'AJ and the Queen' Episode 8: Social services get involved after Robert takes AJ into an ER with a broken arm
This article contains spoilers for 'AJ and the Queen' Season 1
This episode gets into the brunt of legality after AJ falls from a swing and breaks her arm. Both AJ and Robert have had traumatizing experiences in hospitals before and this visit was no better.
With doctors and officials demanding to know where AJ's mother is, the duo had no choice but to escape from the trap — AJ still got her broken arm in a cast though.
An emotional flashback to the experiences of AJ gives us an insight into why the little girl would take the pain of a broken arm to avoid being taken away from her "family" again.
Robert brings AJ to the ER even though she insisted she was fine. The duo raised eyebrows as they look to be an unlikely pair — an African American drag queen with a white 10-year-old little girl.
AJ has no idea that her mother is now clean from hard drugs and doesn't reply to her mother's urgent text messages, "It's a trap" she tells Robert. As Robert fills up the hospital forms, he's faced with not knowing all the details asked for.
Taking AJ's phone, he sees that her mother, Brianna has been trying to contact AJ. Realizing that AJ doesn't want anything to do with her mother and knowing AJ is traumatized when it comes to social services, he tries to get AJ out of the hospital without being caught by officials.
Using counterfeit money that his friend in Mississippi gave him, Robert pays the hospital bill and carts AJ back to RV.
Through the length of the episode, we see flashbacks of AJ's memories in an ER room and why she got the name, Amber Jasmine. One incident was the birth of AJ, where two nurses helped her weak mother deliver AJ.
Their names? Amber and Jasmine — AJ was named after them. Another incident was when AJ had to call for help after her mother overdosed and the poor little thing was taken by social services. We can now see why AJ is the way she is and why she was so scared to be in a hospital.
The episode also takes us back to Robert's experience in an ER when he had to take his best friend Louis to the hospital. Having suffered a stroke, Louis ends up losing his eyesight but never loses Robert. "Nothing good comes from this place", said Robert and the boy was in the right.
On the bright side, Damien Sanchez, Robert's ex-boyfriend and his sidekick Lady Danger are still following Robert, so they can kill him.
Sanchez doesn't want anything to do with Danger's crimes anymore but is still stuck with the vile criminal. After Lady Dangers gets caught for using Lorraine Bracco's credit card, Sanchez leaves her to rot in jail as he gets away with all her cash left in the car's trunk. Yes, Lorraine Bracco from the 'Sopranos' makes a cameo!
The reality of how children of addicts cope with their traumatic experiences is highlighted in this episode. Although, AJ is happy to have Robert's support, and so are we!
All episodes of Season 1 of 'AJ and the Queen' are now streaming on Netflix.