Money Bag Shawty

"**Money Bag Shawty**" is the third episode of the second season of *Atlanta*. It is the thirteenth episode of the series overall. It was released on March 15, 2018 on FX.

## Premise

Earn is out here making that money. Too bad he still look broke as hell. This whole city runs on stunting, you feel me?

## Plot

Through a series of Instagram stories, a white mother professes her disgust with Alfred Miles' lyrics by reading them out loud after a song of his came on the radio while her grade school daughter was listening. She becomes increasingly distraught the more she reads, and by the end, restrains tears while reading a lyric that expresses support of Colin Kapernick. Al, Earnest Marks, and Darius celebrate Al's latest single going gold by getting a drink, Darius praising the mother's tears for boosting the song's popularity. Their server drinks with them and they toast to "white tears." The server asks Al to put him on a record before being called away, and Al laments similar interactions happening to him often. Earn states it is a good thing and wishes he had Al's popularity so he could stunt on people, rejecting Al's claim that all he needs is money to do so. Al tells him their streaming partnership checks will be in on Monday.

Earn's check comes in the mail as he hangs out with Vanessa Keifer, who is telling him about her coworker buying their workplace Beyoncé tickets but buying a VIP ticket for herself to sit separate. Van looks at his check as he offers to take her on a date with his recent earnings, and she jokes that "you're gonna get us robbed." Clark County invites Al to watch a track being recorded and he brings Darius along, and the three get on well. As Clark offers Al a guest spot on a couple of tracks, Al offers him weed and Hennessy, but Clark states that he does not drink or smoke. Clark starts to rap as Al and Darius nod along, and Al notices that he raps about smoking weed and drinking Hennessy. The audio program crashes and Clark begins threatening the sound engineer in a friendly tone.

Earn and Van go to see *The Fate of the Furious* at a high-class movie theater and Earn attempts to buy VIP tickets, but the cashier tells them they cannot split the hundred dollar bill he offers to pay with. When he uses his debit card, she asks to see his ID to make a copy, and Earn decides to abandon the movie date in favor of something else, not wanting copies of his information sitting around. Van offers to pay as they step aside, but he insists that there is something off about the place. He watches the cashier take a hundred dollar bill from a white customer and approaches him to try and talk, but he pulls up his jacket to reveal a holstered gun and the couple leaves. As they take an Uber, she reminds him that she warned him not to use a hundred. Earn insists that the problem was racism and Van admonishes him when he uses the term "red-handed," claiming it is racist towards indigenous people, but is just messing with him. She then realizes she doesn't know where the term comes from and that it might be the case. Al and Clark discuss commercial deals and how his manager, Lucas, gets him plenty, while Al gets none. As they joke around, the audio engineer's setup crashes again and Clark leaves the room. Clark's intimidating friend tells Al and Darius that they should leave and they hurriedly do, leaving him alone with the engineer.

Earn uses his hundred to get into a club with Van, only to be stopped by the black owner before they can order drinks because the bill is apparently fake. Despite Earn's efforts to prove otherwise, he is forced to pay the entry fee again before he can leave. As they leave, a security guard tells them that they all knew the hundred was real. As Van agrees with Earn that their questioning was racist. Earn decides that they will go "somewhere where they know how to treat people with money" and calls Al. Al tells Darius and Tracy that they are going to a strip club and Darius states that he has a white suit he wants to wear, until Al points out that "you really wanna wear all white to a strip club?"

Earn and Van rent a limo and pick the three up, and the DJ of the club hypes Al and his friends up as they enter. They get a table and Earn goes to the bar to get his hundred split into ones, only to find there is a two hundred minimum and the club takes twenty percent. He forks it over regardless and avoids being pressured by the DJ into tipping a stripper as he walks back. Earn has a stripper dance for Van, only for her to dance for a few seconds as the song playing ends and demand payment. Having not gotten their drinks, Earn is forced to pay another two hundred to buy it for the table, and Van has Earn give her money to pay a stripper she believes is inexperienced and nervous, only for Al to smugly tell Earn that that is just part of her act. He states that money is not the only thing that drives image, but also Earn's attitude, and he has to act like he is better than others to truly be respected. Having had enough with the place cheating him, Earn leaves with Van and they notice a crowd outside, finding that former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is racing people for money. Earn decides to race him, telling Van that "sometimes you just gotta stunt on people" and feeling as though Vick's previous races will give him the advantage. Earn and Van are shown being driven away in the limo in silence and Van flatly tells him "it's Michael Vick," implying that Earn lost.

## Gallery

### Videos

Season 2 Ep. 3 - Money Bag Shawty PreviewSeason 2 Ep. 3 - Racing Michael Vick Scene
## Trivia

* The first scene with the white mother is a parody of a 'Christian mom' reciting the lyrics to *Norf Norf* by Vince Staples in response to hearing the song over a radio station her child was listening to.