notes on: Atlanta S3 [part three]
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 three]
EPISODE VIII: “New Jazz”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Donald Glover
Darius and Paper Boi sit in a coffee house in Amsterdam. Paper Boi is wearing a very loud, extravagant, and eccentric hat. Darius compliments his hat.
“Nice Hat.”
Paper Boi pays for everything, begrudgingly, but he knew he was going to do so and that it was his responsibility now. Earn comes into the coffee house and asks if they were still doing the thing he shouldn’t know about for “insurance purposes” and they said yes. Earn gives them spa passes and suggests that it should enhance their experience. Paper Boi and Darius leave the coffee house to embark on their thing, leaving Earn alone to work.
They’re on their way to do drugs or as Darius calls them, “spiritual expanding apparatuses.” Paper Boi maintains that they are drugs. They aren’t doing just any drug though. They’re eating Nepalese spacecakes, an edible harvested from monks in Denmark, a synthesis of weed and Nepalese hallucinogenic honey. But no one knows for sure what is in it. Darius says they’re banned in the US and they’ll always be flawed in some way on the black market but he has found a shop in Amsterdam that sells them from internet forums.
As they’re walking to the shop there’s a man in a Goofy hat having a bad trip, cramped into the corner, rocking back and forth.
“Al, don’t be like him,” Darius warns.
Darius goes to the counter and orders a hot chocolate and a Nepalese spacecake. He doesn’t have enough money. He says he’ll wait for the universe(Paper Boi) to bring him the money. Paper Boi, annoyed, orders a hot chocolate and a Nepalese spacecake then pays for them both. The barista has a warning for Paper Boi, who seems uptight in the moment.
Your friend seems like he has seen the other side before, but are you certain you want to do this?
Paper Boi shrugs off his warning, irritated by the question and the assertion that he can’t handle his high. They sit down. As Paper Boi begins to dig in, Darius tells him to wait and place his Nepalese spacecake atop the mug of hot chocolate so the steam can melt the center. They wait, they eat, and the journey begins.
Darius gives Paper Boi an iPod with pre-downloaded playlists curated to guide their highs the moment they leave the coffee house to go to the spa. Darius says he is starting to feel his high already while Paper Boi says he can’t feel any difference. They both start playing music and drift away from each other, breaking away into different worlds.
song 33: “The Flower Called Nowhere” by Stereolab
They both walk in an un-symbiotic trance through the streets of Amsterdam that’s broken by a dying rat. Darius tells Paper Boi he knows a shortcut after they get lost and wander through the red light district. Paper Boi is worried that he’s too famous to be caught in such a detestable and deplorable place. He runs away from Darius after a sex worker takes a picture of him. Some rowdy locals, a gang of young white guys, notice him and begin to chase him. After he evades them, the locals steal a baby from a woman in a bizarre and hilarious moment of anarchism. Paper Boi recedes into a dark room where there is a lone sobbing woman amidst a spotlight. She’s screaming for help.
Help! Help!
Paper Boi tries to help her but she ignores him. He notices there is a man only a few feet in front of her eating popcorn. It’s a stage performance. She does not want or need his help. Paper Boi awkwardly retreats from the dark performance and enters a well-lit art gallery.
Damn, your hat looks dumb!
A younger black woman comments on Paper Boi’s hat. Paper Boi walks away, trying to avoid and ignore her but she begins to follow him around. The young woman introduces herself as Lorraine. She says she hates art and Paper Boi asks why she’s at an art gallery and she says to read people. She’s kinda a hater but she frames it as being honest. She’s annoying and the type of woman who thinks she’s making everyone feel alive but she’s really killing them. I don’t like her character very much but I can’t say that I don’t recognize her from real life.
Do you need a friend?
Lorraine repeatedly insists on helping Paper Boi but he does not want her help. He holds that he already has friends and she suggests that his friends aren’t good ones for letting him wear the hat. She unilaterally decides that he has surrounded himself with yes men and dishonest crooks who look to take advantage of him.
Are you somebody to other people?
Lorraine swears she has no idea who Paper Boi is but she has taken a big interest in him, almost immediately, and seems to know a lot about his current situation. We are left to believe that this may possibly be the result of her being good at reading people but I think she’s lying to maintain some level of superiority over him and give comfort to some of the anxieties that belabor him concerning the motives of everyone around him. He thinks they all want something, even Earn and Darius. She immediately surmises that he’s a rapper. And of course, she’s correct. She says she hates rappers without Paper Boi even answering her. He sits, exasperated.
The thing about rappers is that y’all don’t know anything about yourselves… Where is your money? Who owns your masters?
To own your masters means you own the recording from which all later copies of your music are made. It’s arguably the most lucrative part of making music, but Paper Boi didn’t know this at all. Lorraine says that everyone around him has a vested interest in him not learning the truth. He can’t answer Lorraine’s question, which makes him put his guard down just a bit and accept her help.
Lorraine gives Paper Boi a Goofy hat to help him blend in. They leave the art gallery and it is night, very suddenly. They head to meet some of her friends. They all go to a lounge but the bouncer does not want to let Paper Boi in until Lorraine tells the bouncer that he’s “New Jazz.”
Lorraine disappears quickly and her friends make Paper Boi feel insecure. They ask him if he knows Dababy or Dua Lipa but he’s not paying them much attention. They tell him that he’s not Lorraine’s first rapper and declare that Lorraine and Paper Boi are fucking. After Paper Boi vehemently and continuously denies, they still do not believe him. They say her apartment is nicknamed “106&Park.”
106&Park is a long-running BET show where black musicians would go and perform their songs as well as debut and rank the hottest music videos. 106&Park had some of the biggest music stars in history on their show and they ran for 3,710 episodes with the final episode airing in 2014. The claim by Lorraine’s friends that her apartment is akin to the show only strengthens my hypothesis that she has been pretending to not know who Paper Boi is. Paper Boi is annoyed with Lorraine’s friends and heads over to the bar.
At the bar, he meets Liam Neeson. I know, what the fuck right? Paper Boi is temporarily starstruck and confused but mostly starstruck. Liam Neeson asks Paper Boi what he did to get in the lounge and Paper Boi doesn’t understand. Liam Neeson presses Paper Boi to confess his public mishap to him but eventually backs off. Paper Boi is bewildered but he understands when Liam Neeson raises his glass off his napkin and it reads, “Cancel Club” in emboldened type. The Cancel Club is a hangout for people who are victims of cancel culture.
Cancel culture is the derogatory connotation for a movement of accountability against public figures and their negative actions. To cancel someone is an attempt to strip them of their fame and status as a result of them being a bad person or at least suffering from the perception of being a bad person. As the general level of activism on social media rose, there has also been a stark rise in opposition against Cancel Culture in recent years, especially amidst the #metoo movement that targeted sexual predators in the entertainment industry. Comedians such as Dave Chapelle have been very loud in this opposition and he is not lacking compatriots for his cause amongst common folk. In my estimation, Cancel Culture is not real. All attempts to hold famous people accountable for their actions have failed. As time passes, people either care less or forget to care or forget what the hell they were even mad about. Cancellations cannot come from common folk. They have to be blackballed out of their respective industries and with the notable exception of maybe ex-President and current dick, Donald Trump, this has not happened as a result of objectively poor behavior.
In the case of Liam Neeson, he faced widespread backlash after he revealed that he roamed the streets for days in predominantly black neighborhoods hoping one would incite violence against him so he could kill them. He was angry at the time because his friend had been raped by a black man, so Liam Neeson was ready to kill any black man. This was admitted by Liam Neeson at his own will while he was promoting his 2019 film, Cold Pursuit. Of course Liam Neeson was immediately scolded for his actions but in the long run, it was only a minor setback and a trivial blemish on his career. He kept acting as the leading man in a number of roles in films such as
The Marksman, Memory, The Ice Road, and Honest Thief, None of these movies are particularly good but he has not seen any dropoff in his workload or exposure as a result of his racist confession.
This is made evident in his conversation with Paper Boi. Paper Boi is among those who never felt the need to hold Liam Neeson accountable for what he said. Paper Boi is a polarizing figure himself and he has shown that most of his interests and sensitivities are directly related to himself rather than a community. Still, Liam Neeson feels the need to explain his actions.
I thought people knowing who I once was would make it clear who I am, who I’ve become.
One of the biggest critiques of cancel culture, and perhaps a valid one, is that it does not leave much room for growth, forgiveness, or error. Even admitting your error could have you judged for your actions rather than your intent. An unforgiving world where we are all expected to be perfect and where we eat each other if we are not is a cold one.
After Paper Boi expresses forgiveness, sympathy, and understanding towards Liam Neeson on the behalf of the black community but Liam Neeson isn't very receptive to this at all. He says that he’s not racist but he can’t stand black people now because they tried to ruin his career.
Didn’t you learn that you shouldn’t say shit like that?
Aye. But I also learned that the best and worst part about being white is that we don’t have to learn anything if we don’t want to.
Liam Neeson finishes his drink and walks away. Paper Boi is completely astonished. So astonished that he doesn’t notice the emcee on stage in the lounge is about to call him to the front in order to perform as “New Jazz.” Lorraine pulls him to the side and helps him escape before he has to do so.
It is suddenly morning time. Paper Boi is now annoyed with Lorraine Again, especially after she tries to touch him. He’s on guard and distrustful of her because of what her friends had said to him in the Cancel Club. She lashes out at him saying she’s all he got. She has been telling him what he needed to hear rather than what he wanted to hear. Lorraine surmises that if you don’t have anyone around you telling you the truth, you’re white. She says was honest about the hat being ugly, she admonished him for taking care of Darius financially, for letting Earn handle all of his business, and for having a general lack of control over the decisions that will guide the rest of his life.
Paper Boi disagrees. He says he knows himself and Lorraine angrily, aggressively says he does not. She says he doesn’t feel shit. That he can’t even feel his legs. As she advances closer to him, she immobilizes him. She covers him with a blanket and walks away as he shakes feverishly on the ground. Darius and Paper Boi from the beginning of the episode walk by him. He has become the tripping man that Darius warned him not to be.
Paper Boi awakes in a hotel bed with Earn by his side. Earn said he passed out and that he found him on the street. Earn says Paper Boi was asleep for 16 hours. Earn carried him to his room and changed his vomit-riddled clothes while Paper Boi was unconscious. Paper Boi asks him about Lorraine’s whereabouts and when Earn is confused and wonders if Paper Boi’s asking about his dead mother, Paper Boi disregards his own question. As Earn prepares to leave, Paper Boi asks Earn who owns the masters to his music. Earn does not hear him at first and anxiety settles in. So Paper Boi asks again. And Earn replies that Paper Boi owns his own masters. Paper Boi says thanks. Earn leaves. Paper Boi is alone again.
song thirty-four: “Stormy” by The Meters
I have come to realize that episodes that concentrate on Paper Boi’s state of being always turn out to be among my favorites in the whole series and “New Jazz” is no different. The three most important elements in the episode, at least thematically, come towards the conclusion.
Liam Neeson’s conclusion to his cancellation is key to the season-long definition of the curse of whiteness. If whiteness is where and when you are, if you are somewhere where you do not have to learn anything, you are white. This is not a foreign argument in the black community. Many times, black people claim black celebrities who are “victims” of cancel culture would have gotten a pass if they were white. Bill Cosby and R. Kelly goes to jail, Donald Trump becomes president. That sort of thing. Obviously, black people have less room for mistakes than white people, but I believe that black abusers should be punished just the same as white perpetrators. White men simply get off too often. The main idea though, is that Paper Boi is entering a circumstance in which he does not have to learn anything. He is becoming white and he can’t stop himself.
First, there is the hat, which is a physical manifestation of the ways that Paper Boi is changing. He has lost some of his edge as a result of his money and he isn't completely comfortable or confident with what he’s becoming. He wears this hat and he isn't sure about it at all but no one will tell him if they hate it, that is except Lorraine. It isn't made clear if Earn and Darius actually like the hat or if they’re just saying they like it to appease Paper Boi. My guess is that they either like the hat or they’re indifferent to it. They have been real and loyal throughout the series. The important part however is that Paper Boi is scared no one around him will tell him the truth, despite their purported authenticity.
His situation is reminiscent of the old “Emperor New Clothes” fable in which a crooked salesman comes into a city and claims to be selling extravagant clothes made of magical fabric that only the righteous can see and because the emperor pretends he can see the clothes out of fear that his subjects wouldn’t think he was righteous, everyone else pretends to see the fabric as well. The Emperor walks around completely naked and no one has the heart to tell him that he’s being fooled until the crooked salesman is long gone with all of his money. The crooked salesman sold him a lie and everyone bought it because they feared what the truth meant for them. Paper Boi thinks he’s the emperor and he thinks he’s naked and he fears no one will ever tell him so.
This is precisely the reason that Paper Boi’s Nepalese spacecake-influenced mind invented the character of Lorraine. She’s a physical manifestation of his conscience or his inner dialogue, telling him all the evil shit that he’s afraid to say. I am of the school that she was never real, hence her having the same name as Paper Boi’s deceased mother. The death of Paper Boi’s mother and the grief stricken ways in which he coped with that was a big storyline in Season 2. Lorraine tells Paper Boi what no one else will and what Paper Boi thinks he needs to hear.
This is important because it ties into whiteness and what Paper Boi is becoming. She is the truth in his ear, the voice that forces him to continue to learn from his mistakes and be aware of them. Lorraine is an annoying and very bitchy Jiminy Cricket. Her voice leads him to interrogate his relationship with the people he has surrounded himself with. He asked Earn about his future and I felt my heart drop, because I was unsure that he moved in Paper Boi’s best interest. When it was revealed that Earn did the right and best thing, it was a triumphant moment because it just further affirmation that Earn cares about Paper Boi and is not just using him to advance his own life. I wish we got the same confirmation with Darius but I know that to be true of him as well.
Final postscript thoughts on the episode: There is something mildly problematic about Donald Glover putting words of apology and regret in the mouth of a self-admitted racist. I am not sure how I felt about it but I mainly found myself in awe at the cameo and laughing at his further admissions of racism. I guess the laugh is truly always the most important part.
EPISODE IX: “rich wigga, poor wigga”
Written and Directed by Donald Glover
song thirty-five: “ESCAPE PLAN” by Travis Scott
Aaron, a teenage boy, plays COD in his bedroom. We pan over his room a few times. He has “white” interests like baseball, lacrosse, Post Malone, and Logan Paul. The people on the microphone on the game are talking a lot of shit to him but Aaron is silent. He is plotting an attack on them and he succeeds, winning the match after roasting them with a flamethrower. Right after he secured the win, he got a text from his girlfriend, Katie, that she got into college. They’re planning on going to Arizona State College together. This infuriates him for some unknown reason and he chides the online gamers with racist remarks before turning the game off. This is very discomforting because Aaron is a white presenting kid, all the way through. But it’s uncertain how light his skin is because the picture has been color graded to b&w, an homage to Rebecca Hall’s 2021 film, Passing. Passing is based on Neila Larsen’s 1929 Novel of the same name.
Passing is the story of a 1920s NYC black woman whose life is turned upside down when her life becomes entangled with a former black childhood friend who’s passing at being white. This is important because it is revealed in the next scene that Aaron is a white passing mixed kid who’s doing the same thing in 2022. His father is black and his black father is driving him to school because he missed the bus the following day, after Katie got into their dream school.
Aaron’s father recounts a the story of a teenage black boy who was murdered by the police, shot at Lenox mall and died at Grady Memorial Hospital. Aaron has no sympathy for this boy at all, taking the side of the police. His father is disenchanted with this but he also cites anti-black sentiments, saying trouble with the police is why he won’t let him hang out in Dekalb County. Aaron’s father says he hopes that Aaron would get pulled over by the police to experience racism. That his nose is a dead giveaway that he’s actually black. Aaron says he’d have to let him drive in order for him to get pulled over.
Aaron and his dad are having money problems. This is why he isn't going to Arizona State College. His dad refuses to fill out any FAFSA forms and he’s only been able to save up 4000 dollars. His dad isn't sympathetic to his struggle and promises Aaron that he’ll have to pay rent post-high school graduation. They arrive at Stonewall Jackson High School, named for the Confederate General. His father tells him he loves him in embarrassing fashion, possibly an Into The Spiderverse homage.
When Aaron goes into school, he greets his white girlfriend with his white friends. They all celebrate getting into their colleges while Aaron anxiously jostles, pretending he’s just as excited as they are. There is an assembly for all graduating seniors and they’re all called to the auditorium. The principal introduces Robert Shea Lee, heir to the Pink oil hair moisturizer fortune. Robert Shea Lee’s name is eerily similar to Robert E. Lee’s name, the most famous Confederate general who defected from the Union. It’s a pretty funny joke. Even eerier, Robert Shea Lee is played by Kevin Samuels, an internet dating consultant who has been maligned for his misogynistic takes. This is a surprise cameo, especially since Kevin Samuels is not even an actor. But it’s a bigger surprise because Kevin Samuels died on May 5, 2022 and this episode was released a week later on May 12, 2022.
Robert Shea Lee is an alumnus of Stonewall Jackson High School and he’s now a billionaire. They’re renaming the school after him. But most importantly, he pledges to pay for college for every graduating student… if they’re black. Robert Shea Lee is likely based off of real life billionaire, Robert F. Smith, who announced he was paying the student loan debt of all the Morehouse College graduates in Winter 2020. Aaron thought his prayers had been answered and perhaps they are. But if he wanted to gain access to the newfound rewards of blackness, he’d have to affirm his blackness in front of his friends who think he’s white. This is a dilemma because he is not eager to do so.
song thirty-six: “Hanging On A String” by Loose Ends
Aaron’s white friends complain. They say it’s discrimination. They say it’s super easy to get in. They say it’s tokenism. They say they already have affirmative action. Katie says her friend dated a guy who got a full ride and only stayed one year named Zion Wilson (Williamson haha). They agree with her that it’s ridiculous. They say a lot but Aaron is silent while black students celebrate all around him. He excuses himself to go speak to the counselor about financing options for school but he is really sneaking off to inquire about the payment opportunity with Robert Shea Lee.
song thirty-seven: “If I Ever Fall in Love” by Shai
There are a plethora of nonblack POC practicing, imitating, and performing blackness for their “black audition.” They’re singing R&B, putting on durags, cripwalking, getting cornrows, and playing basketball. Here, Atlanta, introduces a new definition of blackness to go hand-in-hand with their season-long whiteness definition. Robert Shea Lee doesn’t think ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) necessitates blackness. He thinks blackness is a culture rather than a genealogy.
Aaron is called into the dark gymnasium for his black audition. The gym is dark aside from a single spotlight on Aaron and a slight shining down on the tribunal seated on the stage. The tribunal is Robert Shea Lee, Greg, and Jay. They’re all smoking stogies. They ask him a number of questions and Aaron gets most of them wrong or he doesn’t answer them in a knowing manner.
Name six things that mix with hennessy.
What happened to that boy at Lenox Mall?
How long can oil sit on the stove?
Bobby & Whitney or Will and Jada?
Where is the first place you take your cousin fresh outta jail?
Why did the five heartbeats break up?
Your momma or your mother?
What color are Wendy’s napkins?
Holy spirit or holy ghost?
Mustard or mayonnaise?
Make a beat with this mechanical pencil!
Orange or grape kool-aid?
Spell Dante!
DQ or Popeyes?
What soda is good for you?
If Ne-Yo’s hat got any lower, it’d be on his “blank”?
When the tribunal tires of testing Aaron, they tell him it was fun and he entertained them but he fails. Aaron gets mad because his dad is black, which means he is black even if he turned his back on that part of himself. Greg gets mad and yells at him. “YOU ARE WHITE!” After Greg’s outburst, Robert Shea Lee explains his stance. He asks Aaron how long he has been coasting on his whiteness. He says Aaron deserves what he got and that he’s just got his. By attempting to pass rather than being what he is, Aaron has invalidated his blood.
Aaron goes home and complains to his dad but his dad is simply humoring his anger. While his Dad clowns him, he notices a black kid named D’Andre that’s going to attend Arizona State College is in Katie’s comment section on Instagram. D’Andre is an incoming football player they met at a college visit. While Aaron is cursing Katie out, she says that she knows he’s not going to Arizona State College because he can’t afford it. Then she breaks up with him. Aaron sits in his room and stirs.
He decides to make a flamethrower, in real life, and burn down his school. He googles it then puts one together with scraps from his garage. He walks a few miles to his school with the homemade flamethrower strapped to his back. When he arrives, the sign for his school has been changed from Stonewall Jackson High School to Robert S. Lee High School. But there’s also another kid, Felix, there with a real flamethrower. Felix is a Nigerian kid from Lithonia but the tribunal decided he wasn’t black either. Aaron agrees with them though. Aaron and Felix have a philosophical conversation about who’s black between the two; mentioning heritage, tradition, and lineage. Aaron thinks Felix has a discernable path to his ancestors and because he turned his back on that, he’s not black. Felix disagrees. Aaron doesn’t really care and wants to burn down the school but Felix wants to do it first. Aaron makes a bad colorist joke that Felix was already burnt. Felix shoots a gush of flames at Aaron and Aaron runs away. Felix puts fire to the sign then chases after Aaron.
It turns into a real life Call of Duty map for a while. They’re both evading and chasing each other, but it quickly morphs from a flamethrower fight to a mulatto hunt. Aaron is the victim and the scene has a horror feeling, theme, and score. As soon as Aaron thinks he has escaped, Felix pours gas on the floor and lights it, burning Aaron’s feet. Aaron ditches his shoes and runs away. Felix catches up to him but as soon as he has Aaron in his clutches, the police arrive. The police shoot Felix and then say, “Freeze!” to Aaron.
song thirty-eight: “L’ucello dulle piume di Cristallo (dal film)” by Orchestra di Bruno Nicolai & Orchestra Di Ennio Morricone
Robert S. Lee comes to the school in the aftermath; as the police are arresting Aaron, the firefighters are putting out the fire, and the paramedics are taking Felix to the hospital. Robert S. Lee pledges to pay Felix’s medical bill and for his college because “getting shot by the police is the blackest thing he could do.” Robert S. Lee tells the paramedics to take Felix to “White Grady” (Emory Hospital) and that was a pretty funny joke. Aaron ends up with nothing.
A year passes and Aaron has “embraced” his blackness. He works at Best Buy. He has a low cut fade now, so we can’t see his hair texture. He speaks in an exaggerated Atlanta accent and uses AAVE. He dresses black. He brushes his waves between sentences and flirts with black customers. He has decided to adopt a black personality rather than coast on his whiteness. He never went to college. But Katie did and Katie is at Best Buy. She comes over and speaks to him but Aaron doesn’t seem very interested or enamored with her. As she walks away, Aaron stops her and tells her he’s never been more attracted to her in his life. He says it real “urban” like. Katie blushes. Aaron smiles at the camera as it freeze frames.
I didn’t dislike any of the episodes this season but if I were forced to pick a weakest entry, “rich wigga, poor wigga” would be it. The story is good enough but Donald Glover’s history of “too white for the blacks and too black for the whites” still reeks in my opinion. This feels like an extension of that same anxiety, as if he is still a bit sore from being called an oreo for his interests and personality when he was younger.
But this episode was also very tied into the “curse of whiteness” motif. Aaron was white enough to pass physically but he had none of the privilege because of the circumstances of where and when he was. Aaron chose whiteness and whiteness ate him and spat him out. It rejected him. In the end he chose blackness because he had nothing else left. When attaching blackness to culture rather than ADOS, a comedic point I don’t believe, Aaron is able to retrieve what had never been lost. At the same time, I do think the tribunal was right to deny Aaron on the basis of him not being black. If you look white, act white, talk white, have white opinions, white experiences, and white feelings then you are white. Quack like a duck, walk like a duck, you are a duck.
Everything bad that happened to Aaron happened as a direct result of his whiteness and his economic status. Robert Shea Lee gave the black students at Stonewall Jackson High School the tools to flip the circumstances, much like in “the big payback.”
Postscript thought: I feel as though Atlanta went out of their way to employ the worst people in the world. I think they were actively trying to find people who aren’t very popular amongst the liberal crowd on the internet. Chet Hanks, Liam Neeson, and Kevin Samuels are quite the trio of cameos. Especially since Kevin Samuels is not an actor and I don’t think he necessarily had a good performance. He wasn’t believable to me but there were still some funny lines he was able to deliver. It was most enjoyable when Felix was chasing Aaron and the tension was dialed up to 11. Solid episode, but not great.
EPISODE X: “Tarrare”
Directed by Donald Glover, Written by Stefani Robinson
Three black girls have brunch at a Parisian cafe. Two dark skin girls, Xosha and Shanice; and their influencer friend, Candice. Candice has been flown out from Atlanta to Paris to pee on a rich French man. She brought Xosha and Shanice along for the experience. They’re looking for a move but they think they need to be familiar with some locals in order to find something really fun to do. While they’re talking, Candice abruptly rises from her seat and walks from the cafe to a neighboring butcher shop. Candice is friends with Van and that's who she sees. When Candice greets Van, Van is speaking French in a heavy French accent and pretending she doesn’t know Candice with her little “Amelie” bob. She eventually relents and admits to herself that Candice is someone she knows. She’s carrying a large French baguette. Van has gone insane.
Candice, Xosha, and Shanice go with Van to her French apartment that Van lives in with her chef boyfriend, Marcel. She appears to be a completely different person. It’s unclear how long she has been in Paris but she seems very infused into the lifestyle and decor of the apartment. Pictures of her marcel adorn tabletops. She is featured on the cover of Chic Paris magazine. Candice gets a peek at Van’s phone and people from her real life (Earn, her parents, old friends, etc) are blowing up her phone. Van is not responding to any of them.
Van and the crew leave on vespas to run Van’s errands, bread in her bag. Candice is worried about Van because of her erratic and dissociative behavior but Xosha and Shanice are wholly entertained by her performance. They go to a luxury hotel.
song thirty-nine: “Rock Wit U (Aww Baby” by Ashanti
They go to a hotel room and Alexander Skarsgård is in there dancing to Ashanti. It’s another cameo and he appears to be gone off some drugs. Van kisses Alexander Skarsgård in a very familiar way, which further confuses Candice because she said he was in a relationship with Marcel. Van’s fucking Alexander Skarsgård and tells Candice to not be so “American” about her relationship sensibilities. Van goes into the bedroom of the hotel room while Alexander Skarsgård dedicates himself to entertaining Xosha and Shanice. He says everyone should take off their clothes. They say okay but he’s the only one who starts stripping.
song forty: No Letting Go” by Wayne Wonder
Candice follows Van into the bedroom in an attempt to talk some sense into Van but Van is non-receptive. Van plants crack, meth, and cocaine throughout his bedroom then leaves. She scoops Xosha and Shanice on the way out, Alexander Skarsgård is in his animal print underwear. They leave in a hurry but before doing so, Van lies to the concierge and tells them that Alexander Skarsgård is going berserk off of drugs in a hysterical manner. She tells Candice that this is simply a prank, their “devil dance.”
They arrive incognito at an apartment complex. Van is frantically looking for a mystery package that is supposed to be around. It’s a scary scene, locals are shouting things at them from their windows. Van goes into the trunk of an abandoned car and goes into the cooler for her package but it’s empty.Van curses a mystery man named Emilio for not holding up his end of the bargain. Candice, Xosha, and Shanice are asking a lot of questions and getting no answers but they’re very curious at this point. The shouts from the tenants are discernable at this point. They’re yelling “Tarrare.” Tarrare was an 18th century French showman and soldier who was famed for his unusual eating patterns and insatiable appetite. He famously ate a baby or at least was suspected of doing so. He died at the age of 26, he suspected that he was poisoned by his failure to digest a golden fork he ate a few years prior. It’s unclear why they’re calling Van, “Tarrare.”
Van is pissed that the cooler is empty but she knows she has to get out of the apartment complex in a hurry. The tenants are beginning to converge on them. She’s not welcome. They run back to their vespas and there’s a knife in the tires. A group of men impose on them before their friends start another altercation and divert their attention. Van, who had accepted their fate, begins to run away on foot and the rest follow her. They get on public transit to their next location.
She tracks Emilio down to a private museum. She coaxes the doorman into letting her in the museum with niceties. It’s clear that she is familiar with and knows both of them. When she goes in, Emilio is immediately frightful. She leans into his fear too, giving a frightening breakdown into why she’s been carrying around the enormous baguette all day. The bread has hardened due to her leaving it out for months. She uses it as a battering stick and beats him down with it. The majority of the violence happens off screen, the camera cuts to different marble statues in the gallery before she finally yields. She asks Emilio where her package is and he maintains that he does not have it but he could get her a new one the following day. She offers to put the baguette in his mouth and take his teeth out. He finally admits that the package is housed in a nearby vase. Van tells Xosha to get it and breaks the vase. The vase was empty but it was the wrong vase. Then she goes into the other vase and retrieves it. The baguette is washed in splattered blood.
They all leave, Candice is disgusted with Van. Van invites them to the party she’s working with Marcel that night. Candice declines the invitation but Xosha and Shanice accept and decide to stay, despite her. They don’t know Van and are not worried about her poor behavior, especially with no basis for knowing how strange she’s truly acting.
“I don’t know her but I like whoever this is.”
Alexander Skarsgård is at the party and he confronts Van about her “devil dance.” He tells her that it was a good one. Van spits in his face and walks down to the kitchen, where Marcel is waiting on her. Alexander Skarsgård goes to the bathroom and masturbates to the idea of Van spitting in his. When Van gets to the kitchen, she gives Marcel a long passionate kiss. Van gives Marcel the package from Emilio, a human hand. That’s what they’re cooking as the main course of the meal for the party. We now know why the tenants at the apartment complex were calling her “Tarrare.”
Candice followed her and is once again confronting her about this new life that she has manufactured for herself. Van says that Candice is just jealous because she’s finally more interesting than her. She mocks Candice for being in Paris to pee on someone. As Marcel fries hands, Van rushes them out to the dinner table, trying to ignore Candice.
The host of the party addresses her guests. She instructs them to put their napkins over their heads and shroud themselves. She elucidates how they do not shroud themselves out of shame but instead to have a private and sensuous meal. Xosha and Shanice are unaware of the main course but everyone else seems to be in the know. Xosha and Shanice even happily throw the shroud over their heads and whisper that it’s some “fancy shit.”
At the same time, Candice continues to grill Vanessa. She asks her how she plans on integrating her old life into this new fugazi one. What will happen when her visa runs out? What does she tell her parents? What will she do for money? What about her daughter, Lottie? Van had an answer and solution for all of her questions until she was asked about Lottie. She stumbled and stuttered and then finally broke down. She starts breaking dishes and screaming. Candice consoles her friend as Van’s voice returns to normal.
Xosha and Shanice realize they’re eating a human hand and jump from their seats after screaming. Alexander Skarsgård arrives late to the table and exclaims that hands are his favorite.
Later that night, Candice and Van sit on a bench overlooking a river and catch up, as two real people. No French persona, no influencer bullshit. Van admits to feeling like a lost failure during her last days in Atlanta and having wanted to commit suicide. She said she closed her eyes while driving. She says she felt as Lottie knew about her moment of weakness and was judging her later that day when she picked her up from school later that day. As a result of that, she dropped Lottie off with her parents and went to Europe, finally delivering the truth on the question Darius asked her all the way back in Episode 2 of Season 3: Why are you here? As for her persona, she said she was watching the 2001 film, Amelie, and decided she wanted to be Amelie. Van says she does not know who she is. Candice says she is somebody. I say that’s probably enough. Van realizes she needs to go back to Atlanta and confront her problems head on.
Candice sent Xosha in her place to pee on the rich man rather than her, so she could be there for her friend. The man lies down on the tarp, almost nude. Xosha looks out the window, to the Parisian skyline while peeing on his face.
song forty-one: “Splash Waterfalls” by Ludacris
There’s a post credit scene. Or an epilogue to the season, to put it more genuinely. A delivery man for lost luggage brings a bag tagged for Earnest Marks into a hotel lobby. The lobby looks very American but it’s not explicitly said if that’s the case. The delivery man has an Atlanta accent. He meets Earn in the lobby, but Earn maintains that he didn’t lose any luggage. The delivery man does not really care, he tells Earn to sign because his name fits. Earn takes the bag. He sits in his room and opens it. There are pills, a picture, a deftones tee, amongst other things. The bag belongs to white Earnest Marks. The demented white fisherman from the prologue who let the shit water swallow his friend. The same white Earnest Marks who shot himself in the head after giving advice to Marshall Johnson while on the run from reparations in the “the big payback” episode. Earn doesn’t know this though. So he absentmindedly places those objects to the side and goes about with his night.
song forty-two: “Above Below” by Eddie Chacon ft. Nick Hakim
Zazie Beetz stated in multiple interviews that she saw Van and Earn’s storyline as completely detached from the rest of the show and what goes on with Paper Boi or Earn. As far as her performance, she is negotiating with completely different tonalities and emotions than the rest of the cast. I think that shows a lot in this episode, even in one mainly bereft of Earn.
This is not the first time Van has had episodes with her at the center of the narrative, look back to “Value” in Season 1 and “Champagne Papi” in Season 2 for examples, but this one is far stranger than the earlier offerings. This episode feels closer to the Paper Boi centered episodes. Van is completely lost and as a result of that, she has constructed a new life for herself that’s completely out of touch with reality. She was only brought back down to Earth at the mention of her daughter. While the escalating insanity was very entertaining, I think the emotional core of the story would have benefitted from more time being spent with Van as her true self. But I guess we’ll see her find herself in Season 4.
The “Tarrare” element of the story was interesting. A secret society of rich cannibals is very in line with the type of horror elements I expect from Atlanta. The idea of Van becoming an outcasted myth was super cool, I really enjoyed the story. Her dynamic with her rotating cast of seemingly distant friends have always been interesting. Van always seems to feel lesser around them. She was the one with the broke baby daddy and a shitty teaching job. But now that Earn ain’t broke, she doesn’t seem any better off. Van doesn’t have the life she thinks she deserves and as long as there is friction there, she’ll never be happy. I could relate to that.
Aside from the episode, the epilogue allowed the “curse of whiteness” elements to come full circle. We have known that white Earn had the same name as our Earn since episode 5. And we could suspect that the family that he was expected to pay reparations to may have Earn’s own. But Earn has elevated himself. At the end of Season 1, Earn was sleeping in a storage unit. At the end of Season 2, Earn was hanging onto his job by a string. But here, at the end of Season 3, Earn is comfortable and well paid. Due to the circumstances of where and when he is, you could say that he’s… almost white?
The epilogue was a physical manifestation of that feeling. Earn inherited whiteness from the white man of his nightmares and moving forward, he will be comfortable. Even in Atlanta. In Season 4, we don’t expect to see the same struggle from earlier seasons. Earn has “ascended” to whiteness, the same as Paper Boi. Not exactly obvious, because as we saw throughout the season, he will still face racism in a number of ways but he’s secure now. He’s not struggling anymore. He has usurped the demons of his past and leveled the playing field. All of those demons…the curse… is the problem of white people now, not his. Earn is returning to Atlanta a new man and his Atlanta will be a new Atlanta. I can’t wait for Season 4.
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The two primary things I was looking for throughout the season was evaluating Atlanta as a lens and the curse of whiteness. I feel as if the curse of whiteness has been continuously defined and refined throughout my notes. Almost all of the episodes touched on this in some way, but it was at the forefront of “three slaps,” “the big payback,” “white fashion,” “trini 2 de bone,” and “rich wigga, poor wigga.”
The curse of whiteness, to put it succinctly, is a direct result of a culture that orients itself around circumstance rather than heritage, truth, or accountability. If you’re white, you’re treated like what you’re going through but if you’re black, you’re treated like what you are. No matter what else is going on, you are white. In the world of Atlanta, that has finally been criminalized in ways that black people have been criminalized in real life for the past 400 years. White people throughout the season are victims of their own decisions simply because no one has the heart to tell them the truth. Amber and Gayle, the suicidal foster parents. Will, the uneasy investor. Fernando, the ghost-fucking billionaire. Marshall Johnson, reparations dodger and cookie thief. Marcello and the rest of the design team at Esco Esco. Sharon, the jollof gentrifier. Miles and Bronwyn, the absent parents. Aaron, the broke almost white teen. White Earnest Marks, the demon himself. Their pain didn’t stop with them though, mainly because they couldn’t see who it belonged to. They were bleeding and hungry so they ate others and when they were finished, they ate themselves too. Whiteness, as a culture; eats, colonizes, and corrupts.
The way the curse of whiteness ties directly into the main story with Paper Boi and Earn is very interesting. The main point is that the circumstances of where and when they are has changed. They are at an elevated point in life and because their proximity to whiteness is new, they can sense the shift in how they are being treated. There is an immense amount of anxiety about how they’re handling their relationships and where the truth in their life is coming from, especially in the case of Paper Boi. He’s a superstar now. Paper Boi’s everything we ever wanted him to be but he doesn’t even think he’s himself anymore. He seems different too. Has he traded authenticity for whiteness? What’s he being authentic to? I don’t think I have the answer.
As far as answering what Atlanta means as a lens or a way of looking at the world, I think the answer was more infused in the overall creative direction of the season rather than the narratives. The team behind Atlanta wanted to make a maximalist season and be contrarian at the same time. They simply wanted to do what others cannot do. Atlanta is a dedication to relentless eccentricity. The best of the city all have their own identities and perspectives while maintaining a strong sense of community. This dedication to relentless eccentricity gives what could have been a very disjointed season, a layer of cohesion.
On Hulu, in the episode descriptions, Atlanta provides further insight into the abrasive mindset they had when releasing the season. It reads as if they anticipated what people would say and hoped that they would dislike it.
EPISODE I, “Three Slaps”: Wow it’s been a minute. I mean, I like this episode about the troubled kid but we waited 50 years for this?
EPISODE II, “Sinterklaas Is Coming to Town”: I think everybody knows blackface ain’t cool anymore, we get it. They be trying too hard to go viral.
EPISODE III, “The Old Man and the Tree”: This one was cool. Going to rich parties and meeting weirdos. Season 1 was better.
EPISODE IV, “The Big Payback”: I was legit scared watching this.
EPISODE V, “Cancer Attack”: Sometimes shows just be over my head acting fake deep. Where’s the poop jokes?
EPISODE VI, “White Fashion”: I’ve definitely seen this before on a better show. They’re always stealing ideas. But the fashion industry gotta be exposed #streetwear
EPISODE VII, “Trini 2 De Bone”: White people watching this be like… Pain.
EPISODE VIII, “New Jazz”: Al and Darius walk around Amsterdam. Psssh, I could make a way better TV show than this.
EPISODE IX, “Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga”: Black and White episode? Yawn. Emmy Bait. Why do they hate black women so much?
EPISODE X, “Tarrare”: Tarrare was a real person. Wild. They gotta stop biting these better shows tho.
Every episode description reads like a twitter recap of the episode and they’re pretty accurate. These are the reactions they’re hoping we are having and in reaction to some of the noise that took over during their hiatus. This is the lens. Atlanta is a world in conversation with both reality and the fictional. Atlanta is the mythical place that inspired that.
Final notes: I wish the season gave Darius more to do. Maybe in Season 4. The season was funny as hell and visually stunning. I love how they managed to subvert my expectations and still live up to them. Van and Earn’s love story needs more time. Brian Tyree Henry is a star and I hope to see him as a leading man for years to come. I hope to leave these characters in a hopeful place. I know the creators of the show don’t give a fuck what I have to say. Season 4 really needs to be in Atlanta, for my sanity.
Atlanta is Mordor. Atlanta is Asgard. Atlanta is Westeros. Atlanta is Wakanda. Atlanta is Olympus. Atlanta is a black fairy tale.
