"Woods" is the eighth episode of the second season of Atlanta. It is the eighteenth episode of the series overall. It was released on April 19, 2018 on FX.
Premise[]
Why Paper Boi always got an attitude? He rich, right? That's why I can't feel bad for these celebrities.
Plot[]
Birdsong sounds as Alfred Miles lays half asleep on his couch while his mother berates him for his messy house and tells him to get up. As she hums a song, the lighting becomes darker and her voice fades away, Al being woken by his buzzing phone. Earnest Marks is on the other end, who asks Al if he is doing okay today and starts asking him about forms Al did not sign, and Al hangs up on him mid-sentence. Al finds Darius in the kitchen, making pasta and having learned how to do so in a dream. Al's potential girlfriend Ciara honks her horn outside and he leaves as Darius puts his foot in the pasta. They drive by the strip club she used to work at and they joke about them possibly having met before, and she tells him she is happy he was available today, as her life has become hectic with all the fame. She tells him that it is nice to be around someone who understands as "Paper Boi" comes on the radio.
They shop for clothes together and Ciara advises him to drop his "dope boy from the hood" persona because "nobody wants someone famous to look just like them." When he asks how much a pair of shoes are, she asks why he doesn't just get them free through his manager, but he notes that Earn does not have those connections. She states that he "needs someone who's working for you." He watches her take a selfie with a couple of fans and they go to a salon, where she praises him for having the initiative to get his appearance tended to as a man. She bemoans white women artificially inflating their looks to look more black and tells Al he needs to post on Instagram more, but he rebuffs her, saying he "ain't into all that fake shit. I'm just trying to stay real," which she finds amusing, as his popularity has already made him "not real." As she berates the salon worker for speaking in Korean in front of her, an increasingly exasperated Al asks why she brought him here. She states that a relationship between them could build a successful brand and snaps a picture for Instagram, and he leaves in disgust when she refuses to delete it.
Al wanders the city and gets some food, receiving a text from a number not in his contacts that reads "Thinking bout you today <3". He continues to walk and comes across a trio of teenage fans who note that he is "keeping it real" by walking and mug him at gunpoint when they realize he is alone. Two of them steal his watch and cross necklace and run, and he fights the one with the gun and flees from him into the nearby woods. He arms himself with a sharpened piece of bark and hides behind a downed tree, listening to the teen walk past and getting up when he leaves, realizing he is lost. He wanders the woods and passes by a rotting deer carcass before hearing a male voice humming the same song as his mother in the opening. When Al shouts to try and draw the voice out, the voice mocks him until revealing himself as an old, disheveled man named Wiley. Al asks him if he saw where the teen went, and Wiley gives him a confusing, rambling answer and begins to follow Al, asking him if he wants money "to go to the dance." He offers Al some chapstick and Al warns him not to follow him.
Now nightfall, Al continues to wander the woods as Wiley follows behind him and hums, and they stumble upon the same deer as before. Wiley tells him that Al is the deer, calling him "Big Ol' Black Boy Deer Guts". When Al shouts at Wiley to leave him alone, Wiley tells him that "you is just like your mama," stunning Al. He sits down on a log and Wiley sits with him, Al stating that he is tired and has had a bad day. As Wiley drinks from a bottle, Al says he needs to think, and Wiley chuckles and says "ain't nobody could do that." When Al tells him he is useless, Wiley warns him to watch how he talks to people, claiming "you sit around in people's houses insulting 'em. You better stand up and make a decision about how you getting out of here." He insists that Al needs to "make the decision" when Al tells him to leave him alone, and quickly pulls a hobby knife and puts it to Al's throat. He tells Al that he is wasting time, and "the only people who got time are dead." He tells Al that he will kill him and take his belongings if he does not get out of the forest in thrty seconds and Al runs away while Wiley begins to count in inconsistent time. Al flees and quickly arrives at a gas station at the edge of the woods, breaking down in tears before laughing with relief. Inside, he grabs a cold drink and holds it to his beaten face. He is approached by a white teenage fan who asks for a selfie, and Al does so, telling the fan to "be safe out here" as he leaves.
The credits dedicate the episode to Willow Dean Kearse, deceased mother of Al's actor, Brian Tyree Henry.
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