"North of the Border" is the ninth episode of the second season of Atlanta. It is the nineteenth episode of the series overall. It was released on April 26, 2018 on FX.
Premise[]
We might have to make that move tonight. I heard there's a pajama party and Paper Boi is gonna be there.
Plot[]
Alfred Miles packs for an upcoming show at a state college while Earnest Marks tries to coach him in capturing the college market, which Al is not receptive to. As Al moves to pack his handgun, Tracy pops up from behind a counter and a shocked Al almost shoots him. He reminds Tracy that he said he was going to be staying with him for only a week, and Earn tries to prevent Tracy from coming along with them as security. Earn accidentally reveals they are not staying at a hotel like he promised Al, instead staying with a pretty fan, Violet, that runs the event that Al is performing at. Darius warns Earn that a girl with three thousand Instagram followers may have a weird view of the world, stating she is even weirder when Earn points out she only has three hundred. Earn tries one more time to stop Tracy from going, but his efforts turn out to be futile.
The group arrives at Violet's dorm, and Earn tries to prevent Tracy from staying with them, but he insists on sleeping there anyway. Violet, who is obsessed with Al, has him set up in her room and convinces him to lay in bed with her. She tells him about a dream in which he was a white crane and she was a crocodile, and they were holding each other by a river until she gruesomely killed and ate him, feeling his power inside of her and convicing her that they were connected, leaving Al visibly uncomfortable. He notices a footprint on the ceiling. Later, at the "Pajama Jam" event, Earn, Al and Darius are all dressed up in silk pajamas when there are approached by Clark County, also doing a set, his manager Lucas in tow. Al wishes he had weed as Clark takes Violet and her friends upstairs, while Tracy steps aside to secure the perimeter. Al is approached by two female fans and Earn comments to Darius that he looks happy, and he is more worried about Tracy than anyone else. Violet dumps her drink on Al from above for speaking to the girls and Tracy confronts her while Earn tries to stop him, and he pushes her down a flight of stairs when she insults him. Earn catches her just in time and she slaps him in the face and runs upstairs, getting her brother and friends. The group tries to leave but are confronted, and Earn tries to defuse the situaton until Tracy springs out of the shadows and punches Violet's brother in the face. The four flee through a campus building.
As they hide behind a tree from a campus security cart with a distressed white girl in the back, Al again wishes for weed and Darius smells some. They follow him to an all-white frat house, who are fans of Al and are more than happy to give him weed. The group notices a nude young man with a bag over his head being shoved into the house, and Prescott, the frat president explains that he is a pledge. The group is seated in front of a Confederate flag, two rows of pledges, all nude and bagged, kneeling before them. Tracy is the only one amused. Prescott tells Al he is tied for his favorite rapper with Post Malone, and Darius is taken with the frat's anitque gun collection. Darius and Tracy go with a member to see their gun room, while Prescott professes his love of snap music and has the pledges dance to D4L's "Laffy Taffy", only stopping when he sees Al is unamused. He leaves the two alone, and Al and Earn laugh before the former states "tonight was some bullshit" and tells Earn they need to discuss a problem. Earn assumes he is talking about Tracy, but Al states that he is talking about Earn and his blunders in preparing for the show. Earn insists that Tracy was the one at fault for throwing Violet down the stairs, but Al counters that Violet never would have been an issue if Earn had just gotten them a hotel. He tells Earn that he has been thinking of replacing him with Lucas, and that he has kept Earn with him because he is family, but he does not think Earn is fit to manage him.
The next morning, the group returns to the car broken into and their bags strewn out on the lawn, their valuables gone and their clothing cut up. Earn realizes his laptop is gone and begins hammering on Violet's door, shouting at Darius to back off when he tries to calm him down; claiming that no one is inside the dorm. But Earn believes he just being completely avoided and ultimately pulls the fire alarm to try and draw her out while Tracy laughs hysterically and mocks him. They grab their stuff and flee to the car when Violet does not emerge. The only one talking on the car ride home is Tracy, who continues to make fun of Earn, who reaches his limit when Tracy frightens him by pulling a stolen pistol from the frat house on him and Darius tries to hide his own laughter. He shouts at Al to pull the car over and gets out to fight Tracy, who casually holds him at bay and occasionally hits him to try and deter him while repeatedly telling Earn to "stop playing." He tries to rush Tracy when he briefly turns around, but Tracy throws him on his face and he, Al and Darius get back in the car. After a moment, a visibly beaten Earn gets up and limps to the car, and the group sits in total silence as Al starts it.
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