♪
JACK: Wow.
It looks like you had a rougher day than usual...
which is saying a lot.
I actually applaud the way you get up
and do it all over again and again every day.
It's like watching you live a dystopian Judy Blume novel.
I got expelled.
[LAUGHTER]
Wait, wait, wait. They can't kick you out.
They'd lose 30% of the black population at that school.
Nope! It's true.
I just got off the phone with the school,
and he's been expelled for knocking out a student.
He did what, now?
- Whoa! - Cool!
Synced & corrected by kinglouisxx www.addic7ed.com
What happened, sweetie?
DRE: This is what happened.
[VOICE CRACKING] I got jacked for my chaaaaaain!
[Bleep] is wrong with you, boy?
[SOBBING] My chain!
- My beautiful, beautiful chain! - Aww.
Junior's reaction may look over-the-top, but it's not.
Ohh, the horror!
You see, recently,
I'd actually began to love him...
real fatherly love.
He'd saved up his money and bought a chain.
And not just any chain.
He bought his chain.
This was a weighty, 18-karat, solid-gold,
non-allergenic, lobster-clasped,
Italian Figaro rope... a chain.
He'd worked for God knows how long
doing God knows what
- to save up enough money to get it. - [SCREAMS]
Don't do that. It tickles.
[SLURPS]
- When it finally came, - [DOORBELL RINGS]
it was perfect.
In every boy's life, there comes a time
when he puts aside the petty things of childhood
and finds that one article of clothing
that changes him...
- makes him "that dude." - [SMOOCHES]
♪
For Pops, it was his leather jacket.
For me, it was my African medallion.
♪
For Junior, it was his chain.
Lookin' good in that chain, grandson.
It's like you're my...
my real son.
I mean, you... you are my real son,
but, you know, it...
it actually feels like it.
What the hell happened, son?
It was awful.
♪
Whoa!
Don't do that.
Please. Just don't.
No necklaces in class.
It's a chain! [SCOFFS]
Whatever! Put it away!
♪
I put my "necklace" away.
[SCOFFS] This guy.
♪
Whyyyyy?!
Hey. What's going on?
And why are you wearing that turtleneck?
And why do I suddenly feel like I don't love you anymore?
Oh, my God.
Someone stole my chain.
What?
Ohh, the horror!
♪
Why did you let them take you from me like this?
- Why? - What?
- Why?! - Dre!
- He's right here. - No, he's not!
Without a chain, he's just some light-skinned,
weirdo kid in a turtleneck.
- Dre! - No. No, no.
He's right.
- I should tan. - Okay.
Do you know who did it, son?
♪
JUNIOR: It was Reggie.
He used to be the most popular kid in school,
until his parents put him on Accutane.
I don't like that [Bleep].
It changed him.
What should I do, Pops?
It's your chain, son.
It's your chain.
Your chain.
Yeah, you two are being ridiculous.
J-Junior, look at me.
Look... Look at me.
You ignore them.
We're gonna go down to the mall.
We'll go down to that little kiosk,
and we'll get you a new necklace!
We'll just get you a new one!
Uh... Junior.
It's your chain, son.
♪
[WHISPERS] It's your chain.
♪
[SCOFFS]
♪
I did what they told me to do.
What?!
You told him to hit another kid?
I told him to get his chain back.
I didn't know he was gonna hurt anybody!
I did. It was his chain!
Oh, my God! I can't believe you two!
And, Junior, what were you thinking?
- It's his chain... - So help me, God,
if you say "It was his chain" one more time, Dre!
Okay.
[SIGHS] And I don't know.
I mean, getting into a fight and they expel you...
doesn't that... doesn't that seem extreme?
[CHUCKLES] Not considering he broke the kid's jaw.
I don't like this [Bleep].
You broke his jaw?
You broke his j...
Can't be doing that, son!
Jawbreaker! [CHUCKLES]
What the...
Man!
♪
What are we gonna do? I mean, that's his school.
He has to go there.
Don't worry. I'll get him back in.
I can't even believe that they're treating him like this.
Seriously.
I mean, you know what? We should trade up.
Valley Glen is hot garbage anyway.
Their robotics team...
it's only ranked fourth nationally.
Sting's kid
- doesn't even go there anymore. - Exactly.
- The two of you sound ridiculous. - What?!
You should send Junior to the local public school.
What's the point in spending all this money
to live in this damn neighborhood
if you're gonna turn your nose up
at the school that's right down the street?
RUBY: Public school?!
Might as well send him to Afghanistan!
POPS: Mm, here you go.
I went to public school. Now, look how I turned out.
- Okay, that's not a good argument. - Yes, look how you turned out.
Hey, hey, come on, Pops.
You know there are enough strikes
against black kids in this country.
He's looking at me like that because he knows I'm right.
Black Americans have always had a difficult road
when it comes to public education.
Separate was never really equal.
Jim Crow laws made any chance of black students
getting a fair shake at a good education
almost impossible until 1954,
when the Supreme Court heard a case
by this smart, wavy-haired brother right here,
Thurgood Marshall.
Brown vs. Board of Education
declared that separate but equal schools
are inherently not equal.
The court called for desegregation
with all deliberate speed.
[CHEERING]
But black folks got hit with the okeydoke.
Thanks to deliberate speed,
it took 10 years to desegregate
just 1% of segregated schools.
[GROANING]
But then Title IV hit
and authorized the federal government
to finally say, "Integrate,
or get zero money from us.
A lot of people were not happy about this, but who cares?
The Supreme Court had finally got it right.
I wonder what's different about them.
Over the next few decades,
integration rates reached an all-time high.
And wouldn't you know it... national testing scores
were also higher than they'd ever been.
So since things were going so great,
what did we do?
[Bleep] it up, of course.
[GROANING]
In 1991, the Supreme Court decided
their mandatory integration ruling
was never meant to be permanent,
upending Thurgood Marshall life's work by one vote.
He would retire later that same year.
In less than a decade, our nation's test scores
dropped to 50-year lows.
In 2014, a study showed that public schools
are less integrated now than they were
when Martin Luther King was killed in 1968.
Our schools were more crowded, less diverse,
and more dangerous than ever.
Luckily enough for my kids, they go to private school,
where they can get a great education and feel safe.
And if I can give my kid a leg up
by sending him to private school,
then that's what I'm gonna do.
Mm-hmm, and why you think I moved Heaven and Earth
to put Dre in a private school when he was a kid?
You shot me and took my disability check.
Yeah, well... [CHUCKLES]
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
RAINBOW: Whatever.
I am totally open-minded when it comes to education,
and the fact is that I probably would've gone
to public school myself if I was not an Indigo child.
♪
Not right now. Okay, babe?
What are you talking about? I got a leaf in Divination.
POPS: What are you talking about?
Bow was clearly lost in space, and Pops would be fine
if Junior ended up as a Pullman Porter.
It was up to me to make sure
Junior got into another good private school,
and that's exactly what I was going to do.
I got on the phone and called around town.
But it seemed like Junior's reputation
of being an angry, jawbreaking black kid preceded him.
Trying to get him into a new private school
turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.
Well, we didn't want to go to your punk-ass school anyway.
[CELLPHONE BEEPS]
That was our last one on the list.
We actually did want to go to that punk-ass school.
Well...
Junior's gonna have to go to public school.
- [SIGHS] Hey. What are you doing? - Hey.
Well, Junior's starting public school,
so I'm trying to come up with something nice
to say about him at his funeral.
- Wha... - "My son...
had a chain."
Dre!
Junior survived you for 17 years.
He's gonna be fine in public school.
Ehh... I don't know, babe.
Our kids weren't built for public school.
They were raised in captivity.
He's gonna be fine.
School is school,
and Junior's gonna be great wherever he goes.
Okay.
Dad hates spending money.
If this works out for Junior,
he could put us in public school.
What is that even like?
[BOTH SIGH]
♪ Been spending most their lives ♪
Turn it off. [SIGHS]
Turn it off.
♪ Been spending... ♪
So, after seven different high-school movies,
what did we learn?
That public school principals carry baseball bats
and it was okay to use homophobic slurs in the '80s.
This is not us.
♪
STEVENS: Why so glum, Dre?
Don't tell me you're still pouting
about Chris Paul wisely choosing a Confederate state
where he doesn't have to pay any income tax.
Almost as bad.
Junior may have to go to public school.
Public, like a toilet?
Ugh! Are they still doing that?
Come on, Dre. You make enough money.
You can opt out of that nonsense.
In fact, it is a miracle that you survived public school.
Actually, I went to private school.
What?!
Was it like a... black private school?
So, you're sending your son to public school to punish him.
I get that.
You know, my parents, they, uh...
they wanted to knock me down a few pegs,
so they sent me to public school... in Greenwich.
Greenwich?
It's not what you think, Dre.
There's a lot of diversity there.
I mean, sure, there's families like the Kelloggs and the Posts,
but there were also kids
whose families owned lesser cereal companies, too.
Sure, that worked out for you because of your ZIP code.
But the public schools that black and brown kids
have to go to have all been abandoned.
Classic white flight.
Yeah, we move to your neighborhoods,
you guys are out.
We move to your schools,
- you guys are out. - Mm-hmm.
We move to your Cheesecake Factories,
you guys are out.
God, do I miss the Cheesecake Factory.
It's still open.
[CHUCKLING] Okay, Dre.
See, you guys don't know how serious this is.
You send your kids to private school
to keep them on top.
I send my son to private school
to get him in the game in the first place.
You guys are here, and we are here.
Mnh...
Mm.
Well, just get ready to be a granddad again.
None of my kids have kids.
[SNORTS] Okay, Dre. [CHUCKLES]
What about you, Charlie? Did you go to public school?
- I did, in fact, Joshua. - Hmm.
My school shared grounds with a gator farm.
I was number 5 in my class.
Number 1 for humans.
But if I did have a son, I'd send him to private school.
Uh...
you do have a son, Charlie.
Eustace!
♪
You, uh... you sure you don't want to go check on him?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'll go... I'll go check on him.
Get some gas first and then play the lottery.
Put some air in my tire.
You need something?
No. I'm good.
All right.
Let's see if I got everything.
- I'll take some Milk Duds. - Okay, gotcha.
So, I work with lunatics, but they did make me think
about our public school decision.
- [DOORBELL RINGS] - I wonder where Bow's head was at.
- Oh. Hey. Oh! - Hi!
I heard what happened to Junior!
Yeesh! Are you okay?
Uh... yeah. We're... We're fine.
So, where's he gonna go? Oakwood?
- Crossroads, Flintridge? - No.
Oh! Harvard Westlake!
[LAUGHS]
No, he's actually gonna go to the public school.
Oh, is there a new private school
called "Public School"?
No. A-An actual public school.
Sherman Oaks High?
- Yeah, it's, like, right up the street. - Sher... [LAUGHS]
- Sherman Oaks High? - Yeah.
- Oh, yay! - Yeah.
Yeah, you know, we...
always wanted to send our kids to public school...
- ...but then we remembered - You should.
that we live in Los Angeles, so we cannot.
- But you can. - Ehh.
- No, you actually can. - Not really.
- You... You can. - Mm...
Well, all right. Well, we are.
Um... I was watching a documentary the other day.
Fun fact... when whales leave
- their fun little sea parks... - Mm-hmm.
...the public whales drown them.
Wait. What are... I don't... What are you saying?
You know, I got the, like...
Nothing. I'm not saying anything.
I'm sure Junior's gonna be just fine!
- You're a real hero. - No...
So brave!
- So brave. - I don't...
I'm starting to freak out.
- I'm gonna need you to calm me down. - I don't know, Dre.
I actually think I'm gonna need you to calm me down.
Janine really scared me about Junior going to public school.
You should be. Junior's toast.
He's gonna be a child left behind.
Oh, my God. The whales are gonna drown him.
Not if the gators get him first.
Oh, my God.
- I'm so scared. - Me too!
Do you know how much money in property taxes
I'm supposed to be paying for that school?
Why don't you two idiots go down there and see the place?
Where did you come from?
♪
Hi, Zo. H...
O-Ow!
My clavicle!
Quit whining.
Word on the street is, you're going to public school.
You're gonna need to toughen up if you want to survive.
You do want to survive, right?
Right?
Yeah.
Great. Follow me.
♪
Ow! My other clavicle.
♪
What's the point of this?
Bury it.
What?! No!
Look, I'm only gonna tell you this once.
It's either you or the cape that's gonna end up in there.
The choice is yours.
♪
[SIGHS]
[GROANS]
[WHEEZES]
All right. As soon you get there,
you got to walk up to the biggest kid in the school
and hit him right in the face.
How do you know all of this?
You can't become a cool girl in private school
without having questionable friends in public school.
Come on! The strong get tested, the weak get rested!
WOMAN: You want to take a tour of the school?
We don't do that.
Just show up with a piece of mail.
That's your admission process?
A Pennysaver? A Chipotle mailer?
A Valpak?
Even if it says "Occupant," we'll believe you.
And if you forget it, we will not follow up.
[VIDEO GAME BEEPING]
[TELEPHONE BEEPS]
He's gonna be gator meat.
♪
Okay, let's go over this one more time.
So, you have all the emergency numbers, right?
Do not hesitate to use them.
Hey. Hey.
Oh.
Goodbye, my son.
We've had some good times together.
Like that time you first got your gold chain
- Yeah. - And, uh...
and when you first wore that gold chain
and, uh...
some other times I can't recall right now,
but it's all good.
It's all good.
I'll see you guys on the other side.
- Okay. - Okay.
- I hope. - Yeah, okay. One more hug, honey.
I love you so much. You're such a handsome boy.
♪
You know what, babe?
The place actually doesn't look so bad.
Surprisingly tranquil.
- [SCHOOL BELL RINGS] - [BOTH SCREAM]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- Junior? Junior? - Son!
- Aah! Oh! - Somebody grabbed my booty!
We just got to get out of here, all right? It's about us now.
He hasn't answered any of my texts!
Maybe the school just doesn't have reception.
Of course it doesn't!
We sent him to a prison.
- [GROANS] - We failed our son.
Sure have. I told you... just let me shadow him.
- What? - I'd blend right in.
Do a side ponytail and some go-go boots.
I'd look like a gorgeously overdeveloped teen.
- [GROANS] - Yeah.
Mom, Dad, great news!
Junior's the hot dog weenie we always knew he was!
- What? - What are you guys talking about?
A video surfaced of the fight.
Junior didn't break that kid's jaw.
Junior found Reggie after school.
They got into a major stare-down.
And then Junior took a wild swing and missed.
because Reggie had fainted.
The water fountain broke his jaw.
- BOTH: Oh. - See?
Turns out Reggie has a condition
that causes him to faint when he's feeling least threatened.
Yeah, this makes way more sense.
It's called a confidence-induced stroke.
Kanye gets them all the time.
This means he could go back.
This is so great for us!
Huh?
Us, like... like, as in a family.
- Uh-huh. - You know? Like, together.
JUNIOR: Mom! Dad! I'm home!
Baby!
Oh, my goodness! Oh!
Did you hear the good news?
You get to go back to being the dorky, boring,
sheltered, private-school loser you've always been.
What are you talking about? I'm not going anywhere.
I love public school.
- Huh? - What?
You love public school?
I'm not surprised.
With my training, he's probably running the yard already.
Actually...
I was about to take your advice.
Yo, my parents took me to Harry Potter World this weekend.
That place was lit!
And check this out!
Oh!
My dude's cape game is on point!
Turns out, in public school,
I can actually be myself and people will like me for me.
I've already got cool nicknames, like Meal Ticket and Way Out.
- Oh, boy. - That's not that cool.
And one cute girl who, like yourself, Mom,
also happens to be a mother of five.
Even invited me to a foursome. [CHUCKLES]
But I don't golf, so...
And the best part is, I'm not the only black kid anymore.
I even counted, like, six black teachers.
Not to mention that they have a vending machine
with actual soda in it.
I had my very first Mountain Dew today.
- [ANGELIC HARMONIZING] - It was... glorious.
Thought long and hard about it, guys.
I'm staying at Sherman Oaks.
- We're screwed. - Totally.
And I'd like you to invest my private-school tuition
in an immensely low-risk money market.
Huh. Well, it doesn't work like that.
You are a child,
and you don't get to decide where you get to go.
You're fortunate to have private school as an option.
Your dad has a very good point.
And you're getting your gold chain back.
Maybe not.
No. Dad, don't you see?
I don't need my chain anymore.
My chain is inside me.
- Wait... - Just leave it.
Public school fills me with that same warm, fuzzy feeling
that my chain did.
- What is that called? - Confidence?
- Yes! Confidence. - Oh, boy.
It's glorious.
Just like Mountain Dew.
[ANGELIC HARMONIZING]
- [DOOR CLOSES] - DRE: I don't know, Bow.
I'm still worried about public school for Junior.
I just want what's best for him.
You know, I had so many great opportunities after graduation,
and I just want him to have the same access.
Oh, my God.
Am I Stevens?
Worse... you're Black Stevens.
See, y'all are part of a much bigger problem.
For years, bougie black folk in this country
have turned their back on their community schools
instead of trying to improve them.
That's what you call Black Flight.
And what was it called when you sent me to private school?
Being scared of your mama.
- [LAUGHS] - You know what, Dre?
- Hmm? - We're always so worried
about the fact that we're raising him in a bubble.
This way, he's gonna be around
different people of different backgrounds.
Maybe this could be good for Junior.
Yeah.
It could make him cooler.
He's pretty cool.
- Hey, guys! Check it out! - Oh.
Oooh! [LAUGHS]
Casting a spell there?
- Yeah! - Yeah.
- Let me get this pizza. - Little spell.
Remember when he had a chain?
It was his chain, Dre.
His chain.
♪
Parents are out of town this weekend!
- You know what that means? - Marvel movie marathon!
M.C.U.!
Should we watch best to worst or chronological?
Oh, chronological.
We start with "Captain America: The First Avenger."
Well, "Guardians of the Galaxy" takes place in outer space,
which could transpire over any time span.
So take a knee.
RUBY: Hello, boys.
Does anyone want to listen
to the new Luther Vandross with me?
[LAUGHING] Hey!
All right, now.
I'm blending in.
Synced & corrected by kinglouisxx www.addic7ed.com