Woke season 1, episode 4 recap – what happened in “Black People for Rent”?

By Daniel Hart
Published: September 9, 2020 (Last updated: last month)
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Hulu series Woke season 1, episode 4 - Black People for Rent
3.5

Summary

“Black People for Rent” ups the conversation as Keef tries to make a point about the black community in San Francisco which has mixed results.

This recap of Hulu’s Woke season 1, episode 4, “Black People for Rent” contains significant spoilers.

We recapped every episode — check out the archive.


The opening

Keef wakes up with Adrian, the woman he met at the party. He tells her about his latest creation “Black People For Rent”. He says the crazy white people from the party inspired him. She tells Keef to go down on her for stealing her idea and then she walks out, steals some of Clovis and Gunther’s breakfast, and leaves. This woman has confidence.

Showing his provocative work

Keef shows Gunther and Clovis his “Black People For Rent” poster but Clovis keeps bringing up his issues with Adrian. Keef is trying to call out the idea that San Francisco likes black culture but not black people. Gunther wonders if his posters will give people the wrong ideas and make them think they can actually rent a black person. Gunther has a point as Episode 4 shows.

Clovis tries to pull

Clovis wants to prove he can pull a woman without having to pretend to be someone else. He approaches a woman from a previous bar and it seems to be working until he says “I’m going to tap that arse respectfully”. She laughs in his face and walks off. This character is purely serving as the comedic angle of how not to treat women.

Giving Ayana the outcome

Gunther’s theory turns out to be true as people start believing that they can truly rent black people and it circulates on social media and becomes a point of discourse — there are statements like “Wtf. Can’t white people be up for rent as well?”. Keef plays Ayana his voicemails left by white people from the posters; most of them are racist but some want a genuine conversation about race. Ayana wants to respond to each one.

Out of control

Clovis tells Keef that he’s catching feelings for Adrian but he denies that — Clovis is also trying to sell merchandise for “Black People For Rent”. The whole situation for this new idea by Keef is going a little crazy — he doesn’t even like what his concept is becoming as he’s making blackness a commodity. Even black people are embracing it. Episode 4 shows how Keef’s wokeness is making a monster out of his latest concept.

Don’t try to control it

Gunther is not happy about this either — he tells Keef to stick to drawing cartoons as he’s opening Pandora’s box. Keef chills with Adrian. She tells him that if he’s going to make art, he can’t control how it provokes people. Keef admits he likes her. When she stands up, Adrian’s t-shirt starts talking to him and it says “Black People For Rent”. Keef asks her to take it off.

The ending

The next day, Gunther decides to support Keef and helps Clovis sell merchandise. Keef tells Ayana not to run the story over his new concept. Ayana feels he’s doing a u-turn and senses that his white girlfriend put his merchandise on and now he feels different about it — a flashback shows a woman she slept with waking up and putting on a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. She tells Keef that he let this happen and he has to deal with it — “The good, the bad, the ugly”. Woke season 1, episode 4 ups the conversation as Keef tries to make a point about the black community in San Francisco which has mixed results.

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