notes on: Atlanta S3 [part one]
MEDIUM: Television
GENRE: Comedy/Drama
STUDIO: FX
EPISODES: 10
FAVORITE EPISODES: “The Big Payback” “Old Man And The Tree” “Cancer Attack” “New Jazz”
LEAST FAVORITE EPISODES: n/a
Release Year: 2022
[part one]
Season 2 of Atlanta ended in May 2018. At the end, Earn (played by Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino), Paper Boi (played by Brian Tyree Henry), and Darius (played by Lakeith Stanfield) board a flight to Europe to open up for Clark County on tour. The main characters have clarity and defined purpose moving forward because all of the anxieties that persisted throughout the second season had been resolved. The primary tension of season 2 was the viability of Earn as Paper Boi’s long term manager and Paper Boi coming to terms with his rising star while trying to retain his authenticity that propelled him into fame in the first place. Both conflicts coalesced into Earn attempting to frame Clark County with a gun charge. Paper Boi appreciated Earn’s grit and decided to keep his cousin on as his manager, cementing his foundation as a family-oriented operation. Season 3 of Atlanta picks up nowhere near any of this.
Four years have passed in real life between season 2 and season 3 and it was made clear season 2 occurred very shortly after season 1, so it would have been a big ask to expect Atlanta to remain in the same cultural space that the world was in nearly 7 years ago when the show debuted on FX. The main characters still spend the season in Europe but this is Paper Boi’s second European tour, not his first one. And he’s the headliner this time. Earn is good at his job now. No more selling drugs. There is no more anxiety about money. There has been a glow-up in every sense and as a result, most of the antagonism is found internally and the majority of the external strife has been washed in a zanier light, at least in regards to the main characters.
At SXSW’s 2022 Atlanta Q&A, Donald Glover said, “we just wanted to make a black fairy tale.” And it definitely feels that way. The afro-surrealist nature of the show exhibited in the first two seasons remains an anchor of their storytelling dynamic. The magical realism is subdued, the real life pastiches and eccentric characters are believable. I think it is an important note that even as the world they built got crazier and crazier, the people in that world stayed as bound as ever to human emotions, motives, and expectations.
The primary motif explored in season 3 is the “curse of whiteness.” Donald Glover said he and his team of writers heard someone complain about the burden of being white and their team really dedicated themselves to finding out exactly what that means and I think by the end of the season they added many worthwhile ideas to the conversation. A lot of the imagery behind these ideas were grounded in horror, with fear and comedy being closely related. A lot of words could be used to describe this season. Gothic, futuristic, evangelical, poststructuralist, folkloric, ghetto, postmodern, fantastical, romantic… Atlanta is somehow all of this.
The final and most interesting idea I kept an eye on throughout the duration of season 3 of Atlanta is the value of Atlanta as a point of view rather than a place. I am of the school that any place is really a people and a culture and that Atlanta would be Atlanta literally anywhere in the world. But Donald Glover said he and his brother, Stephen, simply wanted to showcase their viewpoint of the world and how the way they grew up influenced that. I think this approach is how Atlanta remained Atlanta while taking the primary characters away from the titular city for the entirety of the season. What is Atlanta, as a lens?
Season 3 is 10 episodes, split in two parts: 4 anthology style episodes with world building stories and 6 episodes centered on the core four characters (Earn, Paper Boi, Darius, and Van). The team behind Atlanta began the season away from the core four after already spending four years away from us. This contrarian mindset informed the entirety of the season.
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EPISODE I: “three slaps”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Stephen Glover
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song one: “Midnight” by Porter Wagoner
At rise, Atlanta is a dark expanse with a white man and a black man sitting on a dinghy fishing boat. A single light emanates from the base of their boat. The darkness of the sky is mirrored by the black of the water. A bridge is overhead. The white fisherman and the black fisherman toss back beers. The black fisherman suggests they should go home as “Midnight” by Porter Wagoner plays faintly on the radio. The black fisherman says the river always gave him the “heebie-jeebies,” that it’s murky, and he recalls a time he almost died in it. The black fisherman thinks back to the near-drowning and says that it felt as though hands were dragging him to the base of the river. His cousin had to save him. The white fisherman does not think this is an accident.
The white fisherman answers that it’s “shit water” due to a drowned self-governed black town being buried beneath the river. This folk tale is reminiscent of, and likely inspired by, the fables surrounding Georgia’s famed Lake Lanier where people often die in the water (over 200 people have died at Lake Lanier since 1994). The white fisherman says the town was intentionally flooded by white people in a racist attack against the black people for nearly achieving independent sustainability and equity. The white fisherman suggests that the river is haunted and that they were almost “white.” This is where Atlanta first re-defines an already widely known term.
For the most part, whiteness is seen as the state of being caucasian, having European heritage, or a close proximity to it. Due to many sociological and historical factors, whiteness is closely tied to privilege and prestige. “Whiteness” is not something we are supposed to be able to achieve, we either are or we aren’t. But Atlanta argues otherwise. The white fisherman says that white is not a real thing but a social circumstance paid for by blood and money. He says that white is where and when you are. And that whiteness is a blinding, chilling, hypothermia-inducing curse. He says that a white person is incapable of differentiating between their own blood and the blood of a black person. As the white fisherman drones on about whiteness and the spatial ignorance that comes along with it, his voice begins to fade away along with the music. The lights dim and the white fisherman loses his eyes. He screeches, “we’re cursed too!” at the black fisherman as oodles of black hands swarm the black fisherman and drag him into the shit water. Screen goes to black, we jump to a sleeping black teenage boy.
The white fisherman is an important character for the overall story arc of season 3 and his monologue to the black fisherman can serve as the hypothesis for the entire season. The scene is not just a prologue for episode one, but a clear and concise explanation for the overall argument Atlanta is working towards. What does it mean to become white? How does one ascertain the cause of whiteness? Who has the benefit of choosing whiteness? What do you lose when you choose it? Who are you without your whiteness? How do you break the curse?
The sleeping black teenage boy is Locquareeous Reed. His name is emphatic and dramatic and it does feel like a name from a black fairy tale. He wakes up in class and begins to dance after the teacher announces to the class that they’re taking a field trip to watch “the new Black Panther 2.” Locquareeous’s dance moves reference a viral video from 2018 when students from Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, GA broke into celebratory dance after hearing about a field trip to the initial Black Panther release. This is the first direct reference to viral content in the season.
Locquareeous gets in trouble for dancing his mother and grandpa have to come up to the school and get him from the principal’s office. In an all too familiar way, Locquareeous’s mother and grandpa are not receptive to the message from the principal or guidance counselor and decide to punish him in their own way, via public humiliation which comes in the form two other viral internet videos: slapping him three times in a single motion and forcing him to dance with tears in his eyes. Both videos were well circulated on the internet. Following the three slaps from his grandpa, the school advisor promises to take him away from his family and put him into a safer living environment. Locquareeous seems confused by her shock, the abuse is commonplace and hardly registers on his psyche.
song two: “Precious Memories” by Rosetta Thorpe
We follow Locquareeous to his home and we see a single parent-single child living situation. His mother runs everything on the basis of fear and controls him with the threat of her own omnipotence and violence. She is honest and aggressive and takes all resistance to be a show of ingratitude or disrespect. There is a familiarity to her. She is the worst of all of our mothers. I imagine her life is hard and Locquareeous, with his small issues, makes it harder. I want to hate her, but I have empathy for her. Locquareeous eats his mother’s spaghetti, a black American staple, while watching American Dad before a social case worker shows up. Locquareeous does not want to leave but the sight of the social case worker enrages his mother and she pushes him out of her house and into the arms of the system.
Locquareeous has been given to two lesbian white women. They’re progressive and notably “anti-racist.” They’re the gentrifiers, the type of white plague Jordan Peele warned against in 2018’s smash-hit Get Out. The first white woman is Amber, she says to call her mom. The second white woman is Gayle, she says to call her Gayle. They already have adopted three black kids by the time Locquareeous is brought to the house: Lanre, Yves, and Fatima. They have a small annoying dog named Cornpop.
The other children are quiet and seem sick and numb to the ways that Amber and Gayle are inadequate, at least in respect to their reactions. The house stinks, they’re broke, they microwave the fried chicken, they feed the dog human food, they don’t own any wash cloths, they’re living in a bando, and Locquareeous has slave-like chores where they want him sing hymns (he sings “Make No Sense” by Youngboy Never Broke Again). Locquareeous is very unhappy and that is constantly communicated both to the audience and to his caregivers, who write him off as ungrateful just as his real mother did. It feels different from the lesbian moms because they are pose real danger to him and write off his unhappiness as ignorance rather than spite. Locquareeous cannot eat the food they try to feed him. They make no effort to understand him. Gayle even renames Locquareeous as “Larry.”
I realize the additional layer to Locquareeous and the single story in a scene where Locquareeous has to wear a “free hugs” sign and a fedora to the co-op. The image is a direct reference to Devonte Hart, a black boy who went viral for shedding tears while hugging a police officer in 2014. The inspiration becomes crystal clear when Locquareeous hugs a police officer with tears in his eyes, begging him to take him away from his new white women mothers. Of course, the police officer does nothing.
The story takes a dark turn into a dramatic irony from this point forward. Devonte Hart and his adopted siblings were murdered when his white women mothers drove them off a California cliff in a misguided group suicide attempt that the children obviously did not consent to. All signs point to this being Locquareeous’s fate as well. The episode starts to feel like a ticking clock, marching towards tragedy. Ain’t shit funny for real.
Time goes on and Locquareeous starts having nightmares that meld the terrors from his new life with the ones from his old life (Cornpop-grandpa lol). A new black social case worker comes and notices the bad living situation for the children. She pledges to get them out of there after Locquareeous expresses his hunger to her. Gayle takes the new black social case worker to the side and it is insinutated that Gayle murders her before the whole family goes on the run. Her clipboard is strewn about the trash. They drive off, the Hart family fate awaits Locquareeous.
song three: “The Dream is Still Alive” by Wilson Phillips
The funniest bit in a rather heavy episode comes when Locquareeous, Yves, Fatima, and Lanre partake in a bit of black telepathy amidst their fear and anxiety about the final destination of Amber and Gayle’s journey.
These white women are gonna kill us.
Yeah nigga, we know!
Sweet release.
My hair hurts.
Amber and Gayle are not privy to this silent conversation but they stop at a rest stop and express doubts over their decision to end all of their lives. They decide they are doing the right thing but will spare Cornpop’s life. The most important moment here is when Amber asks, “why didn’t anyone stop us?” I feel as though this is Donald Glover asking the audience and America on the behalf of Devonte Hart and his siblings. The answer is white privilege, but more specifically the curse of whiteness inflicted upon them as explained by the white fisherman. Amber and Gayle collect themselves and get back in the van to kill their whole household.
song four: “Back Baby” by Jessica Pratt
As they near their final destination (the bridge over the shit water river from the beginning of the episode), Amber and Gayle lock hands and accept their fate. It’s a dark moment and I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for them. They turn around and expect to see their four black children in the back, thrust into death untimely, but they see Cornpop’s face instead. Locquareeous rolls from the trunk and safely onto the street just as van goes over the cliff and into the river at the base of the ravine.
There is an air of triumph and relief as Locquareeous rolls in the opposite direction of the evils he was subjected to throughout the episode. A lot of this relief comes from the anticipation of his story ending in the same way as Devonte Hart, but Atlanta used its powers to create a new reality in which his life and his story could continue. This is akin to how Quentin Tarantino re-imagined new endings to historical events in Inglourious Basterds (World War II) and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (the murder of Sharon Tate). The ability to remake the world as we want it to be is among the most important things a storyteller can do. Locquareeous is Devonte Hart but he is also thousands of other black boys, he is a single story but he’s not the single story. Amber asked why no one stopped them and someone should have. I wish someone stopped Jennifer and Sarah Hart.
The way they take real “minor” events in black culture and re-create them on screen definitely resembles the satirical brilliance of Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks, one of the highest compliments I can give.
song five: “When It’s Time To Go” by Buddy Fo and His Group
Locquareeous walked all the way back home. He grabs the key from under the mat and lets himself in. He washes the dishes she told him to wash before he was taken away. He slides back into his old life as if nothing happened. His real mother only says, “so you finally decided to come home, huh?” when she catches him in the kitchen. She scoffs. No hug. No grand re-entry or apology. Nothing is said. A lot has been learned. Locquareeous asks, “some spaghetti in there?” but he means I love you. And his mother responds, “yeah, it’s spaghetti in there” but she means I love you too.
Lanre, Yves, and Fatima were found on the side of the road according to the news before Locquareeous turned the TV to American Dad. He sits and eats the leftover spaghetti as the camera creeps over his shoulder, slowly moving in. Then the camera just stops and watches him. It’s time to go… It’s time to go… It’s time to go.. It’s time…
Locquareeous turns and we awaken on Earn’s face, for the first time this season. At first you can’t see anything except part of his face in an extreme close-up shot, but it cuts out and we can see Earn is waking up in a nice hotel room with some white woman. The blinds are shut all the way down but light is swimming into the room. There are open champagne glasses on the table. The white woman is still asleep. Earn doesn’t seem to know her. He sighs and drops his head.
song six: “Brown Rice” by Don Cherry
It is unclear if Locquareeous is supposed to be from a dream of Earn’s or not. The Inception-like effect of a dream inside of a dream works, especially given what transpires later on in the season. The white fisherman and black fisherman are buried deep within Earn’s subconscious and we know he easily could have been Locquareeous given a different set of circumstances. The single story has been brought home to the main storyline. The biggest question these “dreams” arise in my mind is this: what do the dreams communicate about Earn’s current mindset, desires, and anxieties?
EPISODE II: “sinterklass is coming to town”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Janine Nabers
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Episode 2 picks up exactly where episode 1 left off. Earn awakes in a hotel bed with the strange white woman after a night of sex. He goes to the bathroom to take a piss and his phone is blowing up. Swiss Air texts him that he’s late for his flight to Amsterdam. Alfred (Paper Boi) needs 20k. Van needs pickup from the airport. Darius is telling him about a persimmon that tasted like an avocado. He’s in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In under a minute of screen time, we understand where Earn is in life. He’s still engaging in frivolous and unfulfilling activities while his responsibilities continue to stack up as well. There is a sense of routine and unexceptionalism to the way Alfred asks for 20k. Money is no longer a big hurdle for them. He is still involved with Van in some way. He’s still running late for everything. And Darius is still eccentric.
song seven: “Shakara” by Fela Kuti
Earn leaves the hotel room in a rush after failing to communicate with the white girl because she doesn't even speak english. He leaves without his underwear or belt. Even in his elevated state (comparatively to Seasons 1 and 2) we see that he still finds ways to destroy himself. His responsibilities, his baby momma and the artist he manages, both need his help and he is not in a position to help either. Van has no ride from the airport. Alfred is in jail and does not have the money for bail.
Before dropping his pants at the airport security checkpoint, Earn asks Darius to pick up Van from the airport. From this point forward there are dual storylines for the episode. The first is centered on Earn and Alfred while the second centers on Darius and Van. We’ll call Earn and Alfred “storyline A” and Darius and Van “storyline B.”
song eight: “Maiysha” by Miles Davis
It’s awkward when Darius first picks up Van. The airline lost Van’s luggage and she needs a coat. It’s winter in Europe. Darius offers his coat but she declines and they decide to go buy one. They have a driver, Darius attributes it to “tour clout.” Darius is a naturally unconventional conversationalist and Van is often reserved so it was interesting to see them interact without Earn as a buffer. Earn is the only reason they have any type of relationship and aside from the “Champagne Papi” episode in Season 2, I don’t recall having seen them connect. It reminds me of the classic episode of Seinfeld when George and Elaine realize that they can’t hang out without Jerry unless Jerry was centered in their conversation. Darius even asks Van about Earn, in which Van replies that she has a boyfriend. Van seems uncomfortable talking about Earn at all but distracted more than anything else.
Darius and Van finally have a breakthrough in their conversation when Van tells Darius to ask her something real and he inquires why she abandoned Atlanta to visit her baby daddy on a European tour when they aren’t even together. She admits to being in a rut and trying to figure herself out and Darius appears to dedicate himself to helping her get out of it.
song nine: “Oceanic Feeling” by Molly Lewis
Concurrently, Earn lands in Amsterdam. He races over to the venue of the concert that is slated to be later that night. It is immediately clear that he is now pretty good at his job. He looks clean. His face doesn’t have the same starved desperation as the prior seasons, but he looks tired and he’s sick. He meets the host, Dirk, at the venue and gets a 20k advance for the show and forces Dirk to pay for his taxi from the airport as well as his taxi to the jail. He tells Dirk that this is their second European tour and at least one year has passed since their tour with Clark County. He doesn’t even blink when he asks for the money and also does not panic when he realizes he left the music for the show in Copenhagen. Earn puts in an order to get his laptop delivered via organ transport.
In storyline B, they go to a consignment store and Van buys a used coat. The coat has a note in its pocket with an address on it. Darius insists that the note is a sign and she needs to pursue whatever journey is at the end of that address in order to break free from her rut.
When we are introduced to Paper Boi for the first time in Season 3, he is lying in a prison bed, but he does not look uncomfortable. The prison guard is super kind and subservient to Paper Boi’s will. He orders a bean soup and decides to take a nap in prison before his meal even after his bail is posted. His imprisonment is played for jokes and it’s funny as hell. There is a small mob cheering behind a flimsy barricade. The whole punishment seems optional rather than carceral. On first watch, the situation seems to mirror the Swiss imprisonment of ASAP Rocky from 2019 but Atlanta contributor, Ibra Ake, insisted on Instagram that they wrote and imagined that scene before ASAP Rocky was infamously jailed.
Earn sits in the police station and waits for Paper Boi to finish his nap and his lunch. He gives Paper Boi the leftover money from bail and Paper Boi tosses it to his crowd of supporters outside of the station. Money is truly no longer an obstacle. No more selling drugs. No more pandering to studio executives. Paper Boi is Europe wearing designer clothes.
song ten: “Jansport” by Steve G. Lover III (Stephen Glover)
Van and Darius arrive at the house from the address on the pocket and they’re immediately hounded back into the car and scolded for being late by a group of anonymous white people. They continue to go along with the journey, eager to find a sense of completion, especially for the sake of Van.
As Earn and Paper Boi encounter a little white Swiss baby in blackface on their way to their driver. When they ask the driver, he is bewildered at their shock and maintains that it’s not racist and they aren’t supposed to be black people. He says they’re dressed as a Swiss sinterklaas character named “Zwarte Piet” which means Black Peter. They’re black from soot from falling down the chimney while helping Santa Claus. Neither Earn nor Paper Boi buy his story but say that they respect the rebrand. Cosplaying as Zwarte Piet is a Dutch real blackface tradition. The character was first introduced in 1850. The character is often shown with big red lips, an afro wig, and gold jewelry.
Darius and Van arrive at their second location and receive white shawls. There is some type of party going on and there is a dying body at the center of it. The dying man is black but most of the guests are white and dressed in white. He’s wrapped in white garb and laid out across a bed. There’s a cult-like exhibitionism to the formality of the event. The vibe of the party is reminiscent of the bingo scene of Get Out and the “Juneteenth” episode towards the end of Season 1. Darius identifies the dying body as Tupac and says that “he felt the thug spirit” when they entered. Everyone speaks in hushed tones around the dying man. There is a death doula who is tasked with helping the dying man navigate a clear path to the afterlife.
Back in storyline A, Earn and Paper Boi come back to a completely trashed hotel room and we learn the reason why he was in jail in the first place. He was trying to have a threesome with a black woman and a white woman and the white woman said something in celebration of sinterklaas which escalated to a fight between the two. The white woman notably called Rihanna a “niggabitch” multiple times. Their ensuing fight swallowed the room and they destroyed everything. Neither Paper Boi or Earn are worried about the financial ramifications, moreso annoyed about the inconvenience of having to switch rooms and get out of jail, yet another sign that the status quo has changed.
The climax of storyline B comes after the death doula explains to Van that she’s exactly where she needs to be. The death doula asks Van to say a few words to the dying man (Tupac). Van tells him, “It’s okay.” It is a sincere and tender moment but because this is Atlanta, it does not last long. A contraption releases a latex sheet from overhead the bed and suffocates the dying man (Tupac). It is hard to watch, the death looks painful. The understanding is that this was an act of kindness, a demented euthanasia. Everyone cries as Darius and Van look on in complete and utter shock, the only guests who did not know what was coming.
song eleven: “Hail Mary” by Tupac
Darius joins Earn and Paper at the concert venue later that evening. The music gets to the show on time but Paper Boi refuses to perform because the entire crowd is dressed like Zwarte Piet.
song twelve: “Jingle Bells” by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
Earn does not argue with him and goes to tell Dirk the bad news. He cops out of the truth and asserts that Paper Boi is sick. Earn has been sick all episode, people have been saying “gesundheit” to him as a running gag. Earn tells Dirk that Paper Boi caught whatever he’s got. Dirk gets angry and begins to chase Earn through the theater. In what’s the funniest moment of the episode to me, Dirk is unable to differentiate between Earn and a concertgoer dressed as Zwarte Piet. Dirk beats the shit out of a random guy while Earn watches on. It was a hysterical comment on “colorblindness” and racist dehumanization.
Van runs into Earn in the hallway when Earn, Darius, and Paper Boi get back to the hotel that night. They have a brief yet awkward exchange. I can tell that Earn is worried about Van but I can also tell that Van does not care very much. Earn’s care is not Van’s burden. But maybe it should be. You good? No. She’s not. Earn goes to bed, exhausted from the day where a lot was done for nothing to happen. I guess that’s the job. Earn’s phone goes off one final time, Paper Boi is hungry. I guess the job never ends.
song thirteen: “At The Hotel” by Eunice Collins
The primary function of this episode was to establish the new status quo amongst the central four characters. We have been away from the characters for quite some time, even in-universe. The character who has undergone the most radical transformation is definitely Earn. He was broke, inconsistent, panicky, and unreliable throughout the first two seasons but he has his shit together now. Even when he fucks up, he keeps his cool and finds a logical course of action. Paper Boi seems a lot less stressed. He isn't as angry and even seems a bit more cultured, less street. He isn't as prone to violence and seems to understand and accept his star much better than he did initially. Darius appears to be exactly the same. Happy-go-lucky and loyal. We left Van in a confused state and she got even worse in our absence. She is directionless and over the course of the season, we can tell that she will move in ways to reinvent and redefine herself. The stage is set for the remainder of the season.
EPISODE III: “old man and the tree”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Taofik Kolade
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The four core characters walk down a residential London street on the way to a party. It’s Fernando’s party. He’s a billionaire and a friend of Will’s, who’s an acquaintance of Earn’s. Earn tells Paper Boi that it’s good to get to know people in high places now so they can take advantage of their resources. Fernando is not just a billionaire, but he’s old money. Fernando’s family gave out the first loan. Paper Boi isn't really taking any of this seriously. He and Darius jokingly pitch their “Bud of The Month” idea to prospective billionaire investors in splendiferous white voices. Earn tries to join in on the fun but they say he always sounds like he’s talking white. This is a consistent othering that happens to Earn throughout the series, he often struggles with performing blackness or just does not come to as naturally as it comes to others. This is likely inspired by Donald Glover’s real life; his lack of affinity to cultural blackness compared to other black people is a constant theme in the music he releases as Childish Gambino. Van is quiet for most of their banter but she inserts herself and half-heartedly sticks up for Earn. It’s pretty funny.
song fourteen: “Tension” by Central Cee
They pull up to a shity crackhouse and a woman with a thick British accent answers the door. No one understands anything she’s saying and they’re unsure if they’re at the right place initially. Will comes to the door and leads them through the crackhouse and there’s a funny bit where he asks them if they know any UK rappers before giving 21 Savage that distinction and humming “Runnin” to himself. It was infamously revealed in 2019 that 21 Savage was born in the UK and not East Atlanta when ICE arrested and detained him.
The shitty crackhouse is a cover up and there’s a secret door on the top floor that leads to a sprawling opulent home. It’s palatial and classy and well lit and a lot of high end looking people are sprinkled throughout. Fernando’s home has a Nando’s, a fast food restaurant chain that specializes in peri-peri style chicken. Will explains to Earn that he has a rising young artist from Tooting that he wants him to meet. Will rents a studio space in Fernando’s home for the artist. Van and Earn go to meet Will’s artist while Paper Boi and Darius go to get some Nando’s.
While they’re eating the free Nando’s, Fernando, the billionaire walks up to them and strikes up a conversation. Darius slips away from the conversation to find something to drink and “the bathroom he doesn’t want him to use,” leaving Paper Boi alone with Fernando. Fernando is the old man from the title of the episode. He asks Paper Boi if he likes trees and Paper Boi excitedly says yes because he thinks he’s asking him about weed but he was being literal. He shows Paper Boi a tree, the oldest tree in London. He built the compound around the tree. It appears to be Fernando’s prized possession. Paper Boi is bored and unimpressed by the tree. Fernando invites him to go smoke weed and play poker with his friends and Paper Boi accepts because those activities are more his speed. Paper Boi sits down and they tell him the buy-in for the poker game is 20k. I paused when they told him that number because that wasn’t the type of money he had in the first two seasons but he pulled it out with little hesitation. It’s a new day and 20k is now nothing at all.
Meanwhile, Darius is getting a drink. He asks MK, an Asian woman standing next to the table with the alcohol, to pass him the gin but she mistakenly thinks he is hitting on her because he is black and black men love Asian women (in her experience from living in LA). She declines Darius and reveals that she is engaged before Darius could explain his intentions. Darius laughs it off as a “good cultural exchange” and she passes him the gin before walking away. After MK walks away, a white guy named Socks comes and is appalled, having overheard the conversation. He wears a beanie and has an “intense” hairline. Darius isn't necessarily offended by what MK had to say but Socks is carrying the torch for him.
At this same time, Earn and Van are meeting the artist from Tooting, a young black guy named TJ. TJ is a pretentious hack with shitty, non-engaging and uninspired art that has enough references and subversions on more popular art to trick Will into patronage. He rides around his studio on rollerskates. He rips off different artists from Jackon Pollock to Jean-Michel Basquiat. I feel as though most of us know artists like him, with some type of talent but absolutely no vision and no discernible creative imprint to really put on the world. His primary artistic contribution he showed Earn was a photograph of an old white man wearing Supreme and holding his dick.
Will wants Earn to give him a second opinion on TJ and it’s pretty apparent that Earn is not a fan of TJ’s work. Will has already poured 500k into TJ’s career. TJ wants to make an “influencer incubator” on Will’s dime and Will is considering the investment. It isn't clear how Will would get the money back but TJ is making content rather than art and I think that’s the best distinction I could give his work. Earn initially begins to shoot down the idea as expensive before TJ (who was eavesdropping) interjects and implicitly tells Earn, “nigga come on” with further nonspecific details about his plan. Earn says he has to make sure Doja Cat is not doing something similar and declines to give an answer at that moment. Will says okay and decides to give him time. What is Earn’s responsibility to TJ as a black person?
At this point, the episode has splintered into three different storylines. One is of Paper Boi and Fernando and their poker game. One is of Darius, Socks, and MK and Darius’s brush with racism. And the final is of Earn, Van, Will, and TJ and the legitimacy of TJ’s burgeoning art career.
Paper Boi is having a good time at the poker game. Most of the banter is brash locker room talk but Fernando elevates it to something more metaphysical when he begins to opine about spirits and ghosts. Fernando tells the story of a wet, ashy, naked, skinny black man who broke into his house. He says this man was a ghost. Paper Boi clowns him and does not believe him. When Paper Boi asks him what he did, Fernando says he did what any man in his position would do. “He fucked it,” his friend inserts before laughing. Everyone at the table makes fun of him but Fernando holds his perspective. He says the connection was more than physical and that by the end, he awoke covered in ectoplasm and the spirit was gone. At that point, I think Paper Boi said the funniest joke of the episode.
The spirit came on you, my nigga! That’s a bust-and-run where I’m from.
Paper Boi does not believe Fernando’s story, not one bit. Fernando deepens the conversation even more by extending it to the Devil and God, equating them to good and evil spirits. He says the Devil is just as powerful as God and the reason why there’s so much killing in the world and the reason why he has so much money. He calls the tension between the Devil and God as a call from balance. Paper Boi ain’t hearing none of that shit. Paper Boi wins at poker and Fernando gets up and leaves without settling his debt. The vibe shifts into something awkward and Paper Boi is left in the room alone and unpaid. Paper Boi looks powerless.
Darius is downstairs drinking on the coach and surviving a conversation with Socks who plugs himself in as a famous adjacent groupie type. He tells everyone who will listen about Darius’s bout with racism and they are all angrier than Darius is. The story begins to draw a crowd and every time Socks tells the story, it gets more and more dramatic.
Van disappeared from TJ’s studio while they were explaining his “influencer incubator” plan. Earn is walking around looking for her while thinking about his dilemma with Will and TJ. He runs into Paper Boi who just got his hat stolen by a random white girl. He’s sitting down and fuming mad because Fernando did not pay him. He feels like he can’t act within his character and do what he would normally do in Atlanta when he gets tried. He’s out of his element and as a result, he’s powerless in this new arena.
Earn and Paper Boi vent to each other about their problems. Earn thinks that if he helps TJ, he will end up hurting real artists with something to say in the long run. Paper Boi tells Earn to help TJ be a successful mediocre artist because white people get away with mediocrity all the time. He says that TikTok is just white people scamming. TJ comes around and thanks Earn for clearing the way for him and his future endeavors.
“If this fool wants to pay for the culture, let him.”
After Paper Boi tells TJ about the Fernando-Poker situation, TJ tells him that he’s not getting his money. Paper Boi storms away and TJ skates away, leaving Earn alone with his thoughts. He sees Van standing by the pool, washed in cerulean light. Earn and Van lock eyes and he seems like he’s locked into a trance.
song fifteen: “A Certain Sadness” by Astrud Gilberto & Walter Wanderley
Van pushes a waiter into the water. Earn expresses worry about her. She tells him that’s all he does and that he’s not her manager. He says okay and accepts that she has to find herself, by herself. She gets up and pushes someone else into the water while Earn goes to find Will and give him his decision on TJ.
The climax of the Darius and Socks storyline comes to a head when the crowd around Darius has grown exponentially in size. Their story of the racism Darius endured continues to get uglier and more abrasive with each re-telling. MK walks over to the group to introduce Darius to her fiance, unaware they were angry at her. They mob her and attack her. Darius watches on helplessly.
Indian-English musician, Jai Paul, sits down next to Darius. He attributes their overreaction to MK’s words as white guilt. Darius says he didn’t know racism was out of America and that he thought most of their discrimination was class based, which is strange to me because the British damn near invented racism. Jai Paul explains how racism, capitalism, and classism all go hand-in-hand. He finishes by saying that there’s racism anywhere you can buy a coke, which is damn near another way of saying everywhere.
Paper Boi goes up to Fernando’s bedroom and demands his money, but Fernando lies in bed with his back to Paper Boi and pretends to be asleep.
When Earn is on his way back to Will, he sees a picture of Fernando’s ancestors giving away the first loan hanging up on the wall. In the background, he sees an African slave. He decides to help TJ scam Will and even inserts his fingers into the pot to make some money for himself as TJ’s manager as well. Will is pleased with Earn’s decision.
Just before they get the opportunity to celebrate, Alfred begins to chainsaw Fernando’s tree in an effort to get his decision. This is the middle ground between acting as who was and who he currently is. Earn gathers Paper Boi and Darius as Paper Boi steals shit and goes on a profanity-laced tirade. In all of the madness, Will walks up to Darius and reveals that he is MK’s fiance and that he was calling off the marriage because she’s racist. They race out of the sumptuous house through the shitty house and into the sprinter. And then they all start laughing, the four of them: Earn, Darius, Paper Boi… and Socks? Van is gone. Nowhere to be found and Socks has attached himself to them like a leech. They spot MK crying on the curb before they leave.
song sixteen: “Tire Loma de Nighbein” by Monomono & Joni Haastrup
Van sits alone at an Indian cuisine restaurant, drinking an orange Fanta. Earn calls her, she ignores his call. She’s on her own path now.
song seventeen: “The World Might Fall Over” by Monomono
Episode III, “the old man and the tree,” continues Atlanta’s desire to explore whiteness and the ways in which they reconcile their actions. The first storyline with Fernando and Paper Boi was representative of old money vs new money and how they are two completely different power dynamics. Fernando paid for his money with blood and in a sense, his family is rooted to those demons. No matter how much money Paper Boi makes, he can’t hold the power over Fernando because Fernando controls the source (the tree). Fernando thinks his excess brings balance to the world while Paper Boi is just beginning to navigate what excess really is. He’s out of his depth.
The second storyline with Darius, Socks, and MK is mainly about white guilt and the ways in which their curse of whiteness makes them over-extend their performances against racism. They know they did wrong but they don’t know what to do about it, so every small thing becomes the end of the world so they don’t have to get to the real source of racial problems, which is often inequity as Jai Paul points out.
The third storyline asks us to consider white mediocrity vs black excellence. TJ is a hack but it doesn't really matter. A byproduct of the curse of whiteness is that no one really ever tells you the truth or what you need to hear. And this is a curse they’ve earned through not being able to handle the truth whenever it is given to them. Earn lies to Will because that’s what a black person has to do with white people. He’s earned those lies and it’s high time that TJ was allowed the space to be mediocre rather than excellent as well. Call it reparations.
The biggest question “the old man and the tree” asks us to examine is this: how do we bring balance to evils presented by whiteness while maintaining the sincerity and authenticity of blackness? How do we level the playing field without becoming white ourselves?
[end of part one]
