Still as Brilliant and Hilarious as Ever

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After nearly four years since the end of Season 2, Atlanta returns with two episodes that begin with characters waking up. This makes perfect sense, as in its first two seasons, the Donald Glover-created series often felt like a fever dream, the only show that could say some of its biggest inspirations were Twin Peaks and Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation and actually have combination make sense. With each new episode, Atlanta plays by its own rules, untethered by what came before or what will come after.

Sure, Atlanta is primarily the story of Earn (Glover) managing the up-and-coming rap career of his cousin Alfred aka Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), working on his relationship with Van (Zazie Beetz), who is the mother of his daughter, and dealing with the mercurial Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), but that’s merely a jumping-off point for Atlanta to explore whatever it wants. Atlanta has set the table with these characters, but that doesn’t mean the show can’t have a food fight every once in a while.

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Right away (at least in these first two episodes), the biggest disruption of Season 3 is that Earn and co. are no longer in Georgia, but have gone to Europe. With Paper Boi on a European tour, that allows Atlanta to craft a fish-out-of-water story while remaining true to the type of unpredictable and bewildering stories that the show is already known for. Although the setting has changed, these characters and their situations are the grounding force for the insanity that is to come. Even as a manager, Earn is still struggling to stay afloat, Alfred’s star continues to rise, Van is attempting to find her place in the world, and Daris is just happy to stay high for a week straight in Amsterdam.

Image via FX

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This might all sound vague, but part of the beauty of Atlanta is watching how each episode unfurls and evolves over the course of 30 minutes. Atlanta is one of the few shows where it’s impossible to predict where it will go in any given episode, and its structure almost acts more like a series of short films instead of a linear structure that one expects from what is technically a comedy. It’s this kind of season composition that allows for some narrative development for our cast, but also allows for episodes like “BAN,” which put Paper Boi as the guest on a fake talk show, or Atlanta’s largest triumph so far, the hilarious and disturbing “Teddy Perkins.”

But this is all to say that in its third season, Atlanta hasn’t changed its structure in that way, and it’s best to go into each episode not knowing what the show has in store. To be as obscure as possible with these first two episodes as to not give anything away, “Three Slaps” starts the season with an almost-horror plot that tells a constantly shifting and strange story in a way only Atlanta can. Meanwhile, the second episode, “Sinterklass Is Coming to Town,” is more straightforward, focusing on what Earn, Al, Darius, and Van have been up to since we last saw them.

Both of these episodes take us deeper into the way that Earn sees the world by utilizing metaphors wrapped in pop culture, urban legends, and deep-seated fears, and by showing the absurd and surreal way the world can be — especially when dropped into a new and uncertain culture. Together, these two episodes are a primer for Atlanta at its best: the series thrives when it’s indulging in weird concepts that are only tangentially connected to the overarching story, but is just as engaging when it’s the adventures of these four people in the day- to-day. Sometimes it’s nice for Atlanta to blow your mind, but sometimes, it’s just nice to watch Darius get really high and go coat shopping.

Image via FX

These first two episodes are directed by frequent Atlanta director and Glover collaborator Hiro Murai and are an excellent example of what makes him such a perfect match with Glover’s vision. Each of these episodes quickly shifts between comedy, horror, drama, and surrealist touches, and Murai handily takes on anything that Atlanta could possibly ask of him. But Murai captures every scene with the same amount of beauty or care-whether it’s the gorgeous streets of Amsterdam or a house cluttered with trash and half-finished projects.

Season 3 also proves that Atlanta is simply one of the best written shows on television. Again, the first episode, written by Stephen Glover, is rich with deeper meanings and ideas, crafted within a modern-day fable of sorts, whereas the second episode, from Janine Nabers, digs deeper into these characters without expanding on exactly what they ‘ ve been up to since Season 2. These characters still have many of the same problems that we’ve known them to have, but they’ve also grown more into themselves, more confident in their situations, yet not without their insecurities.

Image via FX

But as always, what makes Atlanta so incredibly impressive is its talent for melding all of these wild stories, these fascinating characters, and even the narrative digressions, and puts them into one of the funniest shows on television. From uncomfortable situations to hilarious asides from Darius, Atlanta packs so much into an episode, then still makes each one unbelievably entertaining.

Atlanta has always tried to do a lot of things as once, and the beauty is that it does all of these things so well, near-perfectly, to the point that there are few series that can even come close to what Glover and his team are doing here. Even though four years have passed since last season, Season 3 demonstrates that Atlanta remains every bit as comical, confounding, and prescient as it ever was — maybe even more so than before. Even though we know to expect the unexpected from Atlanta, the series still remains one of the indefinable and unique shows ever made, a shock to the television landscape that is unlike anything else. Atlanta has always been great, but with these first two episodes of Season 3, it continues its path of becoming one of the all-time greats.

Rating: A+

Atlanta premieres its first two episodes on March 24, with both episodes coming to FX the next day. New episodes will premiere each Thursday on FX, and will be available to stream on Friday through Hulu.

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About The Author

Ross Bonaime (260 Articles Published)

Ross Bonaime is the Weekday News Editor at Collider. He is a Virginia-based writer and editor who had written about all forms of entertainment for Paste Magazine, Brightest Young Things, Flickchart, The Free Lance-Star, and more. He has an unhealthy obsession with theme parks and the Criterion Collection and will defend the Lost finale until his dying day. More at RossBonaime.com.

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