Spencer still has yet to immerse himself into the Beverly High Eagles, which is not helped since Asher continuously antagonizes him. Trying to cheer him up and make him fit in, Jordan spends a day at Crenshaw with Spencer, only to be faced with the harsh reality that Spencer, and Jordan's father once upon a time, has to live in everyday. Coop grows closer to a local girl named Patience and works up the courage to tell her mother about her sexual orientation. Meanwhile, Olivia and Layla awkwardly reconnect during the latter's mother's death anniversary.
Tropes featured in this episode:
- Coming-Out Story: Coop is convinced by Patience to come out to her parents. When she does so, her mother kicks her out.
- Double Standard: Jordan, who is mixed-race, asks his father whether he would have educated him about the Black experience sooner had he looked like Spencer, who is fully black. Baker sheepishly replies that he would have.
- Fish out of Water: Jordan in Crenshaw, which Spencer and Coop also tease him lightly about. Chris is a bit more direct, repeatedly referring to Jordan as Carlton.
- Forced from Their Home: Coop's mother banishes her after she comes out. She subsequently moves in with the Jameses.
- Friendship Moment:
- There's Spencer deciding to accept the Beverly High Eagles as his team, particularly, when he and Asher make amends.
- At the end of the episode, Layla and Olivia implicitly reconcile as they both bring flowers to Layla's mother's gravesite.
- Give Him a Normal Life: Baker never took Jordan and Olivia to Crenshaw because he was trying to protect them from experiencing the reality of being black in America for as long as he could.
- High-School Sweethearts: Subverted. Billy Baker and Grace James (née Harper) were friends in school. They were apparently so close that some people thought they would have gotten married, but he eventually moved away.
- Police Brutality: Spencer and Jordan are racially profiled by police despite doing nothing wrong. While Spencer, having spent his entire life in Crenshaw, yields immediately, the sheltered Jordan tries to resist and is roughhoused.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: A focus on the episode is how Spencer's departure to Beverly Hills has made him less welcome back in Crenshaw.
