“The Most Atlanta” and “The Homeliest Little Horse”

After one main leg of a European tour, Atlanta has finally come back to Atlanta. Season three came out this spring, with its characters falling into several outlandish situations on another continent — that is, when it wasn’t completely taking the audience away from the main four. Season four therefore focuses on what happens when Earn, Alfred, Darius and Van return home and resume the lives they may have outgrown. Based on this two-part premiere, fans can breathe a sigh of relief that the final season will be back-to-basics, yet perfectly elevated by the weight of what the characters have been through.

By the way, this is the first time I’m summarizing The AV club. (Hi! Nice to meet you.) So I have to tell you that I’m one of those fans who quickly lost interest with season sixty’s self-contained episodes. They seemed like a way for the show to continue commenting on America without the characters actually being in America, but once the surprise wore off, the quick move away from the main four ended up being a disservice to the show. Atlanta is at its best when it shows the characters’ responses to surreal situations. Its earliest departures from everyday life (“PROHIBIT” and “Teddy Perkins”) featured Al and Darius as audience surrogates; we had a strong sense of how they would react and could be happy that they either said what we’ve been waiting for or carried the scenario to its conclusion. When season three dropped viewers into character studies about replacements or “the culture of black in America” ​​without our known surrogates, there wasn’t enough to hold us in.

CHARACTERS FOR “THE HOME LITTLE HORSE” (SEASON 4, EPISODE 2): A-

On the other hand, the plot in season four’s first episode (“The Most Atlanta”) between Darius and the hyper-determined property protector so Darius that it works completely. Of course, this man, who we’ve seen to be slightly out of sync with the world to the point of ignoring flashing warning signs, would waltz into a Measure stand-in during a robbery to return a gift for cash. And of course, even if he is not involved to such an extent as to be ridiculous, the woman would pay attention to him because he carries a symbol of middle-class aspiration. Once the setup is there (and why in the world wouldn’t this exact set of circumstances happen Atlanta?), the sequence devolves into pure black comedy as this woman’s supernatural determination sends her across town to stab a man for stealing an air fryer.

While Darius walks out on his assailant, Earn and Van are trapped among their exes. So many suburbanites have that one mall they won’t go to because if they do, they’ll run into everyone they know. (My dad started avoiding the mall when he was dating my mom, and it continues to this day.) “The Most Atlanta” turns that concept into a full-fledged horror in a way that’s so visceral and so Atlanta that I plan to show clips of it to anyone who asks, “So what’s that series about?” Plus, the sequence gives Earn and Van a chance to reaffirm their partnership, that neither will be sent to the former graveyard by the other. It’s not enough of a sequence to fill an entire episode, but it’s important and impressive and visually compelling, with Hiro Murai returning to the director’s chair.

Meanwhile, Al’s journey in “The Most Atlanta” counts on the legacy of another local superstar. Scavenger hunts designed around new music releases are not a new concept at all. (Glover even created an online search for one secret Childish Gambino tracks in 2014.) Social media platforms have taken the practice mainstream and global to the point where the chase can be a corny PR stuntbut Atlanta pulls the exercise back to its lo-fi roots to show Al embarking on an exploration of what are probably Blueblood’s favorite spots in his town. A menu item at a barbecue joint, a broken dryer at a laundromat, an original cartoon, and even a 3D movie set a path through an end-of-life celebration. Every part of Blueblood’s death and funeral is intentional, from the three-month-delayed statement to his most devoted fans taking a symbolic piece of him with them. Not that many people will see his final mystery, but the most important people will, and it’s a powerful message for Al to have as he approaches mainstream stardom.

If the first episode became a classic Atlanta, “The Homeliest Little Horse” shows how the series—and Glover’s performance—has evolved. Had I heard at any point in Season 1 that a later episode would be about a therapy session, I would have reacted with a healthy dose of skepticism (and probably would have felt the same at any point before “Teddy Perkins” and “Three strikes.” This exploration of Earn’s self-proclaimed love of pettiness comes at a perfect time in the series, and not just because it answers questions about Earn’s motivations that fans have had since 2016. It feels justified instead of navel-gazing, and this show has always been about the slow game.

I’ll stay relatively spoiler-free about the episode’s big reveal in case anyone reads this before watching (note: don’t!), but the way the episode hinted at a possibility of the white woman’s connection to Earn before revealing the truth got me to look at his actions in a whole new light. The Leader’s plan is pettiness at its finest, but at this point he has been dragged down just as far, probably even further, than the object of his revenge. This may also be the most sympathetic portrayal of a white person on a show, how often white people are the villains. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for this woman as she’s obviously being cheated on (although that’s probably the hopeful novelist connection).

Atlanta plays a long game with what it says about wealth and power in American society: Parts of season three showed that white people had the advantage (see “The Old Man and the Tree”), and two of the independents portrayed what could happen if blacks got a taste. Now Earn is the one screwing with white people, and as the show continues to explore the gray areas of cultural dynamics, that might not bode well for him. Each member of the main quartet is likely to count on the feeling that they have come home different than when they left. Whether it’s in their pockets, their mindsets, or their literal locations, Earn, Van, Al and Darius are on to…something.

Stray Observations

• I can’t stress this enough: Darius tried to return an air fryer he got as one gift. It’s a brilliant extra layer of “oh, he’s got money now” behavior for this scene.
• I grew up in LA, but stories about Atlanta’s traffic strike fear into my heart.
• It’s great that Van’s ex who works at the cell phone store shows up before “The Most Atlanta” reveals the full horror of that place. Maybe his life just hasn’t moved on the same trajectory as Van’s has.
• Deborah Cox’s “Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here” playing over the mall speakers is *chef’s kiss.*
• Apologies to the man who will now live with the eternal name, “The Last American White I’ve Kissed.”
• I strongly encourage all Atlanta natives/residents to post their Atlanta Station stories in the comments; I would love to learn if the mall really is The Blair Witch Project forest but for exes.
• My favorite part of the scavenger hunt is when Al has to play a shooting game for a certain number of tickets to get the T-shirt.
• The absolutely perfect logline for “The Homeliest Little Horse” reads: “We have grown men out here who are so petty. You really need therapy. I don’t know, because I already know what’s wrong with me.”
• We probably won’t get the full explanation for the second incident that took Earn from Princeton student to essentially homeless person, and the therapy sequences are so good that we don’t need to know more. Glover’s performance leaves us with the massive effect it had on Earn.
• I totally see Darius as Al’s platonic life partner so an interesting later story could explore one wanting to leave and the other wanting to stay.