Modern TV shows like FX’s Atlanta are unlike anything else on television today. Debuting in 2016, the show follows Earn (Donald Glover) and his cousin, Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry), as a famous rapper and hopeful manager living in Atlanta. The characters navigate the Atlanta music scene with friends (LaKeith Lee Stanfield) and lovers (Zazie Beetz), addressing social and economic issues along the way. The premise of sounding like a comedy is a disservice to the intelligence of this series. Each season, layers of satirical comedy peeled back with characters audiences could care about.
every season Atlanta tries to address various issues in the context of the location. Season one focused on establishing the characters and setting. season two, Robbin Season, targeting the city of Atlanta at a time of ongoing robberies. Season three took the group internationally to Amsterdam and showed how “Blackness” is experienced around the world. Season four so far focuses on bringing the characters back home and dealing with new social divides. They take home parallels where our society is today.
Real, recognizable characters
Over four seasons, there is a cast of easily identifiable and likable characters. Glover, the show’s creator, puts together a story that features solo episodes each season. Giving these four characters their own episodes allows the audience to get to know them individually and makes the group episodes more fun. The camaraderie between the four is infectious, but wouldn’t be effective without them spending time alone. Earn, Alfred, Darius and Van all see the world through very different glasses. Each season, these characters can grow and evolve, while also commenting on the state of the world today.
Earn (Glover) is the show’s idea of the “Everyman” being thrown into crazy situations. In season one, he is written as a Princeton dropout with no focus on his life. A character depicted as a blank slate has hidden depths that are not immediately revealed. The reasoning behind Earn quitting Princeton is a plot device for the first season. Only in the show’s fourth season does Glover reveal why Earning was a drop out.
For three seasons. Earn is seen as a black man navigating the music industry in America. In the fourth season, the character has been re-contextualized, with some of his previous season decisions making sense. Earn is introduced in season one as someone who wants to provide for his family, but by season four he becomes someone else. Was he, instead of the family man, someone who just craved success in a racist world? It’s a deep question that gets the public thinking.
Van (Beetz) is another character that gets a realistic evolution over three seasons. A character who is meant to be a “supportive wife” gains agency through an emotional breaking point. During the show’s third season, Van is mostly absent with brief appearances. There is a mystery behind her absence and why she is in Amsterdam in the first place. The season three finale is a From-directed episode that feels, at first glance, like you’re just watching this woman collapse. The writing shows that there is more to her than just being a woman and someone who wants to experience a different life. Glover writes her as someone who craves independence in a racist and sexist world. This finale explains that her tribulations over the past two seasons were a cry for help that no one heard. There is both nuance and subtlety that make this character different from any other heroine on TV. The horror movie-inspired finale helped Van give an emotional reward to the arc established in season one.
Darius (Stanfield) has been the heart of the entire series from the start. His philosophical speeches are the funniest moments of some series. The character is also thrown into rather shady situations but is someone who always remains himself. He is the humanity of the show and the rest of the good in the world. A character who is not interested in causing a fight gives Atlanta room for modesty. Having someone to relieve the tension helps make the moral messages even more effective.
Alfred (Tyree Henry), as rapper Paper Boi, is an analysis of a popular black celebrity. His character has to play two roles that cause internal conflicting emotions, which makes some of the best episodes of the series. As he gets better known, it’s easy to see how he longs to be himself rather than uphold a persona. Notably in season three, episode six titled “White Fashion”” we see Alfred draw a line between race and social order. It’s a character evolution and a general episode that forces the viewer to ask, “Is our mission to help our community or ourselves?” it’s a powerful question that the character has been dealing with since season one. Such a rare existential question makes Atlanta unlike anything else on TV.
Season four follows a divided season three
Atlanta has not avoided a number of missteps in his story. The characters going international in the third season didn’t happen as expected. Four episodes of the ten-part season do not contain our main characters. Wide swings were taken with Glover wishing to comment on the state of America. They were ambitious ideas that didn’t always work, but offered something different than before. This was a surprising season, especially after a four-year gap between season two. Cameos from celebrities such as Alexander Skarsgård took us on a cerebral journey that caused deep thought.
It was a season that raised questions, but did not provide direct answers. The philosophizing was just too much for the public at the time to turn their heads. This unique shift from standalone episodes made fans eager and hesitant to watch season four. After such a divisive season three, audiences had high hopes for this latest adventure. At the time of writing this article, only three episodes of Atlanta’s fourth season aired. After a season that is divisive with complex ideas, Season Four combines the best elements of every other season.
The uniqueness of Atlanta and its final season makes it one of the best television series ever.