Dear White People – Volume 2: Chapter VII

By starrymag | May 21, 2018

By: Malasha Parker

 

 

The narrator (Giancarlo Esposito) begins by telling the events of Troy Fairbanks (Brandon Bell) reaching his breaking point. They show the flashback of him smashing the window at the protest. We then see Troy sitting inside the police station waiting for his father to come out. Troy apologizes to his father about his behavior saying that he will leave, but Dean Fairbanks (Obba Babatunde) tells him that he isn’t getting expelled.

 

1840– Dr. Adams’ belief in a scientific basis for white supremacy endured, which lead to the creation of the legacy admissions program. In 1976, “less pure” students continue the tradition and thus the Fairbanks legacy begins. A live stream of Troy pops up of him in his bed without a shirt asking for someone to give him notes for a lecture that he’s missing– this is the Fairbanks legacy.

 

Freshman year, Troy is meeting with a few Pastiche guys to deliver some drinks to them as they talk about topics for a magazine. Troy criticizes them on what they’re putting in their magazine because they’ll still get great jobs when they graduate, and they disagree with him by saying that what they’re writing about is important. They joke around for a little bit. They ask him when he’s going to join Pastiche– they need a black guy on staff so that they’re able to make “black” jokes. Kurt (Wyatt Nash) and Colin (Mason Trueblood) tell him that he’s funny to try and reel him in. Troy does a quick comedic bit of his father and they decide to stop working and start drinking.

 

Dean Fairbanks is showing Troy a video taken as he pees in a fountain while his “friends” from Pastiche laugh. One of the people walking by happened to be the person that the fountain is named after and Dean Fairbanks is furious with what Troy did. Troy tells him that those are his friends and they were laughing and having fun with him, but Dean Fairbanks says that’s not the case– they’re laughing at him. He takes him into his office where there are a group of black men and women standing in the shadows. A Congressman starts talking and the group starts explaining how much of a waste it would be for a legacy to be the token black guy and not walk through the doors to power. They advise him to run for A-P house instead of Pastiche. He doesn’t want to run for A-P, but multiple people in the room did so they want him to follow in their footsteps.

 

It’s back in the present and Troy is about to do his first stand up comedy act. He gets up and uncomfortably stumbles through his set as everyone blankly stares at him. A heckler calls out and he leaves the stage. He walks over to Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson), Reggie (Marque Richardson) and Lionel (DeRon Horton). They ask him if this is what he’s doing now and make comments on his act. They try to make light of his performance by agreeing with Troy that the crowd is whack. They watch another act and Troy looks around as everyone laughs at his jokes. He’s in his room with Muffy (Caitlin Carver) when he decides to ask her something. She takes the conversation somewhere else for a second and then he asks her if she thinks he’s funny. Muffy doesn’t think much of the question and just answers with, “You have abs. You don’t need to be funny.” Muffy gets an alert to go meet for Pegasus when Troy mentions that he thought she and Coco (Antoinette Robertson) didn’t get into Pegasus. She says that she didn’t tell Coco that she got in because it’s different for them, even if it isn’t fair.

 

The next day Troy is talking with Kurt and he tells him that last night was bad, but instead of encouraging him to do better Kurt just says that he shouldn’t do it again. Kurt admits that he did watch it and that some of it could be done well if he just takes a different approach and works at it. Troy says he’s “the funny black guy” and Kurt ignores that because of the comments under his video. The two join some other guys to get some pointers for Troy. Kurt asks Nate (Igor Hiller) what his point of view as a comedy writer is. He and some of the other guys give their point of views on what kinds of things they find funny. Kurt brings up how he wishes racists were just quietly racist and Troy makes a joke. They start making Tiger Woods jokes about Troy’s point of view. Kurt grabs some shrooms out of a bear head to help Troy find his point of view and all the guys take them.

 

They’re laying on the campus grounds when Troy asks can they feel it because he has a high tolerance and isn’t…yet. Just before he can finish his sentence he sees the moon drop from the sky. They walk through campus saying a lot of nonsensical things about The Little Mermaid. Troy picks up a flyer from his head of house campaign and he imagines that the picture of himself is crying. He asks out loud, “Could everyone see how sad I was?” He then runs off yelling, “I know where my voice is!”

 

Troy is standing under the walkway talking to Reggie to get a chance to talk to him. Reggie says its not the time, but Troy says he’s on a quest to find his voice and Reggie helped him do that once. He asks Reggie, “Who’s Troy Fairbanks?” and Reggie says he’ll answer it later. Reggie finally answers. They flashback to freshman year where Troy and Reggie are staring at a flyer from his campaign. Reggie says that he’s kind of like the black guy in a white sitcom. Troy makes a joke which causes Reggie to point out that it is precisely those comments that are total token black guy quips. Reggie mentions his percentages of winning the race and Troy gets discouraged. Reggie says that’s why he’s here to help him and tells him that he should get their people on their side by getting Sam (Logan Browning) on their side. Reggie gives a list of great qualities about Sam and Troy says he never noticed her before.

 

In the present, Reggie tells him that he spends too much time worrying about what other people think. Troy blurts out how Reggie was in love with Sam and Reggie immediately denies it. Troy apologizes for stepping in between Reggie getting a chance with Sam. They have this conversation in the middle of a class, so the professor tells them to soul-search elsewhere. Troy leaves with a goodbye to a nonexistent mascot in the classroom.

 

Sam and Joelle are recording another show and discussing the article written on Silvio (D.J. Blickenstaff) being outed as the AltIvyW. While they’re recording, Troy slams his body up against the studio window, startling them. He says he wants to do an interview because he’s feeling “hella open” and invites himself into the room. He sits on the couch and stares at the ceiling to see a lot of unblinking eyes staring back at him. Sam turns on some music and Troy let’s them know that he took some shrooms. He asks her what she saw in him freshman year and it flashes back in time. Sam and Troy are laying in the bed talking and Troy asks her why she’s covering herself. She says that it’s awkward with her flaws. Troy slowly tells her that she doesn’t have any flaws. He says it was hard to get her and she tells him that he persisted. He asks if she thinks BSU will elect him head of house and she says that she could set something up to help him out because they didn’t accept her at first so she knows how hard it is. As she leaves the bed, Troy gets a text from another girl and he responds that he’ll meet her later that night.

 

Back in the present, Sam tells Troy that she made him feel like he was in a love song, which is why she now views all love songs negatively. Now that she’s lost the fantasy of him, she says that she sees him as a little boy that is just trying to become what everyone else wants him to become. But unless he figures out how to use the power in that, it won’t work out for him. He says he was just focused on himself and apologizes for everything he did to her.

 

He goes to the lobby of A-P and starts burning his clothes in the fireplace– “Just killing Troy Fairbanks.” Coco tells him that he’s burning thousands of dollars worth of clothes while they’re having a clothing drive. While Coco and James (Nicholas Anthony Reid) are arguing, Troy imagines that Coco’s photo on the wall is moving. Coco decides to end the meeting as she walks off, Troy runs to catch up with her. Before he can finish his apology, Coco says that he doesn’t need to apologize and that she understands that she was just a body to him. She says that his life isn’t even his and acknowledges that she knows he’s been with Muffy. She starts to say that she’s made sacrifices to stay out of his path– Referencing the abortion she got earlier in the season. The scene then switches to a flashback of Reggie watching Troy and Sam walk through A-P holding hands and of the moment that Sam read the texts on Troy’s phone. During this, Coco is telling him to stop telling himself that he’ll have a breakthrough after everything.

 

Troy is sitting on the steps when Sorbet runs up. The dog starts talking to Troy and telling him that he needs to stop pitying himself and to look deeper into himself. After giving him some strange words of wisdom, the dog leads him to a water fountain. Troy takes it upon himself to get naked and get into the fountain when Lionel and Wesley (Rudy Martinez) walk up. Troy tells Lionel that he is being reborn. They take him back to his room and when he wakes up his father is standing over him. He asks him does he know what he’s doing and Troy tells him that he’s just trying to find himself. His father says he won’t apologize for it, but Troy just says that he’s just being used by him. He brings up how he talked to Reggie and how he mentioned Dean Fairbanks listening to him. Troy says that he never does that for him. When Troy gets up to smoke, his father surprisingly takes it from him and smokes it himself. He hands him a flyer that has his face circled and the words “LOCK HIM UP” on it. His father says, “Just remember, this is the world you’re trying to find yourself in.”

 

Troy has gone back to the bar to try his hand at another comedy act. This time, it goes a lot better for him and he receives a more welcoming response. He looks out into the crowd and his father is there cheering him on.