Review: Atlanta S03E01 – Three Strikes (Season Opener) – The return of Paper Boi without Paper Boi

“Atlanta” is back for Season 3, and this time everything is supposed to be different. Whereby ‘different’ is relative in this series, which Donald Glover came up with and in which he also plays the leading role. Because if you think back to the last two seasons, there was really a lot ‘different’ than in other series, sometimes individual episodes even fell out of the linear narrative of their own series – just think of the “Teddy Perkins” episode .

“Hey, is your father’s name Hugs?”

In Season 3, Earn, Paper Boi & Co. are headed to Europe – as the trailer suggests. But there is nothing to be seen of that in the opening episode. Not even from Earn or Paper Boi. Rather, we see two strangers sailing and fishing on a river at night. The two escalate into a conversation regarding what it means to be black and white and what people try to do to fit into each other’s groups. It ends in a brief moment of horror before we see a young student waking up in class – he must have just dreamed it. This boy – Loquareeous – is the focus of the episode, which turns out to be really wacky. After the dream, it begins with a harmless dance moment by Loquareeous, who is instead quoted as referring to the school administration. His mother is supposed to pick him up there, from whom he – as well as the school management – gets into trouble. This calls the youth welfare office into action, but to the surprise of all Loquareeous, Loquareeous simply gets it handed over to them by their mother.

But that’s where the real horror begins for Loquareeous, because he ends up in a family of a white, lesbian couple who only takes in black children. The next few minutes just feel extremely uncomfortable, because the two mothers seem a bit trying on the one hand, but completely fail on the other. It makes you really feel sorry for the kids, and you keep wondering when they’ll be able to get away from them both – or at least Loquareeous. But several escape attempts fail.

I don’t know if you know this from your own dreams, but I experience it sometimes in such a way that you dream something and then want to get out of it, but somehow you can’t find a way out. The train goes forever, you can’t find an exit door in the building, etc. Very uncomfortable feeling, and Donald Glover, Stephen Glover and director Hiro Murai create that here too. So does this mean that Loquareeous’ current life also feels like a dream? That’s right, what is experienced is actually another dream – that of Earn, who can still be seen briefly at the very end of the episode. What the dream is regarding and where Earn is actually located is not resolved – we are already at the end of the episode.

In the review for season 2 I already mentioned how uncomfortable the episode “Teddy Perkins” had felt – even with this Loquareeous episode you get that queasy feeling once more, with which we start the season here. The episode is once more well told and staged – Hiro Murai’s handwriting is immediately recognizable, fortunately. In addition, there is the surprise effect of this episode, in which we wait the whole time for the European adventure of Paper Boi & Co. to finally start. But we’ll have to wait for another episode. Although the expectation is not fulfilled – the opening sequence is not a disappointment, quite the opposite.

PS: In Germany, the episode will be shown on Disney+ from June 29, 2022.

Photos: FX