notes on: Atlanta S3 [part two]
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 two]
EPISODE IV: “the big payback”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Francesca Sloane
A white everyman stands in line at a cafe. He’s listening to a NPR podcast. The black man ahead of him in line is having an animated conversation with the white barista. It appears that they’re familiar, possibly dating. But we can’t hear them, we are in the world with the white man listening to a podcast about wildlife. The white everyman, our man, is eyeing a packet of cookies but he doesn’t purchase them. The black man ahead of him in line retreats, the white everyman buys a large coffee and goes about his day in his bubble with his coffee and stolen cookies. He doesn’t even realize he’s being followed by a blue car.
song eighteen: “Jay” by Plastic Girls
The white everyman is Marshall Johnson. He’s recently separated from his wife and on the brink of divorce from the mother of his daughter. He’s picking up his daughter, Katie, from his wife’s home to take her to school. They’re amicable and it appears they can still work out whatever is ailing their marriage. Marshall asks his wife for a tall standing lamp for his new apartment; she appears to agree that he can have it.
On the way to school, the radio is talking about a court case in which a black man sues Josh Beckford, an early Tesla investor, because his family used to own the black man’s family. The black man won the lawsuit and set a precedent for individualized reparations. The people on the radio speak of heightening racial tensions and what this means for anyone else looking to find the descendants of the white people who owned their family. While listening, Marshall receives a phone call from an UNKNOWN number and declines it. He drops Katie off at school and promises to try to work things out with her mother before heading off to work. The same blue car that followed him from the cafe earlier in the episode is waiting outside of his workplace.
Marshall Johnson works for Superior Shrimp Co. A white co-worker asks him about the Josh Beckford case and Marshall isn't very worried about it. He writes it off as rich people's problems. There is a meeting at work. They’re having layoffs because the owners of Superior Shrimp Co. have anxiety about personal litigation and are worried about being sued for their family owning slaves. All of his white co-workers get increasingly worried that their lawsuits are coming next but Marshall maintains that he has nothing to worry about, neglecting the offers to look down his family tree.
Later that night, at home in his apartment, Katie asks him if they’re racist. Marshall says they aren’t and that they were enslaved thousands of years ago by the Byzantine empire because they’re Austro-Hungarian. Before he can get into it even further, he declines another call from UNKNOWN. And then there’s a knock on his door. He answers. There’s a white man and behind him, a middle-aged black woman. The white man gives him a paper and walks away. The middle-aged black woman pulls out her phone and begins recording. He has been served by Sheniqua Johnson.
Sheniqua Johnson is a middle-aged black woman. Marshall’s family used to own her family. She is claiming his house and a shouting match ensues. Marshall kicks her out but she leaves, as confident as ever. She tells him not to bother calling the police because she already called them. Marshall is embarrassed and asks Katie not to tell her mother about this. Hilariously, Sheniqua tells Marshall “don’t slam her door!” as she leaves.
The following day, Marshall sneaks into work. No black people showed up for work, except Willy and Lester. One of his white co-workers, Tim from accounting, wears an “I OWNED SLAVES” shirt but it’s inverted in a way that it only reads correctly in the mirror. This was the only stipulation from his lawsuit, the family that he owned only demanded he wore the shirt once a week as acknowledgment of their past transgressions. I think this is the core precept of the entire episode, as funny and ridiculous as it is. White people have a tendency to write off slavery and the ways in which they benefitted from it, as Marshall has been doing the entire episode. For many, acknowledgement and an honest dedication towards righteous retribution would be enough to begin to heal.
Marshall is resistant to both acknowledgement and retribution, so Sheniqua begins to demonstrate outside of his workplace, repeatedly confessing the sins of his family to anyone within earshot of her bullhorn. Marshall implores her to stop but he also does not budge nor begin to try and see where she is coming from. Sheniqua continues her protest.
Marshall asks his black co-worker, Lester, for advice. Lester tells him that Sheniqua likely won’t stop until he apologizes and compromises himself in some capacity, likely financially. Marshall rejects Lester’s advice and consults his white coworkers who tell him to fight back. She has left the parking lot of his workplace before his shift is over but Marshall has bigger problems now.
His ex-wife, Natalie, texts him and says they have to talk. Her emojis went from yellow to black in the thread and that’s one of those sneaky, funny as hell jokes that Atlanta excels at. Natalie had spoken to Sheniqua and decided to finalize the divorce because she can’t afford to be tied up with Marshall financially. Marshall maintains he didn’t do anything wrong and that his situation could happen to anyone but Natalie disagrees.
“I’m Peruvian.”
“You were white yesterday!”
Natalie tells Marshall he has to leave and he does. The lamp he asked for is crumpled on the curb, in the trash. The divorce has been made official. Sheniqua cost Marshall his wife and a chance at a complete family life.
song nineteen: “Make It Last Forever” by Keith Sweat ft. Jacci McBride
Marshall rounds the corner into his apartment complex and Sheniqua’s family is staked out in front of his apartment door, having a cookout. Sheniqua alerts the men in her family that he’s the culprit and they begin to advance towards his car. Marshall begins to panic as one of the older kids, Jason, begins to chase after him on foot. Nigga runs like a T-1000. This is underscored diegetically by “Make it Last Forever” by Keith Sweat and Jacci McBride. The juxtaposition of the smooth angelic vocals and the complete panic of Marshall’s movements along with the efficiency of Jason’s strides makes for comedy gold. Marshall eventually gets away. Sheniqua has seized his work life, his family life, and his home life.
After being exiled from his own home, Marshall checks into an extended stay hotel. He cries while eating a cookie in bed. After a while, he goes into the lobby and sits down. Across from him is the white fisherman from the prologue of the first episode, “three slaps,” having a drink. His name is Earnest and his friends call him E. They lost his luggage. He’s running from reparations and he suspects Marshall is in the same boat as he is.
song twenty: “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack
Marshall continues to complain about his situation and malign the connection between him and the sins of his fathers. He doesn’t feel like he deserves this, but White Earnest isn't as sure of that. He continually casts doubts onto the validity of their victimhood by saying, “I don’t know” while Marshall laments himself. His grandfather and his bootstraps weren’t earned through merit and hard work but blood and tears; and they were hardly bootstraps at all but instead they were black hands connected to black dreams growing within black people. After Marshall says “we don’t deserve this,” White Earnest asks an important question: “what do they deserve?”
White Earnest goes into a speech about how white people treat slavery like a great mystery of the past, as if the ramifications of it suddenly ended the moment it was outlawed. They don’t want to talk about it or hear about it or even right the wrongs that sprouted from it. American chattel slavery is a burden that white people do no wish to bear. But White Earnest also says that “confession is not absolution” and something must be done to wipe away the sins of their fathers or else they'll be cursed with this burden forever.
Slavery is not a mystery, but a ghost that haunts black people in ways white people can’t see. But as White Earnest screeched in Locquareeous’s dream, “we’re cursed too.” Slavery isn't black people’s burden to carry and it shouldn’t be. The weight should be on the oppressor, not the oppressed. And this is an opportunity to balance those scales, forever.
White Earnest draws comparisons to white people did to black people all across the world for hundreds of years and the conditions in which Sheniqua is forcing Marshall into right now. They’re similar. A complete destruction of family, wealth, legacy, heritage, and tradition. But in the end, White Earnest tells Marshall that they will be okay with this new status quo and overall, it’s better for the future of their people. Even for Katie.
“The curse has been lifted from her, all of us. We were running from it but now we are free.”
song twenty-one: “It Never Entered My Mind” by Miles Davis
White Earnest excuses himself and walks outside to stand by the pool, leaving Marshall with his thoughts. We can imagine that he is contemplating just paying Sheniqua as he scrolls through her Instagram profile. Just as he is making a decision, White Earnest shoots himself in the head and plops into the pool. Everyone around them descends into disarray, except for the black waiter who says “there is more where that came from.” White Earnest’s lifeless body and bleeding head floats in the pool, arms spread in Christ-like imitation.
The episode ends with us following a late arriving Latino waiter to work. It’s apparent that there has been a time jump. The manager of the restaurant is addressing the team, a team that accounts for Marshall. Marshall has been pushed down into a lower place but he does seem happier. Or least as though he has accepted it. Marshall pays restitution taxes, 15% of his paycheck, which is higher than his other slave-owning coworkers. Most of the patrons of the high end restaurant appear to be black. The tables have been turned or at least the playing field has been leveled. Equity is on the way. Or at least that’s the idea.
song twenty-two: “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Ripperton.
I think applying Atlanta’s definition of whiteness is important when considering the projected consequences of reparations. If being white is a social circumstance of where and when you are, changing the space around whiteness is more important than changing whiteness itself if white supremacy is to be defeated. The reparations are expected to do that. Most of the negative outcomes that displace Marshall are social rather than financial. If Marshall is being pushed to a “lower” place financially, socially, and economically then he has the same living conditions as much of the black community does and is no longer white, at least not white in equivalence to the current status quo.
The idea that an even playing field for the future would provide absolution for the sins of white people is an interesting one, but I think it even falls short of what is truly required for equity. But it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a big payback for sure, though I don’t think we are even. 400 years can’t disappear overnight. I’m not sure there is anything white people can do to be free. Bringing black people into the same social circumstances as white people would certainly bring equity and improve the quality of life for a race that has been disenfranchised for far too long but forgiveness would have to be there for absolution to be complete. And the crux of forgiveness is always on the victim. I don’t think that’s fair. Some things deserve to be held onto. Payback’s a bitch.
EPISODE V: “Cancer Attack”
Directed by Hiro Murai, Written by Jamal Olori
We are at a Paper Boi concert in Budapest, Hungary. Earn is instructing a runner to bring him ginger beer rather than ginger ale for Paper Boi’s dressing room. Earn looks tired and generally unhappy as he has through much of the season so far, he’s managing a very big production. Darius has found a blueprint of the venue and wants to explore it, he thinks the venue is haunted and exploration holds an enlightening adventure. Darius and Paper Boi laugh and joke around, they’re having fun sans Earn. Socks is still around. It’s good vibes. He’s busy worrying about Van’s whereabouts and busy being angry with her for not letting him in. It’s been 6 days. Paper Boi senses this and he’s trying to talk to him about it but Earn isn't really hearing him. Earn has a job to do and Paper Boi.. Alfred has become that job rather than his cousin. We spend a lot of time with Alfred in this episode.
twenty-three: “Doja Cat” by $NOT
But for now, we stick with Paper Boi. Paper Boi is doing a meet and greet with a kid dying of cancer and his parents. The kid is a big fan of Paper Boi. The meet and greet ends, Paper Boi gets hyped up by Darius to get on stage. While he’s getting hyped up, a strange skinny white man comes on stage and gets the crowd riled up. Earn, already irritated, is not amused.
“Get the fuck off of the stage!”
Paper Boi has a great set and he’s feeling good, good vibes persist. That is, until he realizes his phone is missing. Darius, Paper Boi, and Earn frantically scour the dressing room but come up empty. Socks says he’s going to help them look for it and suggests that the make-a-wish kid, Marvy, may have stolen it before the set. Earn makes a call and it turns out the kid is being rushed off the premises due to a “cancer attack.” Earn deduces that Marvy was guilty and raced out to catch him before he was able to leave.
Turns out, Marvy is on a stretcher on his way to the ambulance. In a hilarious moment, he requests Marvy’s assistance then pats him down as the crowd boos him before Marvy’s father pushes Earn away. Marvy did not steal Paper Boi’s phone and cancer attacks are apparently real.
The reason Paper Boi is so bothered about losing his phone is because Darius forbade them from having an iCloud because of his conspiracies. There is information on the phone that cannot be retrieved. Socks suggests that maybe the fan that had crashed the stage had the phone. This is the second time Socks has offered a suspect. Folk, the venue manager, tells them about Wiley, the fan that was onstage. Wiley is Folk’s nephew through marriage and he was backstage getting interviewed about a job. He tells them to get his number from the rigger and they do.
Earn calls him and tries to coax him into coming back to the venue by promising a meet-and-greet with Paper Boi. Wiley is dubious about the whole situation and the whole procedure starts to feel like pulling teeth. Socks comes and grabs the phone and threatens to kill Wiley. He’s aggressive and animated and angry. He’s “the white Liam Neeson bruv.”
Paper Boi snatches the phone from Socks to alleviate the situation and calm Wiley’s nerves to get him to return to the venue with the phone. Wiley hangs up before telling Paper Boi whether or not he’s coming back. But he does come back. Folk tells them to come and speak with him. The room is set up interrogation style. Before going in, they tell Socks he can’t enter because he’s too hot.
Wiley says he does not have the phone and he just came back to meet Paper Boi and to be honest, he’s weird as hell. When Earn attempts to put him at ease, he immediately inverts energy and puts everyone on edge even more than they already are. The contentious environment is further cloaked in anxiety with every word that spills out of Wiley’s mouth.
“Nobody is gonna die.”
“We are all gonna die someday. Maybe my end should come at the hands of Paper Boi.”
It becomes clear pretty soon that Wiley is a big fan of Paper Boi. He says he feels like he’s dreaming and a frustrated Paper Boi asserts that nobody is dreaming this. Then Wiley says something that startles Paper Boi. He asks him if he dreams of box-top Chevys or kissing a thorn on a rose. Something sweet, but it hurts. It’ll make you never trust anything too beautiful again. Paper Boi rounds up Earn and Darius and goes back out to the hallway to re-group. Folk walks by and reminds them that he’s just “19” (lol). Darius notes that Wiley is blinking every five seconds on the dot. Socks is still angry as hell and eager to enact violence on Wiley, settling for slamming his fists against the wall. They write this off as white boy intensity. Earn wonders what the hell Wiley was getting at about the dream stuff.
Paper Boi says his boy from high school, Pookie, fucked his high school girlfriend who was named Rose and that a box-top Chevy was his dream car in high school. He says he only rapped about this information on some early tracks that he never released. Those tracks are on his phone. Earn and Paper Boi are now convinced that Wiley has the phone and plan a “good cop, bad cop” routine.
When Earn, the good cop, approaches Wiley with a can of coke and begins his line of questioning; Wiley immediately upends him by asking him about his accent or lack of it. Earn doesn’t have the stereotypical Atlanta southern dialect. Wiley asks him if he was told that he talked white growing up and if it made him feel separate.
“I think it’s interesting when people aren’t allowed in the universal group.”
Donald Glover has expressed feelings of being othered by black people more aligned with traditional African-American culture through his music as Childish Gambino, so this feels like a bit of that coming through onto the screen. Notably, in a season with a heavy concentration on race, this is the only time race or racial dynamics are explicitly brought to the forefront of the conversation. Paper Boi fumes on the side as Wiley continues to derail their investigation.
Wiley asks for a cigarette and Folk obliges. Wiley takes one tote before coughing his lungs out and inquiring why anyone smokes, further infuriating Paper Boi who is on the brink of attacking Wiley. He charges him but Folk and Earn get him to calm down. Wiley requests one phone call and maintains that he left his phone at home, but when he says the number, it’s a 404 number. It’s Paper Boi’s number. Paper Boi charges Wiley and roughs him up by his sweater. Wiley nervously farts amongst the scrum. Wiley apologizes with tears in his eyes. Folk excuses Wiley’s actions by noting his age and reiterates that he’s 19. Wiley tells them that he’s 32.
They leave the room again to catch their whims, the “good cop, bad cop” routine didn’t work. Socks emerges again and tries to attack Folk before they drive him away. He almost says nigga. Earn and Paper Boi go back into the room alone with a new plan to record the conversation and get Wiley to incriminate himself. Wiley made a crane while they were in the hallway.
As soon as Paper Boi sits down, he tells Earn to excuse himself. Alfred comes out and gives a beautiful, magnificent monologue where he reveals the primary reason he is so pressed about getting his phone back.
“I haven’t written anything in seven months.”
“I can’t find the words.”
“Bah, nothing.”
“I don’t know what’s bad or good anymore.”
“I was never into rapping. And now it’s what I do. It’s all I do. Too late for me to anything else. “
This new information and peek inside of Alfred’s head reveals that earlier that day on the docks, Alfred had a breakthrough.
“I heard him, my voice, loud and clear.”
He found a melody and his voice was singing. He was singing with it. Like a kid on the bus.
“I’m afraid imma lose it forever if I don’t get it back now. I NEED that phone.”
Wiley does not directly respond to anything Alfred had to say. He seizes this moment of emotional vulnerability and anger and sadness and honesty to plug in a few emotions and memories of his own. He reveals to Alfred that they have the same birthday, April 28th and that they’re Tauruses. Bull-headed. He takes off his coat and Folk comes in with a guitar for Wiley. Wiley requested it while Alfred was talking. Wiley discloses that once upon a time he got his heart broken and he was lonely and lost and he heard The Postal mixtape and it inspired him. Alfred’s music brought him out of that dark place.
“I felt the same. I didn’t sympathize. I didn’t empathize. I felt the same.”
song twenty-four: “Cancer Attack” by Samuel Blenkin
Wiley dives into an emotional acoustic song, an original song. The lyrics are haunting and bewitching and enchanting and melancholy and oh so sad.
“There’s a fire on the mountainside, I can see the smoke rising.”
“I swear I seen the other side and I never wanted less…”
“I never needed less…”
“I don’t need more of you, I don’t want more of you.”
Once Wiley finishes his song, he rises from his seat and thanks Alfred for meeting him. He wishes him good luck on finding his phone. He honestly did not steal it. They were chasing a red herring, Wiley is innocent. Darius, Earn, and Alfred head back to the tour bus as their failure sinks in. Socks apologizes for his angry outbursts and they forgive him. Van finally texts back Earn but it’s only a lone “thumbs up” emoji.
song twenty-five: “Dedicated To The One I Love” by The Temprees
It’s revealed that Socks had the phone the entire time. Socks finishes his cigarette and throws the phone into the trash. Everyone boards the tour bus. In probably the best use of music in the whole series, “Dedicated To The One I Love” underscores the emotional weight of the scene. Alfred seems to be measuring the viability of his own happiness as he sits down and his team sits around him. The bus has an overhead mirror on the ceiling and everyone rescinds from sight in the reflection as they sit down, except for Alfred. It’s a poignant shot. Alfred is all alone in a room full of people.
I cried on three different occasions on three different viewings while watching this episode. The first time I cried was on my first viewing, when Alfred was explaining to Wiley about how he lost his voice and how he fears that he’ll never find it again. I understood this, maybe more than I wish to. I’ve been in and out of many funks in my life and recently, all my funks feel deeper than the ones before. But he found a melody and he sang with it. Brian Tyree Henry is awe-inspiring and his performance as Alfred in this episode is the highlight of the entire season, especially during his monologue. The pacing of his speech hums like a slow murmuring saxophone on a blues record. His voice trembles, but it's strong. He acts so much with his face but it still feels restrained and cool. He doesn't make eye contact, not until he needs to. The way he communicated pain, loss, devastation, desperation, hope, anger, and perseverance resonated with me in ways past empathy or sympathy. I felt the same. That’s probably what brought me to tears. I rewatched this scene the day after the episode premiered a few times, just to see if it hit me the same way and it did. A voice is a hard thing to find, in the sense that it normally comes to you without you having anything to do with it. A voice is a hard thing to lose, in the sense that you will be lost without it. A voice is a hard thing to recover, in the sense that our ears have the tendency to go deaf to our own voices. Silence is a death in a way. Alfred has died without his voice and Paper Boi is what’s left.
I finally cried during Wiley’s performance of “Cancer Attack” on my fifth viewing. I’m not entirely sure why it broke me when it did. I was going through a time. I am going through a tough time. I am welling up with tears, even as I listen to the song and write these words. There is a lightness and confidence in Wiley’s singing voice that wasn’t there when he spoke. And as lugubrious as the lyrics were, his voice was even more desolate and hollow. I feel a chill, like a ghost has clutched my shoulder and whispered in my ear and said, “it won’t be okay and sometimes that’s okay.”
The solo conversation between Alfred and Wiley felt like a cloud. Words and ideas just floated around. Whatever weighed too much rained down on both of them. They couldn’t be any more different yet they managed to find the same emotions. That’s human.
The final time I cried was the final scene, when “Dedicated To The One I Love” by The Temprees began to play. I cried on my sixth viewing. The song is beautiful and I felt an instant attachment to it even on first viewing. The tears however… I think I was just swept up in my feelings of isolation and loneliness, even amongst people. Even amongst people I love. I went back to Georgia recently and I didn’t feel at home, at least not totally and that scared me a bit. I’m terrified of the idea that maybe I’ve lost my home there and I don’t have a home here (New York). Alfred has become Paper Boi and now he’s completely alone.
I think “Cancer Attack” is the strongest episode of the season and arguably the best episode in the history of Atlanta. The idea of someone who stole your phone helping you look for it is SO Atlanta. The ability to imbue such a familiar story with heavy emotional touchstones is special. I feel better for having experienced it. This episode is probably the most isolated from the “curse of whiteness” storyline for the season. I am not sure that it’s a coincidence that this one also happens to be the best.
EPISODE VI: “White Fashion”
Written & Directed BY Ibra Ake
Marcello is a French fashion designer for fictional high fashion house, Esco-Esco. He is explaining to his boss the genesis of a new design. It’s a hockey jersey. The jersey is the number 5 for the fifth anniversary of the brand. It says Central Park because it was inspired by Central Park. The mascot is an anthropomorphized raccoon with gold teeth named “Mr. Spagooti,” by a manga from Tel Aviv. It only takes a few moments for a trained eye to realize what’s wrong with this picture.
The Central Park 5 is a nickname for the five black teenage boys who were wrongfully convicted of a rape that occured in Central Park on April 19, 1989. Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, and Antron McCray. Their case re-entered the spotlight due to Netflix and Ava Duvernay’s 2019 mini-series, When They See Us. All five were eventually exonerated but their case survives as a profound example of racism within the American judicial system.
The sweater is insensitive and the design is a direct reference to the racial failings from Gucci and their blackface sweater from 2019 or Moncler and their sambo collection from 2016. A lot of times these things could be avoided if they had a single black person in the room. It’s hard to believe that these offensive images weren’t purposely perpetrated as part of an outrage marketing scheme. But I guess white people don’t hear the truth all that often, especially when they need it. That’s part of the curse.
song twenty-six: “Fake Jersey” by Teni
Earn, Paper Boi, and Darius meet with the heads of Esco Esco. They want Paper Boi to be part of an anti-racist intiative. They are extremely hospitable. They ask them what they want to eat. Earn declines. Paper Boi wants ribs with a simple mac and cheese. Darius wants Naija jollof rice. They’re confused about what “jollof rice” is. He tells them it’s as if your “taste buds have been scammed by a Nigerian prince at a Burna Boy concert.”
This isn't the first time an ethnic food that holds a special meaning to a certain subculture of blackness has been moved into a folkloric space by Atlanta. Lemon pepper wings, specifically lemon pepper wet, were infamously used to depict luxury and taste during season 1 in the “streets on lock” episode.
Paper Boi agrees to be part of Esco Esco’s diversity board in exchange for 3 exclusive tailored suits and free clothes whenever he wants. Darius wants the Central Park 5 jersey but they decline his request. Earn wonders why Paper Boi is agreeing to an “uncle tom” photo op. Paper Boi doesn’t care what the streets think, “I shot niggas,” he notes. Earn tells him that if he’s going to be part of this, he should at least take it seriously. Start a “re-invest in your hood campaign” and learn the infrastructure to really make a change. Paper Boi shrugs him off and says the nigga organizing the people always gets shot.
Sharon, the head of hospitality at Esco Esco, fails to find jollof rice for Darius. She asks if it’s Ghanaian and it was funny as hell to see Darius’s response to the question. She enlists Darius’s help and he gives her a spot in the city. This is the start of storyline B.
At the presser for the diversity board, Paper Boi meets Khalil. Khalil is a social justice activist (for hire). He is inspired by famed black lives matter activist, DeRay McKesson. DeRay is known for walking around with a blue bubble vest on, Khalil wears a life jacket with “BLM” written on it in sharpie. There is Demarco, a racially ambiguous pro-black activist, likely inspired by Shaun King. And there is Rose, a disabled social justice activist. They’re all there to apologize for white people and tell other white people the things they need to hear.
“Is racism over?”
“Fuck no.” - Paper Boi
“With our initiative, we believe racism will be over by 2024!” - Khalil
Applause.
Darius takes Sharon to a Nigerian cuisine restaurant, Eko Chops. He explains Naija, Nollywood, Igbo, jollof, and okra soup Sharon looks around at the restaurant and says it has “growth potential.” Darius doesn’t seem to understand what she’s getting at.
Paper Boi is not enjoying his time on the diversity board. The social justice activists are all asking for material things; Black Panther 2 tickets, plane tickets, 1000 book purchases, or signed off-white sneakers, rather than trying to enact real change. Paper Boi asks an important question, how does any of that help black people?
Meanwhile, Earn is trying to fix his apple watch and enlists the concierge service at a nearby hotel to help him. While there, he spots Van and abandons his initial mission. He’s angry with her and she doesn’t seem to understand why, or at least she pretends she doesn’t. She’s completely nonchalant about the entire situation. A white woman comes into the hotel lobby, hysterical, and accuses Van of stealing a wig. Earn and Van play the race card and Earn pretends she’s his fiance to parlay their inconvenience into a free night’s stay at the hotel. The hysterical white woman is escorted off of the premises. Storyline C has emerged.
Esco Esco actually hired a competent black woman, Eniola, to run the diversity board and she secured 60k in discretionary funds to use towards a movement of their choice. Paper Boi proposes a “re-invest in yo hood campaign” that mirrors what Earn had brought up earlier. They all get on board with it. Khalil and Demarco each have charities and each want to run the campaign through their charities. Paper Boi chooses Khalil because he doesn’t like the way Demarco says nigga. They tell Paper Boi to record a promotional video for the cause and he does it.
Darius goes back to Eko Chops but the door won’t open. They’ve closed. Across the street is a food truck, called “Naija Bowl.” Sharon quit her job as head of hospitality and bought Eko Chops then gentrified the food into African fusion cuisine. Her replacement lacks all authenticity. White people do this everywhere. She offers Darius a bowl with jollof rice with a peach barbecue reduction and “chunks.” The meal is named “The Darius” because he is from Georgia. Darius is shaken by this information and throws the bowl away without trying it.
The same way Eko Chops was gentrified, so was the “re-invest in yo hood campaign.” They “all lives matter” the movement by whitewashing it, decentralizing it, and over-diversifying his message in a black and white ad. A social crime committed against black people has now been used to apologize to all people. Paper Boi sees this and he’s mad but Khalil calms him down with the truth. Truth that he has been hiding from his white cohorts. Khalil asks Paper Boi a crucial question: why would they fund their own demise?
song twenty-seven: “Red Room” by Hiatus Kaiyote
Van and Earn are enjoying a romantic evening in their free hotel room, even though they’re not together. Van tells Earn he worries about everything too much after Earn apologizes for being angry with her for going AWOL.
song twenty-eight: “In Your Eyes” by BADBADNOTGOOD ft. Charlotte Day Wilson
Van slow dances with Earn to the music. They breathe on each other. Earn’s mind is elsewhere and he almost ruins the moment.
“Did you steal that wig?”
Van kisses Earn instead of responding and they have sex. In the morning, she’s gone and Earn once again left to wonder where she is and worry about where she’s headed.
song twenty-nine: “Next Time/ Humble Pie” by The Internet
This episode felt formulaic but it was good to see our main characters again, in a lighter setting. I feel as though it provided supplemental examples of the curse of whiteness and how they often manifest it against themselves in self-destructive ways that frequently go on to consume others as well. Whiteness does not assimilate or fuse into anything, it eats. It ate Paper Boi’s campaign and it ate Eko Chops. Whiteness and culture is like water and oil, it simply does not mix.
Darius and Paper Boi had funnier storylines but Earn and Van’s storyline was interesting to me. We haven’t gotten a very good peek at what Van has actually been up and we could only assume she has been destroying herself. Seeing Earn make the effort to connect with her and seeing her continue to pull away is disconcerting. In the first two seasons, you would think that everything Earn is now is everything Van ever wanted for her and for their daughter, Lottie. But it’s not enough, probably because this isn't the same Van from seasons 1 and 2.
Last postscript thought, when Earn asked Van if she stole the wig amidst their romantic moment, it reminded me of Larry David asking Cheryl if she “respected wood” in the last scene of Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm and I mean that in the best way.
EPISODE VII: “trini 2 de bone”
Directed by Donald Glover, Written by Jordan Temple
song thirty: “Black Harlow” by Sada Baby
We follow a middle-aged white man’s jog home in Manhattan, NY. This man is Miles. His son, Bash or Sebastian, is watching The Proud Family but he isn't even supposed to be home. Normally the nanny, Sylvia, has taken him to school by this point but she is nowhere to be found. Bash’s mother and Miles’s wife, Bronwyn, has to cover Sylvia’s slack and she’s annoyed because it has made her miss morning yoga. They’re a fairly wealthy family.
Bash won’t eat the eggs benedict that Bronwyn bought for him because he says that they’re bland. When asked what they can do to remedy that, Bash suggests they top it with “spicy curry mango.” Surprisingly, they have some in the fridge marked “slight pepper.” Miles tries some and it’s too spicy for him but Bash loves it. Miles gets a phone call and receives the news that Sylvia has died. As Bronwyn and Miles assess the news, there is a loud knock at the door. When they answer, there is a mysterious package addressed to Sylvia with no apparent messenger. They bring the package inside with intentions to return it to the doorman.
song thirty-one: “Into The Shore” by Micheal Palmer and Samuel Dubois
Bronwyn takes Bash to school. She’s flustered and Bash does not know why. He asks her if she needs an “ocean breath.”
The doorman has no idea who the messenger of the package was. Bronwyn and Miles debate over telling Bash about Sylvia’s death. I get the feeling that they use Sylvia to be absent parents, a luxury only afforded to upper class people. They even complain about the teacher’s at Bash’s school pressing them for not being there on family picture day. They finally settle on telling Bash about Sylvia’s death because she meant a lot to him. But they don’t know how. Dinosaurs? Old dogs? Wooly mammoths? They settle on the truth.
“Sylvia died.”
“Can she come back and say goodbye?”
They decide on taking Bash to the funeral so he can give Sylvia a proper goodbye. Later that night, the mysterious messenger drops off the mysterious package again. They bring it back into the house and vouch to return it in the morning. Sylvia left a lot of things at their apartment, a sign that she spent a lot of time there. Bronwyn doesn’t seem very concerned about Sylvia or very sad about her death. She selfishly laments her for being too old and pines for a younger, more metropolitan, Asian nanny that can teach Mandarin to Bash. Miles does not seem fazed by Bronwyn’s lack of compassion, he only notes that her vision sounds expensive.
Bronwyn struggles to do everything that Sylvia used to do for them, like put Bash to sleep or comfort him in his bed. Bash has to teach his mother how to care for him, he asks her to sing the “sweet and T” song to him how Sylvia used to.
Miles, Bronwyn, and Bash all go to Sylvia’s funeral. Some of the black people at the funeral are confused. They call them cockroaches which Bash explains to mean, “cockroach has no place at fowl party.” Khadija, one of Sylvia’s daughters, greets the family and shows Miles where to park after she and Bash bond over Sylvia’s memory and odd sayings she used to teach them. Khadija forces them to stay for the wake.
It’s an open casket funeral, Sylvia’s loved ones cry hysterically. As Miles, Bronwyn, and Bash sit down, the family offers their condolences and tries to make them feel at home. In what is perhaps the funniest moment in the whole episode; Curtis, played by Chet Hanks, introduces himself to Bash’s family with a thick and very bad Trinidadian accent. Chet Hanks seized internet infamy when he posted videos of him speaking patois and warning us of a “white boy summer.” The videos garnered a lot of criticism due to the fact that he has a history of violence against black women and he is a white man appropriating Caribbean cultures for comedy (seemingly). Atlanta completely leans into this to add a layer to a pretty funny joke, albeit problematic. When Miles asks him if he’s from Trinidad or Jamaica, Curtis corrects him and says it’s “Trinidad and TOBAGO. And no, I’m from Tribeca.”
Curtis used to be cared for by Sylvia as a child and now as an adult man, he has completely wrapped himself in a culture that is not his own. Culture is an inheritance and their high class values have caused them to be completely disconnected from passing that along. Curtis could be a warning of what Bash could be in the future.
Sylvia has three children of her own: Khadija, Princess, and Steven Jr. She also has a nephew, Oswald James, who is a wide receiver in the NFL. Princess looks angry while her siblings look somber and grateful. A phone by the name of “gooch lickman” airdrops Miles a photo of his booty hole. I spent a lot of time researching this and extensively looking for clues about what it may be in reference to but I’ve come to the conclusion that it was just supposed to be an absurd moment in an absurd series of events. It comes and passes very quickly.
She believed in tradition but is not at all traditional. Bronwyn and Miles learn a lot about Sylvia and her passions outside of taking care of their child. It’s easy to imagine that this is their first time really registering that she is a human being.
song thirty-two: “Trini 2 De Bone” by David Rudder
Due to Sylvia’s passion for dancing and her history as a dancer for various dance companies, a group of Trinidadian dancers perform at the ceremony. Princess is still angry and lets the resentment she harbored towards her mother drive her to interrupt the ceremony. She complains of being left behind while Sylvia raised white people’s kids. She laments being one of her mother’s many sacrifices.
“Who do you think she sacrificed? …Where was she?”
“She was providing for us.”
“She should’ve been taking care of her own.”
Princess begins to bash the coffin out of anger which causes a riotous reaction from everyone else. A fight breaks out between the family and they war and Sylvia’s sister, Nancy, tries to climb into the coffin. Curtis yells out “world star” as he starts recording, a dated reference for sure but it fits for a white culture vulture and it’s a possible reference to Childish Gambino’s Because The Internet. The fight finally subsides when the Pastor exclaims that they’re “scaring the white people” while Miles tries to lead his family out of the service.
There is a moment of awkwardness and confusion and even dishonesty, but Bash pushes that away when he admits that he was scared. The pastor says that they’re just sad.
“This is how we sad.”
Miles mutters “Trini 2 De Bone” to himself on the way home. They tuck Bash in for bed and he says goodnight to Sylvia’s empty seat in his bedroom. In their bedroom, Bronwyn tells Miles that she never wants Bash to feel the way Princess feels about Sylvia, about her. This seems to be a possible path for their relationship because she has been pushing her parental duties off to other people for Bash’s entire life. When she asked what Bash wanted to be when he grew up, he said he wanted to “play steelpan like Uncle Samuel.” She has no idea what that means and neither does Miles. They don’t know their son at all.
The knocking comes back in the middle of the night and this time it is rampant and droning. knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock. Miles answers the door and the package addressed to Sylvia is back, marked “final notice.” It’s a school family picture with Sylvia and Bash. A melancholic rendition of “Trini 2 De Bone” starts playing as Miles looks down the hallway to see who left the package. Who’s watching?
I feel like this is the most self-contained Atlanta episode. Aside from Paper Boi street posters in the background in the funeral parking lot, there are no main characters. In addition to that, the other anthology style episodes of Atlanta take place in Atlanta so the story maintains the same texture. This story takes place in Manhattan so it feels pretty different. It’s a good story though. A restrained horror exercise, I would say.
The axis on which the story spins is that of distortion. Miles and Bronwyn have given their child to Sylvia and haven’t seemed to give much thought to what that really means. Culturally, Bash has much more Trinadadian sensibilities than white ones. Curtis could be a look into the future for what Bash will be. Bash watches black cartoons, says black sayings, has black tastes, and even carries the cadence of someone much older than him. Bronwyn seems to think of cultures as different hats for Bash to try on. But it’s deeper than that, it’s in his bones now. She has taken him and not with anything sinister, only with love and attention and adoration.
[end of part two]
