Season 1, Episode 2: "The Alchemy"

The smell of ammonia and cooked cocaine clung to the curtains of Jamal’s bedroom like a ghost that refused to leave. It was 3:00 AM. Jamal sat on the edge of his bed, watching Little Mike pace the floor. Mike’s eye was swollen from where C-Grip’s enforcer had caught him earlier that day.

"We can’t go back to the 81st street cut, Mal," Ray-Ray whispered, his voice trembling. "C-Grip has soldiers. We’re just three kids with a pot and a dream. They’re gonna kill us."

Jamal looked at the jagged rocks of "work" laid out on a paper towel. To him, they weren't just drugs; they were power. "They’re only soldiers because they’re getting paid," Jamal said, his voice cold. "C-Grip is old school. He’s selling powder to people who want to feel good for an hour. We’re selling a miracle to people who want to forget their lives for ten minutes. The math favors us."

The Recruitment

Jamal didn't go to Dwayne for help this time. He knew Dwayne would tell him to retreat. Instead, Jamal opened his school bag—the one he was supposed to use for graduation—and filled it with small, twenty-dollar bags.

He led Mike and Ray-Ray to a different part of the neighborhood, a neglected alleyway behind a laundromat. "We don't fight C-Grip with guns. Not yet. We fight him with the alchemy."

Jamal began "servicing" the block. He gave out free samples, showing the desperate souls of South Central that his product was purer, harder, and hit faster than anything C-Grip’s crew was moving. By sunrise, the line for Jamal’s "brand" stretched around the corner.

The Cost of Business

The money was dizzying. In six hours, Jamal had made more than his mother made in a month at the hospital. He handed a thick roll of bills to Little Mike.

"Go buy a strap," Jamal commanded. "And get some ice for that eye."

"A gun, Mal?" Mike asked, looking at the money like it was a snake.

"Alchemy isn't just about turning powder into gold, Mike," Jamal said, looking toward the horizon where the LAPD "ghetto bird" helicopter was beginning its morning patrol. "It’s about turning us into something the world is afraid of."

The Cliffhanger

The episode ends with Jamal returning home just as his mother is leaving for her shift. She stops him in the hallway, her eyes landing on his new, expensive sneakers. She looks at him with a terrifying clarity.

"Where'd you get the money, Jamal?" she asks, her voice breaking.

Before he can answer, the sound of a window shattering echoes from the front of the house. A brick, wrapped in a red bandana—C-Grip’s colors—thuds onto the living room carpet. Attached to the brick is a single unspent bullet.

Jamal’s secret life and his family life have just collided.