Dramedy Atlanta finishes strong first season

There’s a scene in Donald Glover’s new television show Atlanta that speaks to me as a black male specifically.

It’s in the penultimate episode of the season, “Juneteenth.” In it, Earn (Glover) is repeatedly placed in situations with his girlfriend’s mother’s husband, a white ally (portrayed by Rick Holmes), who in all honesty is a pretty great guy.

The point of interest comes up in the backend of the episode, where the husband brings an entire party to a stop so that he can recite a poem about his anguish on white guilt. Earn listens to the majority of it, and the camera shifts back and forth from the husband’s face and Earn’s. After as much as he can stand, Earn finally gets up and leaves.

Atlanta is the latest television project by rapper/comedian/actor Donald Glover (we covered its first episode two months ago), and it recently ended its first season. The show was unflinching in its portrayal of the impoverished African-American lifestyle.

Maybe that’s what I found so attractive about it. As someone who grew up in a disadvantaged part of Baltimore, I’m drawn toward anything that doesn’t portray the poor lifestyle as  “sexy” or “alternative,” but portrays it as the tough life that it is.

Atlanta follows Earn as he tries to jump on his cousin Alfred’s (Brian Tyree Henry) success as an up-and-coming rapper under the stage-name of Paper Boi.

Other supporting characters that form the show’s backbone include Darius (Keith Stanfield) who often acts as comic relief and Earn’s girlfriend, Van (Zazie Beetz). Van goes through a tumultuous relationship with Earn throughout the show’s runtime, and this relationship is anchored by fact that she’s the mother of Earn’s daughter.

The show really strives to show the hardships that each character faces, and it finds a way to make each character unique in their failures.

One of the best examples comes in the Van-centric episode, “Value”, in which she smokes weed with a more well-off friend and then scrambles to find clean urine the day after when she has a drug test. Highlights of the episode include Van straining urine out of a used Pamper from her daughter.

The show’s writing staff also tries some experimental work, such as what’s seen in the episode “B.A.N.” B.A.N. is a television network, and one would guess the crux of the episode would revolve around Paper Boi’s interview on the fake television show Montague. Yet that only takes up a small part of the show, with the episode instead being set-up as a new-age Chappelle’s Show with the network itself taking center-stage. There are multiple fake commercials that come on throughout the episode, including a funny one on Arizona Iced Teas (it’s true, the price is on the can though).

Something else that has to be brought up is the show’s strong music selection. The season ends with one of the best OutKast songs, “Elevators (You and Me),” and a real shout-out has to go to the club episode which features songs that most other shows on network or cable television wouldn’t dare put on their soundtracks.

Atlanta has proven to be quotable, erratic (in the best way possible) and laser-guided onto the audience it wants to focus in on.

Moving back to the aforementioned scene from “Juneteenth,” it resonated with me in the way that most of Atlanta’s quieter scenes do. It takes the broad truths that some black people have been through, and rather than jumping up and performing a series of Madea-esque “MmmHmms!” and “You go girl!”s, it silently nods. It lets the moment gather and simmer, rather than making a huge deal about it.

It would be remiss to leave the show’s comedic value out of any conversation about Atlanta. Episode after episode, there’s a 60/40 balance between drama and comedy, with most of the comedy coming from the character Darius who provides a whimsical childishness that is undercut by the savage reality of everything beyond his appearances.

The dialogue is messy at times, and the show feels as though the plot is moving at a stand-still at others, yet Atlanta is something that pulls you in and makes it hard to stop watching. With a host of projects on Glover’s slate (including a role as Lando in an upcoming Star Wars sequel), the wait for season two will mostly likely be quite long.