Money Bag Shawty

The episode begins with a Caucasian woman (Blair Busbee) posting Instagram stories, where she tells her audience her frustration with a new song by "Paper Boi" after listening to her young daughter singing it. She recites the song's explicit and controversial lyrics but gets truly angry and frustrated when the song ends with a statement supporting Colin Kaepernick.

At a bar, Earn (Donald Glover), Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) and Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) are celebrating that Alfred's newest single has gone gold, crediting the woman's video for boosting its popularity. With their new money, Earn decides to take Van (Zazie Beetz) on a date. Meanwhile, Alfred and Darius meet with Clark County (RJ Walker) to join a recording session, with Alfred set to provide guest verses. During the session, Alfred notes that Clark raps about enjoying drinking and smoking, despite being apparently abstinent. When the record program crashes while he freestyles, Clark threatens the audio engineer.

Earn and Van go to the movie theater. However, when Earn tries to pay in cash, the cashier refuses the $100 bill. When Earn tries to use his debit card, the cashier informs him that she'll have to make a copy of his card and ID every time she swipes the card, which frustrates him. They leave, but Earn notices a white man buying his tickets off a $100 bill without any complications. Earn intends to question him before the man reveals his holstered gun, prompting them to leave. Back at the record session, the program once again crashes, and Clark decides to go out for a walk. His crew then tell Alfred and Darius that they should leave, indicating that the engineer will be violently punished.

Earn and Van then head to a hookah bar after paying for their entrance. However, Earn is questioned by the staff, who claim that the $100 bill that he gave to the guard is a counterfeit bill. The owner claims it's fake and Earn decides to leave, although he is forced to pay for his entry again as he was already in the club. As they head outside, a security guard confirms the bill is real but that the owner intentionally dismissed them, and tells Earn he can't legally return the currency to him. He decides to call Alfred, inviting him to a strip club. He, in turn, takes Darius and Tracy (Khris Davis) to meet with Earn and Van, who have rented a limo.

At the strip club, Earn changes his $100 bill into $1 bills, although he's forced to give a minimum $200 as well as losing 20% of the money. He is then pressured by the club's announcer to tip a dancer, which he reluctantly does. Despite paying for the table, Earn has to pay $200 just to get drinks and even has to pay a stripper just for dancing a few seconds in front of Van. He also gives bills to Van so she can pay a dancer out of pity as she has garnered little traction. Alfred then discusses the bill situation with Earn, telling him he needs to "act better" than others if he wants good treatment. Earn and Van decide to leave the strip club, where they see a crowd seeing Michael Vick racing other people for cash bets. Earn decides to compete with Vick to prove himself, with Earn clearly seen as ahead of Vick when the race starts. The scene then cuts to the limo with a dejected Earn and Van, Earn having lost the race and Van consoling him by saying "It's Michael Vick!".

In February 2018, FX announced that the third episode of the season would be titled "Money Bag Shawty" and that it would be written by executive producer Stephen Glover, and directed by co-executive producer Hiro Murai. This was Stephen Glover's sixth writing credit, and Murai's tenth directing credit.^[1]

The episode features a cameo appearance by former quarterback Michael Vick, who appears at the end of the episode where he races people. Vick's wife, Kijafa, put him in contact with Glover, and he agreed to appear in the episode.^[2] After the episode aired, Vick said that he received offers for racing people outside clubs.^[3]