This episode opens heavily with Mary Jane talking to an expert on her show about sex trafficking. The woman is very knowledgeable about human trafficking, having seen it up close herself.
After her interview, MJ celebrates with a work party at her house. It turns out her show has been nominated for an Emmy. However, the head producer isn’t happy with her ratings and wants to have a meeting.
MJ blows off some work steam by getting drunk. Her friend Val is with her and tells her instead of getting drunk, she should start taking Xanax. MJ of course ignores her and goes home and drinks more and gets it on with her hunky sex buddy. After, she vents to him about her work problems.
The next day, she talks to her dad about her work problems, and he goes into the classic old man “back in my day” schpiel, and MJ bails.
Now that Patrick’s baby mama is missing, he has to comb his daughters hair and it’s not going well. Fortunately, Tracy’s mom stops by and lets him know that Tracy has been arrested for shoplifting. Her mom has enough nerve to ask him for money because she’s short on rent due to Tracy’s shenanigans. He obliges, and helps her out.
Meanwhile at work MJ’s producer rants to Kara about how black people need to stop complaining because they have the president, the NBA, Jay Z and Beyonce, and apparently that’s good enough. Kara isn’t having it though, and she walks away.
Patrick goes to pick up his daughter from school, and he finds out he owes almost $500 to the school. As usual, he doesn’t ask anyone for help, vowing to handle things himself.
As MJ pulls into work, a man approaches in his car saying she took his spot. She shuts him down and he calls her an “ugly black monkey,” which leads to her going home to drink. Val comes over and says she should be celebrating and not feeling down because she’s an Emmy nominee. The two decide to celebrate MJ’s accomplishments with wine, even though she definitely knows she has somewhat of a drinking problem. MJ pours her heart out to Val about how she feels like she’s not being appreciated. Val comforts her by going to get her more wine.
Tracy calls Patrick from jail, and he asks her how much her bail is. After telling him her bail is $3,000, she tells him it’s time for him to take care of her. He decides to ask MJ for help, and she agrees to give him the money. He promises to pay her back, but she’s doesn’t want to hear it, and tells him to go get his baby mama.
On her show, MJ does a panel about black women’s beauty, featuring Michaela Angela Davis and India Arie as themselves. She calls into question black men’s silence when it comes to black women’s issues. India Arie spoke eloquently and candidly about self-worth. The panel is fantastic, and MJ ends it by looking directly into the camera and essentially subtweeting her producer on air, saying she and all black women matter and should have self-worth.
Patrick visits Tracy in jail, he tells her he doesn’t have the bail money, but he’s working on it. He then goes to pay off the balance he owes to his daughter’s school.
Later at her house, MJ gets a call from pretentious hottie Sheldon and the two decide to go out. Sheldon won’t tell MJ where they’re going, but eventually they get to a restaurant.