‘Atlanta’ Review: Season 4 of Donald Glover’s FX Masterpiece Has Georgia on Its Mind

“FX’s Atlanta is sort of a field of sweets,” he wrote, contemplating the whitest possible lede for a assessment of FX’s Atlanta. “You by no means know what you’re gonna get.”

Going again to the self-named present from the grossly misbehaving comic we don’t focus on anymore, essentially the most intriguing a part of the FX comedy model has been half-hour reveals with no discernible format and no singular tone. Your common episode of Pamela Adlon’s Higher Issues might typically be three critical vignettes or one cohesive and foolish story, might concentrate on Adlon’s Sam or any of her daughters, might make you snort or make you cry. Reservation Canines is presently in the midst of a flawless second season of episodes which have ranged from rollicking road-trip installments to single-set meditations on grief.

None of those FX half-hours have exploited the probabilities of this grab-bag flexibility as successfully as Atlanta at its peak (although, once more, Reservation Canines is getting mighty shut), and no season of Atlanta steered into its potential for eclecticism as aggressively because the third. Over 10 episodes final spring, you flipped on Atlanta — he wrote, contemplating essentially the most technologically outdated description of tv viewing possible — and also you didn’t know what nation the principle characters have been going to be in. You didn’t know if the principle characters have been going to be within the episode in any respect.

All the time a difficult present, in one of the simplest ways potential, Atlanta season three was much more difficult, and even when I believed the season’s aggressive gambits principally paid off — “Sinterklaas is Coming to City,” “The Previous Man and the Tree,” “Most cancers Assault” and “Tarrare” are all stone-cold classics, albeit among the many season’s extra “conventional” episodes — it’s straightforward to know why some viewers discovered it off-putting and why Emmy voters didn’t fairly know the best way to deal with a present that was beforehand a favourite. It had been a very long time ready for Atlanta to return, and determining what Atlanta truly was if it wasn’t a present about Earn, Alfred, Darius and Van was a troublesome activity.

The wait has been far much less lengthy for the fourth and last Atlanta season, which arrives on September 15, and the most effective service a critic can present is to make it possible for followers know the sequence is again after which step away. I’ll, after all, do greater than that.

I can supply the short reassurance that the gang is again in Georgia, a reality emphasised by the title of the premiere, “The Most Atlanta.” The three episodes despatched to critics all characteristic some assortment of the principle characters, although provided that the present enhanced the visibility of all of its stars, it isn’t shocking that LaKeith Stansfield’s Darius is used sparingly and Zazie Beetz’s Van seems solely within the premiere. That doesn’t imply they gained’t be again or that there gained’t be standalone episodes later within the season, nor does it imply that the grab-bag method is gone totally.

“The Most Atlanta” was written by Stephen Glover and directed by Hiro Murai and it’s completely top-tier Atlanta, the uncommon latest episode through which all 4 leads have full storylines. It’s a comically grounded slice of existential absurdism through which Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) mourns a favourite underground rapper, Darius makes an attempt to return an air-fryer and Earn (Donald Glover) and Van go to a cellphone retailer at Atlantic Station. It has parts of droll horror, shades of Jean-Paul Sartre — I dubbed it “No Exes” in my notes, which can make sense later — and it’s a greater Twilight Zone episode than something within the latest reboot of The Twilight Zone. This being Atlanta, a lot of the plot is pushed ahead by parts of racial misunderstanding and, as has just lately been the case, an intrusive “Karen” serves as each villain and catalyst.

The second episode — “The Homeliest Little Horse,” written by Ibra Ake and Angela Barnes — is Karen-driven as nicely, however it’s additionally essentially the most Earn-driven episode in a while. Glover obtained a considerably peculiar lead actor Emmy nomination this 12 months for a season through which he was barely a supporting participant, however it is a top-notch showcase for his dramatic depths. By means of exploring Earn’s experiences in remedy, the episode appears like an interrogation of the “Karen” phenomenon — as a lot concerning the technique of scapegoating as an evasion approach as something. It’s a few of Glover’s greatest appearing work to this point and I appreciated that the installment seemingly solutions some questions that return to the present’s origins after which makes you query what you assume you’ve realized.

As for the Jamal Olori-scripted, Adamma Ebo-directed third episode — sure, it’s a 3rd episode with a Karen-adjacent storyline, however it’s extra a semi-surreal exploration of present music and celeb, an extension of the way in which the present has dealt with A-listers like Justin Bieber, Michael Vick and Tupac through the years. My assessment of the third season talked about how steadily Atlanta appears to be in dialog with itself lately, and this episode feels prefer it might mark a humorous, successfully bizarre end result of the present’s interrogation of the ephemeral pure of “stardom.”

I really feel like that offers you the form of the early a part of the season with out truly spoiling the expertise of discovery that continues to be the present’s hallmark. I beloved the primary episode and located many issues to mull over and luxuriate in within the subsequent two, and I preferred how they play as an extension of the place we left off within the third season. After treating Europe as the final word instance of alien terrain, one through which our heroes are confused by their environment and their environment are confused by them, the fourth season brings all of it again residence — and, guess what, it’s nonetheless not a world through which they’re snug or persistently welcomed. That pervasive unease, equal components hilarious and nightmarish, could also be Atlanta‘s final commentary on storytelling and on up to date America. I intend to relish this closing run of eight episodes, no matter they occur to be.