Every episode of Atlanta starts from a sitcom premise, then goes somewhere far more thoughtful Earn and Alfred visit a Spotify-esque streaming service in the season’s second episode. How is it able to encompass so much, in running times that never feel padded, while still being able to shift tones on a dime, when so many other TV shows in its “not quite comedy, but not quite drama” space struggle to do so? It’s all due to its rock-solid sitcom construction.

Authenticity is considered necessary to individualism, but Glover is fascinated by how difficult achieving authenticity even is for his characters.Īnd yet Atlanta is a comedy - and a frequently hilarious one at that. The second season is obsessed with differences between “fake” and “real,” from $100 bills Earn tries to use that are assumed to be counterfeit because he’s black to the idea of our reality being a mere simulation in some other universe, all of us video game characters. Yes, it’s Glover’s attempt to create a series that underlines the black experience in modern America, but it’s also about attempts to transcend one’s own identity, to figure out what it means to be an individual in a world intent on quickly pigeonholing everyone.

The Jewish man says, sure, but being a lawyer inevitably requires connections - and black people rarely have the same level of connections for “systemic reasons.” He’s trying to be polite, but his response is a reminder to Earn (who is working as Alfred’s manager, another job requiring connections) of all that holds him in place even when his career seems to move forward.Ītlanta, then, is about the intricacies of identity. In the finale, Earn asks a Jewish man, who’s suggested that his cousin could be the perfect entertainment lawyer for Earn’s cousin, Alfred ( Brian Tyree Henry), the up-and-coming rapper Paper Boi, if there’s any way a black lawyer could be as good of a lawyer as the other man’s cousin. It’s a show about how the world, as seen through the eyes of Earn and his friends, is haunted by the ghosts of other selves.

Stories in Atlanta are tied together less by plot or even character than mood. Atlanta Robbin’ Season isn’t here to make anyone feel better

Atlanta season 2 episode 1