Every Episode Of Atlanta Season Two Ranked Worst To Best
9. Episode 10 - FUBU
In the penultimate episode, we're transported back to the 1990's when Earn and Alfred were just kids living life in middle-school. It's in this episode that we see, as kids, Alfred was watching out for Earn and keeping him at bay from playground humiliation.
The inciting incident of the episode comes from Earn's excited purchase of what he believes to be an authentic FUBU jersey. He wears it with pride, but when another student wears a very similar but distinctly different shirt, the accusation that one of them is wearing a fake eats away at Earn.
With Alfred's help, they convince the other classmates that Earn is wearing the authentic shirt, and the classmate is wearing a fake. The bullying and alienation is deflected from Earn, and it is revealed the next day that the boy took his own life.
While the school sees the suicide as a result of an upset home-life, the suspected truth weighs heavy on Earn and he's clearly guild-ridden by the fact that he most definitely had the counterfeit shirt. Earn's desperation to be the "stunter", not the "stunted", unfolds into a heavy emotional toll. Something he no doubt ever got over.