant, because everyone knows someone like that, and Jayde's passive aggressive put-downs were something else.  Of course Jayde had no intention of eating the food; she just wanted to instagram it.  To hell with that, if I were Van, I would have taken my food with me.  Big surprise that Jayde couldn't come through in the end.

Van could have just brought a nail clipper or even just poked a small hole in the condom instead of tearing into it with her teeth.  I'll allow it because she was so stressed.

I'm glad that they just left the weirdness in the end, because it was starting to feel like the show was being weird just to be weird.  But the day Van had felt very, very real.  I'm wondering if she'll use this as an opportunity to get her boutique off the ground.

Like Dee said, just excellent all around.  Amazing songs, visuals (anyone notice the "Honor yourself" banners at the school?) direction, acting...hope they can keep this up.

[DearEvette]

This was a great episode. 

The opening with Van and Jayde was both wonderful and infuriating.  Great piece of writing there because everything they said sounded so on point.  God, I know a few Jaydes (and the actress who portrayed her was spot on) and their passive aggressive one-upmanship. .  But the easy fall back into their old high school  relationship also felt right as well.  Also, I love the fact that this is the second show in a week where I have seen black women bonding over a blunt. 

Paper Boi was excellent too.  "But weed is for losers..." he said mockingly.  Ha!

Anyway, loved he deeper look into Van and it is nice seeing that in her own way she is as rudderless as Earn.

[BingeyKohan]

3 hours ago, Amethyst said:

  Amazing songs, visuals (anyone notice the "Honor yourself" banners at the school?) direction, acting...hope they can keep this up.

Yes! Was that the one that ranked voice level by emoji and 'no voice' seemed to be the one chosen? Brilliant. I could take a whole Van spin off. And that church lady drug test babysitter! So funny.

[ethalfrida]

Paperboy did make me LOLOL. Yes, it was an excellent episode.

[DrivingSideways]

This episode was amazing.  Maybe the entire show should revolve around Van?  The actress has always been good, but she killed it through this episode.  I felt her pain when she was so relieved, then so defeated.  Excellent writing and acting all around.

[DearEvette]

4 hours ago, Amethyst said:

Amazing songs, visuals (anyone notice the "Honor yourself" banners at the school?) direction, acting...hope they can keep this up.

Yes, i loved George Benson's 'Masquerade' playing under the dinner scene.  So perfect.

Also that creepy kid with the white face.  LOL  WTF?  Such a bent piece of visual imagery that also just went so well with Van's fucked up day.

[mrsbagnet]

5 hours ago, Amethyst said:

Excellent episode.  Van really owned this one.  Her encounter with Jayde was brilliant, because everyone knows someone like that, and Jayde's passive aggressive put-downs were something else.  Of course Jayde had no intention of eating the food; she just wanted to instagram it.  To hell with that, if I were Van, I would have taken my food with me.

I was so upset that she didn't get to eat. If I were Van, I might have been more upset about the food than about the ugly guy. I did love, though, that she walked out. That's something that I would do.

[tennisgurl]

This was my favorite episode so far! I loved seeing more of Van, and now I feel like I understand her a whole lot more. It was funny, but also very true in so many parts. I think my favorite scene was the dinner with Jayde. I have totally known people like that, with their passive aggressive concerns, and their Instagram brags. That actress just nailed that exact person and that exact conversation. She even through shade through seeing Earns Snapchats! 

So, basically, more Van! And could someone tell me what the hell the kid with the white face was about? Just the surrealist nature of this show? Was that even real, or was it just in Vans head? Or was it like black Justin Beiber, and its a metaphor instead of an actual thing in the world? 

Edited October 6, 2016 by tennisgurl

[Dee]

I screamed at Jayde telling Van to get her raggedy purse having ass in the car.

[withanaich]

That was awesome, and more awesome the more I think about it. I have totally had passive-aggressive conversations like Van had with her friend, totally known that one chick that always wants to toss their man's ugly friend at you. You can tell there is at least one woman in the writer's room, and she's being listened to. I was so with Van when she just got up and left, saying she was "going to the bathroom" even though everyone knew it was a damn lie. I can't even be mad at her for leaving without eating, because she would have had to wait around at that tension-filled table for her food to arrive. Nope! 

Never smoked weed or had to take a drug test, but I could still feel her panic and desperation as she was trying to figure a way out of this jam she basically got herself into. (Plus, I think it's good to show that she can be just as dumb and irresponsible as Earn. Makes her less of a Mary Sue, or an uptight naggy girlfriend trope.) That diaper-ransacking scene was the sort of the thing you have to watch through your fingers (as you whine "noooo..."), like a character getting creeped on by an axe murderer they don't know is right behind them.  And then, just when I figured she was going to get busted because her sample had diaper chemicals or something in it, the show swerved left ... and she ended up covered in her child's urine through no one's fault but her own. And THEN, when she realized she didn't even need to go through all that? OUCH.

Quote

And could someone tell me what the hell the kid with the white face was about? Just the surrealist nature of this show? Was that even real, or was it just in Vans head? Or was it like black Justin Beiber, and its a metaphor instead of an actual thing in the world? 

I'm not a thousand percent sure, but I think it's supposed to be more like the scene with the guy making a sandwich on the bus. Less of a metaphor, and more "utterly real but so 'stranger than fiction'" that it also works as a metaphor. I don't remember stuff like that happening when I was in school, but from the videos kids put on the internet now, I have no trouble believing a kid might do something like that at school. I love how the one teacher was just so completely unnerved by it, which might have been the kid's intention. And for for Van to have to see that at the end of everything she'd been through, it was just like a WTF? cherry on top of her piss-filled sundae of a day. 

[Court]

I would have taken my food and the friend's with me. 

[xaxat]

I loved this episode. I loved how it showed that the people in Earn's life have lives of themselves. And that they have relationships outside of those they have with him. 

Van/Jayde and Van/Alfred (I don't know anything about selling weed!) were great, but so was the scene with the mock sympathetic principal.

[LJonEarth]

I just watched this along with the Issa Rae HBO show. I loved both episodes. It reminded me of every time I watched Girls and thought "what if I were allowed to behave like that?"

The only thing that bothers me about this series is not know if I'm just dense or if they're just being avant garde or surreal with some of this stuff. And by stuff, I mean that horrifying white-faced child. I know we probably won't get them, but I just want answers!

[Nanu160]

I SOO know about the wheels turning in your head on faking a piss test. FUCK PROBATION