Despite being one of the best and most fascinating series on current television, ‘Atlanta’ is not very famous in Spain. Today, September 15, the last season of the Donald Glover series -better known as Childish Gambino- premieres on FX, and expectations might not be higher.
There are several reasons why ‘Atlanta’, available on Disney+, is not as well known in our country, but the most important is that it is totally aimed at an audience familiar with black culture, hip hop culture and, in general, with the sociopolitical climate of the United States, which already excludes a considerable percentage of viewers. To enjoy it, it is essential to see it in English – the dubbing is horrible, but it is not necessary to take a career. If you’re interested in American hip hop, it’s a must, but you’ll also enjoy it if you like Jordan Peele’s movies.
Surely what most attracts the audience in our country is that the creator of ‘Atlanta’ is none other than Childish Gambino. Donald Glover is also a co-writer and occasional director of the series and his five Grammys, two Emmys and two Golden Globes certify him as a true figure of the Renaissance spirit. From his first appearances on television as part of the casting for ‘Community’, to the unforgettable video clip for ‘This Is America’, passing through the launch of ‘Redbone’, Childish Gambino has always been an innovator. However, it is not the only cog in the wheel or the only reason why ‘Atlanta’ is such an acclaimed series. If Donald Glover’s resume is a promise of quality, the rest of the main cast more than delivers.
Lakeith Stanfield (‘Sorry To Bother You’, ‘Daggers In The Back’), Zazie Beetz (‘Joker’, ‘Deadpool 2’) and Brian Tyree Henry (‘Eternals’, ‘Bullet Train’) deliver such extremely real performances and honest that you will find it difficult not to get hooked on their characters following the first episode. As for the behind-the-scenes team, the show holds the distinction of being the only American television series with an entirely African-American writing team.
Now, what is ‘Atlanta’ regarding? It’s a comedy? It’s a drama? Is it an existentialist work with Afro-surrealist touches? A bit of everything. The book answer would be that ‘Atlanta’ is a dramatic comedy that tells the story of Earn Marks (Glover), a young man from this city who struggles daily to maintain the balance between his semi-relationship with Van (Beetz) and his semi-career as manager of his cousin Alfred (Tyree Henry), aka Paper Boi, an emerging rapper on the Atlanta music scene.
The answer of someone who has seen and reviewed all the chapters would be that ‘Atlanta’ is a series capable of perfectly reflecting reality and building around it, at the same time, a surreal, dreamlike and even nightmarish world. Through the unusual experiences of Earn, Alfred and the hilarious Darius (Stanfield), the series deals with topics such as racism, fame or the meaning of being a black or white person in the United States, and thus launches comments wrapped in applicable satire. to the real world. Additionally, each episode functions as a stand-alone short story, despite an overall background narrative chronicling Paper Boi’s rise to fame.
As happened in ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘Better Call Saul’, ‘Atlanta’ becomes darker and darker as the seasons go by. The first of these (2016) has a lighter and more sympathetic tone than the rest and the episodes seem to be more consistent with each other. Without going any further, that season had the funniest episode of the entire series. titled ‘B.A.N.’ (Black American Network), the chapter was constructed as if it were a real television program, mixing fictitious commercials with images of an interview with Paper Boi. Undoubtedly, the highlight of the episode, which also gave rise to a meme, is the section in which a man appears who, despite being black, feels white. Even in its less strange stage, the series was already pointing ways.
The second season (2018) receives the subtitle of Robbin’ Season (“robbery season”) and it is not just an aesthetic decision. This batch of chapters places the characters in the holiday season before Christmas, so that people “have more gifts, more things and more money”, in words from the executive producer of ‘Atlanta’Stephen Glover. What does this mean? That there are more robberies. Even in real life, the months leading up to Christmas in Atlanta are very tense and crime spikes. The chapters of this season show much more dangerous and threatening situations for the characters, without leaving humor aside, and they really manage to leave you with that feeling of “bad body” at the end of them. It is in this season where the series finds the perfect balance between surrealism and pure reality, with also the best episode of the show, or at least the most valued on IMDb, with a tremendous 9.7 out of 10: ‘Teddy Perkins’. A standalone marked by the music of Stevie Wonder in which Darius travels to a large mansion where he receives a strange guy named Teddy Perkins. If I talk more, I’ll spoiler.
The third season premiered in March this year and in it the protagonists change scenery and move to Europe. It is a very different selection of chapters compared to what has been seen so far. The series embraces the abstract completely, in structure and form, to the point that half of the chapters are stories unrelated to the main characters. It is the season of “the white ghost”, it is the one that goes deeper into the social differences between black and white people and it is, ironically, the one that has polarized the public’s opinions the most. Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it’s completely in your face.
Still, Glover showed great courage with the first chapter, titled ‘Three Slaps’. The episode came out four years following the season two finale and shows neither Earn, nor Alfred, nor Darius, nor anyone the audience has spent time with. And despite this, ‘Atlanta’ continued to surprise with a brilliant, original and chilling exercise in “alternate true history”, similar in many ways to what Tarantino did with the end of ‘Once upon a time in Hollywood’. It is worth mentioning that this season has one of the most unlikely cameos ever seen on television.
In the last and fourth season, the protagonists will return to their native Atlanta, to say goodbye to the series at home. Donald Glover spoke regarding the reason for the end of the series and, apart from taking the blame from any multinational, gave a forceful response: «Death is natural, I think that when the conditions are good for something to happen, it happens, and when the conditions are not good, it does not happen. The story of ‘Atlanta’ has always been what it was, and the reality is that the story was us. Everyone in the writers room, everyone on set, it’s what we’ve been through and what we’ve talked regarding, and that’s the only way I like to do things. I think it ends perfectly.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-jmFA1NMk
