I just finished watching Season 4. I think it is a great series, and I was glad to go wherever it took me. And,man, it takes you to some weird places. I enjoyed the last two seasons more than the first two, which I guess is different from how most other folks feel. I agree that Donald Glover is just addressing the issues that he wants to address. It seems he didn’t want to be constrained by the limitations of the show’s characters and general plot. The main storyline was awkwardly dropped (mostly) in the third season, but some of those anthology series-like episodes were pretty brilliant on their own terms. This was one of the more creative series that I’ve ever seen. I thought he very effectively used surrealism and fantasy as more palatable/less pontifical ways of talking about what is all too real. The final season, save the ingenious Disney documentary episode, returns its focus on the four main characters in a gratifying way. And it was more funny, too. The Crank Dat video killer concept was some inspired lunacy.
My favorite character throughout was Darius, played so beautifully by Lakeith Stanfield. Somehow he served as an anchor for the other three, who were always struggling and trying to grow. Darius was always just Darius, out to enjoy life. An anchor floating in air.
I look forward to what Glover and his creative team will come up with next. It will be hard to out-do Atlanta.
Atlanta ends
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OscarGuy
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Re: Atlanta ends
I've always been interested, but I'm never at a loss for stuff to watch, so I'm unlikely to get to it anytime soon.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Atlanta ends
I don't get the impression that Donald Glover's Atlanta had many fans on this board, but it just aired its final episode last week. My take on Atlanta was that it was the perfect show to serve as a hinge from the wave of meta-infused comedy from the previous era (Community being the perfect example) to the new era of personal, more authentic comedies (Fleabag, I May Destroy You). When it arrived in 2016 before Trump's Presidency, it felt like one of the hottest tickets and seemed to link some of the day's more pressing racial and economic questions. But it ended feeling like a total non-event for some interesting reasons.
Mild spoilers ahead:
Atlanta started as a reasonably focused (and fresh) story of Earnest "Earn" Mark (Glover), a Princeton dropout, who is now a single father with an on-again/off-again relationship with his child's mother (Zazie Beets), and he is desperate to do something with his life besides resign himself to a meaningless job. He finds that opportunity when his cousin, Alfred (the brilliant Brian Tyree Henry), becomes a local hit rapping under the name "Paper Boi," and Earn becomes his manager. The first two seasons track Earn's efforts pretty closely, as we see a reasonably compelling success/failure rate on his quest to break out of his state and find something else. The parting note at the end of season one is the revelation that Earn lives in a storage facility. Along the way, the series dabbles in a surrealism that has earned comparisons to David Lynch. Out of nowhere, the series reveals that in this world Justin Bieber is black or there is an invisible car that runs people over. These touches become conversation pieces, but increasingly people have touched on a larger conversation of why Atlanta feels so weird. Rarely an episode goes on without one of the main four characters stuck frozen in a particularly weird moment, looking around, unsure of what they're supposed to do. Trapped, really. Atlanta suggests a place where its black protagonists have sneaking suspicions that something in their life is just wrong (that their destiny has ben taken from them?). And they might be right.
The series had a lofty balancing act between tones, subjects, and engines, but as it went along it began to frustrate its fans. Part of this is due to the lengthy delay between seasons two and three (COVID). But also, it became clear that Glover was less interested in returning to the series conflict of Earn having to make Paper Boi's career every episode; or maybe he just realized that it was fundamentally unsustainable or repetitive as an engine? Fewer and fewer episodes as the series went on focused on Al's career and more of them felt like short stories about pertinent issues to Glover. Last month, he did a fantastic faux-documentary about the first black President of Disney in the early 1990's and re-contextualizes A Goofy Movie as a film about black fatherhood, with zero characters from the series. Or in season three, he did a fantastic episode about reparations being implemented, which seemed to suggest would impact Earn before the series end. I've never seen a series in my life where you never quite know what you are going to get week to week like Atlanta. It's the only series in my life where I wouldn't put it past them to drop an episode of just dead air. I've seen more brilliant episodes of Atlanta than probably any other comedy series of the last half decade. I've also had my patience tried.
There is also a fourth character played by LaKeith Stanfield, as the perpetually stoned, monk-like Darius who is the only person in this series who is at peace with his existence. The four of them together function as an inspired Seinfeld-ian quartet. There has been a lot written about why Atlanta has gone in the direction that it has. Scheduling no doubt has played a role as everybody in this cast has seen their careers take off, but certainly the focus of series creator Donald Glover has shifted. People have bent over backwards to make sense of it, but I think the answer is pretty simple. Every show goes back to its characters. If the engine can't sustain the banter, the engine will shift before the characters. The last episode is about Earn, Al, and Van going to a black-owned "authentic" sushi restaurant out of obligation when all they really want to do is go across the street to the Popeye's while Darius goes to a sensory deprivation tank ("a dep date") unsure if everything he is experiencing is a dream. That's... sort of a typical Atlanta episode and does not feel like a fitting conclusion, with one exception: it's the only series I can think of that might have used aging as an engine. When the series began in 2016, Millennials were in the zeitgeist. Now they're not. They're old and tired. In season four, the characters are confronted with age at every turn. Once you get past the restless ambition of youth and nestle into a comfort with your success in life, you just sort of... live it. Atlanta is content to pass the torch.
Anyway, so long, Atlanta, the weirdest great show of my generation.
Mild spoilers ahead:
Atlanta started as a reasonably focused (and fresh) story of Earnest "Earn" Mark (Glover), a Princeton dropout, who is now a single father with an on-again/off-again relationship with his child's mother (Zazie Beets), and he is desperate to do something with his life besides resign himself to a meaningless job. He finds that opportunity when his cousin, Alfred (the brilliant Brian Tyree Henry), becomes a local hit rapping under the name "Paper Boi," and Earn becomes his manager. The first two seasons track Earn's efforts pretty closely, as we see a reasonably compelling success/failure rate on his quest to break out of his state and find something else. The parting note at the end of season one is the revelation that Earn lives in a storage facility. Along the way, the series dabbles in a surrealism that has earned comparisons to David Lynch. Out of nowhere, the series reveals that in this world Justin Bieber is black or there is an invisible car that runs people over. These touches become conversation pieces, but increasingly people have touched on a larger conversation of why Atlanta feels so weird. Rarely an episode goes on without one of the main four characters stuck frozen in a particularly weird moment, looking around, unsure of what they're supposed to do. Trapped, really. Atlanta suggests a place where its black protagonists have sneaking suspicions that something in their life is just wrong (that their destiny has ben taken from them?). And they might be right.
The series had a lofty balancing act between tones, subjects, and engines, but as it went along it began to frustrate its fans. Part of this is due to the lengthy delay between seasons two and three (COVID). But also, it became clear that Glover was less interested in returning to the series conflict of Earn having to make Paper Boi's career every episode; or maybe he just realized that it was fundamentally unsustainable or repetitive as an engine? Fewer and fewer episodes as the series went on focused on Al's career and more of them felt like short stories about pertinent issues to Glover. Last month, he did a fantastic faux-documentary about the first black President of Disney in the early 1990's and re-contextualizes A Goofy Movie as a film about black fatherhood, with zero characters from the series. Or in season three, he did a fantastic episode about reparations being implemented, which seemed to suggest would impact Earn before the series end. I've never seen a series in my life where you never quite know what you are going to get week to week like Atlanta. It's the only series in my life where I wouldn't put it past them to drop an episode of just dead air. I've seen more brilliant episodes of Atlanta than probably any other comedy series of the last half decade. I've also had my patience tried.
There is also a fourth character played by LaKeith Stanfield, as the perpetually stoned, monk-like Darius who is the only person in this series who is at peace with his existence. The four of them together function as an inspired Seinfeld-ian quartet. There has been a lot written about why Atlanta has gone in the direction that it has. Scheduling no doubt has played a role as everybody in this cast has seen their careers take off, but certainly the focus of series creator Donald Glover has shifted. People have bent over backwards to make sense of it, but I think the answer is pretty simple. Every show goes back to its characters. If the engine can't sustain the banter, the engine will shift before the characters. The last episode is about Earn, Al, and Van going to a black-owned "authentic" sushi restaurant out of obligation when all they really want to do is go across the street to the Popeye's while Darius goes to a sensory deprivation tank ("a dep date") unsure if everything he is experiencing is a dream. That's... sort of a typical Atlanta episode and does not feel like a fitting conclusion, with one exception: it's the only series I can think of that might have used aging as an engine. When the series began in 2016, Millennials were in the zeitgeist. Now they're not. They're old and tired. In season four, the characters are confronted with age at every turn. Once you get past the restless ambition of youth and nestle into a comfort with your success in life, you just sort of... live it. Atlanta is content to pass the torch.
Anyway, so long, Atlanta, the weirdest great show of my generation.
"How's the despair?"