Value

"**Value**" is the sixth episode of the first season of *Atlanta*. It is the sixth episode of the series overall. It was released on October 4, 2016 on FX.

## Premise

I love my bestie for real but I can't stand her neither. Van just jealous cause her girl out here jet settin and poppin. Ok girl get yours.

## Plot

Vanessa Keifer has dinner with her friend Jayde. They discuss Van's hair, Jayde's upcoming trip to London sponsored by an NBA player she is seeing, an old acquaintance who Jayde mocks the disfigurement of without knowing she was in a car accident, and Van's commitment to her daughter preventing her from going to a party with Jayde. The conversation shifts to her relationship with Earnest Marks, which Jayde disapproves of and points out Van has become like the type of women they would make fun of. She warns Van to "think about your value" and insists that "black women need to be valuable." Jayde criticizes the openness of Van and Earn's relationship, and she angrily retorts that she does not care. Their food arrives and they sit in silence, Jayde eventually taking out her phone and snapping a picture of her dish. Her party contact arrives with a male friend for Van to meet and she quickly leaves, Jayde dismissing it as " a girl thing."

Jayde approaches Van in the parking garage and apologizes. She asks Van to come to the party with her, stating it will be "just like old times," but Van reminds her that she would always be stuck with the uglier men when they were younger. Jayde tempts her with an offer of weed and Van takes it, despite having work the next day. As they smoke together and laugh at a picture Van takes of Jayde, they tell each other that they love each other.

Van is awoken in her apartment by her phone, and her reminder app informs her that she has a drug test at her teaching job that day. She calls Jayde in a panic, who promises to contact someone that can help her fake her way through the test, but quickly texts her back saying she found no one. Earn arrives to feed and play with Lottie and she asks him for Alfred Miles' number, claiming a friend of hers wants to meet him. Van scrolls through WikiHow for information on passing a drug test, finding that sports drinks are not useful. She puts down the Powerade she is drinking and sighs. Van calls Al and asks for advice and he teases her over her past dislike of weed, but eventually gives in when she mentions needing to support Lottie and tells her his friend would tape a condom of someone else's clean urine to his leg and pour it into the cup when using the bathroom.

Van siphons the urine out of one of Lottie's diapers and mixes it with condensation so she has enough liquid to pass her test, then tapes it to her leg as Al suggested. As she walks to the school office to take her test, she is stopped by one of her friendly coworkers who tells her about one of her students, Tobias Walner, who has come to school in whiteface and smirks at anyone who looks at him. She asks Van to take Walner to in school suspension later. The condom bursts on her when she opens it and she decides to confess to her superior that she smoked, only to learn that the test was technically unnecessary but her admission requires her to be fired. Feeling empathy, her superior gives her the rest of the week to stay employed and gives her a reassuring hug, warning her that her hair smells of weed. As she leaves the office, Al texts her asking how it went, and she asks how much he charges for an eighth of weed, Al insisting that he doesn't sell. Van sits in on ISS and notices Walner staring at her from the back of the room, who smirks and raises his eyebrows.

## Trivia

* This is the first episode where Van is the protagonist.
* This is the first episode where Darius is absent.
* There is a bit of foreshadowing. In the scene when Van calls Alfred, he is watching the "Coconut Crunch-O's" commercial that appears in the next episode "B.A.N.".