Donald Glover's FX dramedy ATLANTA

Paper Boi/Alfred is a great character.. his reactions are priceless.

Glover's Earn is the least interesting character, here.. his personality feels vague or lacking somehow

The callback joke towards the end of this episode was amazing.

"2 gangbangers hold a pastor & a drug dealer hostage in a stripclub during Katrina"

The level of anti-trans bigotry in that last episode was a bit much. I mean, the guy who wanted to switch races was basically just a proxy for trans people right? I guess they figured that outright transphobic "humor" would be unacceptable but as long as they aired their bigoted views in the context of switching races it was ok

Surprised this was just left to sit there unchallenged, because it's basically doing exactly what the episode is criticising. They flipped it perfectly at the end by making the '35-year old white guy' virulently transphobic and homophobic (you know, like a lot of 35-year old white guys). But they point is that everyone on the show assumed he wasn't, he was given the benefit of the doubt. Which rather pointedly isn't extended to Paper Boi (who picks his words extremely badly but isn't actually transphobic and basically doesn't give a shit either way).

Paper Boi is then expected to be the voice of and the stand-in for all of "rap culture", and once that phrase enters the show it's basically carte-blanche for the liberal antagonist to project a load of views, with "rap culture" as a stand-in for working-class black guys, because rappers are often the only working class black dudes that a lot of white middle-class people have any real exposure to. (As an aside, this show in general is very sharp when it comes to black class politics). It's about who gets the presumption of bigotry and who is given the benefit of the doubt. It's satitirisng online kneejerk outrage culture, where people are so keen to prove their "progressive" credentials that they're blind to a load of, ahem, dodgy racial assumptions in the process.

When the Rachel Dolezal thing broke there were a lot of people on social media making false equivalencies with trans people rather than treating it for what it was, another white person taking a job that should by all rights have been given to a black person.

After the season finale I feel confident in calling this the best show of the year, unless Rectify knocks it out of the park in the next couple of months. I have never seen hand-to-mouth existence depicted more realistically. I'm sure there is some French new wave film that isn't coming to mind right now, but this season alone excuses any amount of shitty hipster rap.

i will say this show has done what i would've considered impossible: it's making me curious to check out childish gambino again

he was on fresh air this week and sounded so super depressed

the ny mag interview he gave made him sound a bit manic depressive yeah. this show is fucking great at its best and merely good when its not.
also - https://open.spotify.com/user/g0u1d1e1/playlist/547VqHwet5L1YssmZhpjc1

use of elevators in the finale was just beautiful

thoroughly enjoyed this, esp the first 5 eps. maybe a touch uneven after that for me, but yeah, still really really good. strong closer too.

Not seen last two eps yet but this show has been amazing. Wasn't entirely sold on the Trans episode, but everything else it did/has done was masterful.

What was the song on the end credits of the club episode? someone help!

wiki p sez it is - Closing song: "I Can Dig It, Baby" by Little Beaver

thanks johnny!

hand't noticed this thread. Def the best show out there.

matt dc otm

late pass on the this but holy shit as someone who was so fucking sick of being told how great community was and generally hostile to childish gambino naming albums "because the internet" i bow down to glover on this one, best TV show i've watched in a while

(4 eps in, really just blown away by how great this is)

it'll do that

(oblique finale spoilers)

I was so relieved when Earn opened up that storage unit and it wasn't a recording studio inside, wouldn't be able to handle Gambino creepin into this thing

several weeks later, i still chuckle to myself thinking about the invisible car

^ Very much this

Ending season w "Elevators" was very affecting & appropriate

great show. coming back in 2018..
http://shadowandact.com/2017/01/12/donald-glover-inks-new-overall-deal-with-fx-productions-atlanta-wont-return-until-2018/

they took this off on-demand while i was in the middle of watching it wtf

Started this the other night, it's excellent. I'd been putting off "Handmaid's Tale," because bummer, but (at my wife's insistence, ironically) we finally watched the first episode of that, which was fine. But then my wife asked for something shorter and lighter, so I suggested "Atlanta," and it was worth it just to watch her eyes light up with enjoyment. Three episodes in, and perfect blend of realism, comedy, drama, etc ... Weirdos or no, these seem like real people, which is unusual for TV. Strong acting, writing and direction all around.

You know where the word ‘manage’ come from?
‘Manus’ latin for ‘hand’?
… Probably, but I’m gonna say no for the purpose of my argument… Manage come from the word ‘Man’, and that isn’t really your lane
My lane?
Yeah, I need Malcolm. You’re too Martin, and you know what they did to him? They killed him.
Didn’t they kill Malcolm too?
Nah, they say that, but nobody’s seen the body since the funeral!
… That’s how funerals work…

― Frederik B, 12. september 2016 01:09 (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just wanted to repost that. I should rewatch all of this.

the pitbull episode was gold for me

Returns in February!

Premier date confirmed as March 1st

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQZJxDjv7uo

what does 'robbin' season' portend?

Christmas, iirc

ah ok

http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/atlanta-season-two-robbin-season-how-it-got-its-name.html

I also love that their inspiration for a full season story arc is "Tiny Tunes: How I spent my Summer Vacation"

We've all read this, yes?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/donald-glover-cant-save-you

Not yet.

Slant's review of the new season is pretty ecstatic.

I swear i sometimes get lols at random times when paperboy rapping we muckin' we muckin'...massage and fuckin' gets in my head

I finally watched the entire first season and I think I had some false assumptions about the tone from what I'd heard/seen in promos. I loved it.

The underlying feeling where many of the characters just want to get by, and are completely tired or ambivalent about what they're doing is something I've seldom seem done well, and it's so good here. Alfred's ongoing comments about how he doesn't really want to rap, he just wants to be able to do something to pay the bills. And then every stupid cliche repeatedly happening to him and he's just suffering through it. Earn just wanting to get by and trying to hitch his wagon to his cousin's possibilities.

I still regularly chuckle thinking about that invisible car callback joke

new yorker article kind of annoyed me.

yup

I find Glover a bit insufferable in general, although I enjoy the show

Anyone else seen the first of the new season, or just us earlybird Australians?
Glad to see it returned with all its DNA intact, and maybe the funniest episode I'd seen.

Katt Williams was amazing, this show is tops

premiere was awesome

Florida Man conspiracy A+++

haha so good. also 'he's alligator man'

how did the opening section connect to the rest though?

just illustrating that it is, in fact, robbin' season

The denouement of the cold open, with the girl crying like a kid at having been shot, was so weird and believable and mundane, it did a lot of things to me that no other show does.

Watching Season 1 on Hulu. Which means I'll see Season 2 a year from now, or thereabouts. Just finished Episode 4, which was as amazing as everyone upthread has said. Earn's ranting monologue about poverty, the pizza delivery kid screaming "I know where you live!" after getting robbed, everything Darius says or does...this show kills me.

having spent a lot of time in helen, ga, the last episode slayed me

Atlanta writer Stefani Robinson creating a remake of Peep Show, or at least using the Peep Show format (with approval of Mitchell and Webb), but with two american women.

Are you an AI generating stuff that it seems like I might like but in reality is likely to make no sense? :)
There have been a few US versions of Peep Show iirc, the one I saw sucked badly.
I'd give it a chance...

https://www.google.com/search?q=stefani+robinson+peep+show&rlz=1C5GCEM_enUS1019US1020&oq=stefa&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j46i39j69i57j46i433i512j0i131i433l2j69i60j69i65.1084j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I loved the spite episode so much. any over-elaborate plan like that - was trying to think what other series had done something in the same ball park then realised I was probably thinking of that episode of WWDITS...