Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.

Warning: Major and minor spoilers for Atlanta season 4 are in this review. Reader discretion is advised.

When FX’s Atlanta finally returned after quite a few years with its third season, I was quite fond of the polarizing ten episodes that either spellbound or perplexed viewers. I equated the season to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: The Return: an authentic entry in an established series by being precisely the antithesis, to the point of making such a contrasting point. Season 3 barely took place in the titular city, with the series’ main characters and storylines. It was only Atlanta because it was made by the same team and shown underneath this title, so it forced us to think about every episode and what they meant in the grand scheme of things. Donald Glover and company aren’t people that operate with simplicity and straight-fowardness, so it wasn’t a bother to me that the show would deviate so much from its bare basics. What we did know, however, is that the fourth season was just around the corner, and it would also be the last batch of episodes that Atlanta may ever have. I believe Glover when he says he’s done, because he’s certainly an artist that hops from medium to medium and project to project. Atlanta isn’t his entire life (if even his Childish Gambino rap project isn’t), and he’ll have something new for us down the road. Besides, it’s tough to get all of the highly coveted stars (Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, and Lakeith Stanfield) all in one spot now, so it may be virtually impossible even if Glover tried.

Well, season 4 is finally done, and so is Atlanta, and I can easily say that there really has never been any show quite like it. At all. Glover compared this series with The Sopranos, which is a bold statement to make, but I do see similarities between how much each series pushed television past its comfort zones (into territory that would eventually actually feel normal). It took us a while to get to Atlanta’s end, but look at what has happened since those fateful first episodes. Representation on television has gotten better, and many tales of black life in America have been green lit and blossomed. Satirical series have also followed suit in Glover’s footsteps. What no other creator has achieved, mind you, is how Glover has made each and every season feel like an album from a musical artist, and each episode a song from these albums. Each season of Atlanta has a different feel, and all of the episodes, as we know very well by now, possess their own identities and rules. The overall story of the show — Earn Marks trying to make something of himself while struggling in life, Paper Boi’s rise as a hip hop artist, et cetera — is told in the ways that lyrics depict messages and meaning: with a little bit of blatancy and a lot of our own interpretational homework (we fill in our own gaps).

It feels more appropriate to compare Atlanta to hip hop (maybe even some hometown talent like Outkast), but I feel like the strongest musical equivalent — to display how each season has panned out — is Radiohead. Season 1 is like The Bends: the most by-the-book season, but it still showcased signs of brilliance from Glover and company and left us anticipating more. Season 2 is OK Computer, with an instant rise to the series’ peak and larger signs of the rule breaking and uniqueness the series would be heavily known for (there’s also a large amount of self awareness, which the series uses to its advantage). Season 3 is Kid A: its most fragmented season, but with a lot of political and metaphorical commentary told within its abstractness; we have to take what we will from it, whilst knowing we instantly feel something. Season 4 skips ahead in this discography a bit and reminds me of In Rainbows. It is equal parts beautiful, fun, meaningful, and saddening. It is easily the most sublime and tender season yet, but it never loses sight of how bonkers Atlanta is always capable of being. I love season 3, but season 4 may have it beat, and I’m presently feeling like it is one notch below season 2 (it’s great to see the show end on such a high note).

What makes season 4 so special is how daring it is. It doesn’t resolve quite as simplistically as other series do (when that finale comes, most shows fold or learn how to deescalate, where Atlanta had me wondering where this was all going right down to the final minutes). And yet it still concludes in its own way. Throughout season 4, we still get closure, answers, and even information we weren’t privy to before. We get everything a final season is meant to give, and yet each episode still felt of its own nature, and like individual experiences that just so happen to be a part of a bigger picture. We have to start from the beginning, the episode “The Most Atlanta” (named as such to mark that this season would be more back to the series that we were more familiar with before season 3). There’s a white Karen figure trying to hunt down Darius via mobility scooter, because she assumes he is another looter of the Target being overrun (when really he just wants to return an air fryer). This is the bridge from the third season, where there are numerous stories about various forms of racism from white Americans, and a few episodes follow suit with having their own Karen figures. These are the three episodes given to critics ahead of time, and the public saw the first two episodes together, so it only seemed like this was the path the series was going to continue. You wouldn’t find another similar character afterward, but it seems as though Glover, his brother Stephen (a frequent collaborator on this show), and director Hiro Murai (who should be considered television royalty by this point) saw fit to have season 3’s messages linger just a little bit longer (for those binge watchers that will finish Atlanta in a weekend).

I could dissect each and every episode, because nearly every single entry in this fourth season is golden, but I will instead take select moments from each episode, like I did the premiere, to see what the overall picture is in this highly peculiar sendoff season. After a third season of disconnection, we get arguably the series’ most vulnerable moment with Earn’s visits to his psychiatrist in “The Homeliest Little Horse”. First off, let’s go on this tangent. I love that you never really knew that Earn goes to therapy before this episode, and we never visit this topic again, but only a show like Atlanta can pull off this bigger picture without having to remind us all of the time (and without these plot points feeling like they’re arbitrarily tossed in). He opens up about how he was blamed for something he didn’t do (he was accused for trying to steal from a girl he liked, when really he was trying to get his suit back), and we not only learn that this was his primary motivation to get to somewhere better in life, but that he has been dealing with the trauma stemmed from abuse by someone in his family for his entire life. Again, we never find out who or what exactly happened to Earn, but it doesn’t matter. We know enough, and we see Glover give an Emmy-winning performance and feel his hurt. We do know that he is in a much better place, and he has proved all the naysayers and racists wrong.

In the grand scheme of things, Glover and company used this final season to encompass one main theme: where our legacy takes us, and what we make of ourselves. Earn squandered his own episode by crafting an elaborate and petty scheme towards one of those aforementioned Karens, and he ends “The Homeliest Little Horse” looking pretty terrible (and I think even he realizes it right at the end). Otherwise, each and every episode deals with the chasing of that endgame and where our identities will lead others once we die. The only episode that doesn’t really follow this idea is the premiere, but in that one, Earn and Van are stuck in a parking lot with all of their exes: a surreal impossibility, but an allegorical brainstorm of wondering where we came from and how we got here.

The rest is all projection and anxiety of what is to come. “Born 2 Die” kids about the extremities that R&B legend D’Angelo goes through (or all D’Angelos, since he is now an archetype represented by many chosen individuals to uphold). “Light Skinned-ed” has older generations disconnected from the youths of today, and even Earn’s aunt’s detachment from reality. “Work Ethic” has Van trying to protect her daughter Lottie from Atlanta’s version of Tyler Perry (Kirkwood Chocolate, played by Glover as well), who has built an entertainment monopoly and hungers for more whilst rewriting history. “Crank Dat Killer”, one of the most thrilling episodes of the entire series, has Paper Boi and others atoning for their pasts; the rapper thinks it’s because he is next in line to be killed by a serial murderer going after everyone that took part in the viral “Soulja Boy” trends of the 2000s, but really it was some unsettled beef from yesteryear (meanwhile, Earn and Darius are asked to kiss in order to secure some rare Nikes, and they are questioning where this leaves them as well).

I’ll skip an episode and go to the one cut that has little to do with the actual stories of our lead characters: the mockumentary “The Goof Who Sat By The Door”, which is about the first black CEO of Disney (Thomas Washington) and his quest to make “the blackest movie of all time” with A Goofy Movie. You’ll be convinced that this is all factual, mainly because enough of the episode is linked to intensive research, but we also see Washington destroy himself in search of fulfilling the true representation of being African American (and reclaim himself from hurtful and racist stereotypes that have been built and cemented for centuries). The episode reminded me a lot about Nathan For You’s “Finding Frances”: such a drastic departure but an essential slice of meta docu-fiction that has rightfully earned its place as a major highlight of its host series. Again, we’re provoked into wondering why this episode exists right here and right now. I honestly think it has to do with the season’s fixation on fate, knowing that we are all going to die some day, we have to make our own legacies, and we cannot right the wrongs of hundreds of years in a single artistic statement or business venture. People can still try, mind you, and you’ll get something as exquisite as Atlanta.

That leaves three undiscussed episodes, and they’re all character studies that follow this same blueprint. “Snipe Hunt” has Earn and Van having to face the question that has loomed over the entire series: who are they to one another? They go on a camping trip with daughter Lottie (so she made it out of Mr. Chocolate’s grasp safely, thanks to Van: mom of the year) and they keep dodging the elephant in the room. They’re happy as a family right now. Earn is now going to leave Atlanta and go to Los Angeles. He’s a made man. His dreams have come true. He may lose all of it once he leaves, though. Each attempt at having this discussion is interrupted by something, and they have to face each other in a claustrophobic tent with Lottie sleeping in between them. They go for it and decide to be a family together. This is the same Earn that was avoiding responsibility and ownership in season 1. He’s now beyond thrilled to be a father figure. This is growth, and we know where these characters are going to be once the final credits of Atlanta roll.

What about Paper Boi, though? He’s got the penultimate episode, “Andrew Wyeth, Alfred’s World” almost all to himself. He’s a superstar rapper who wanted to make the big leagues when we first meet him, and now that he’s achieved that, he’s hiding out in his safe farm away from the world. He gets everything from being attacked by wild hogs to having the tractor he took forever to fix partially crush him (and break his foot). Still, we know he’s going to figure this all out, and he’s discovering himself not as Paper Boi but as everyday guy Alfred Miles. With a tender moment while face timing Earn, the episode resolves with the bittersweet realization that, like The Sopranos, the characters of Atlanta are so well made that we can easily imagine them living off of our television screens and away from our consciousness; we just won’t be a part of it anymore. At least Paper Boi is writing his next chapter, and it’s beautiful to watch (even amidst all that goes wrong).

That leaves Darius’s closure, but he was always so untethered that we weren’t ever really sure about anything regarding him (outside of him being strange and likely amazing to hang out with). Well, in typically unpredictable fashion, Atlanta saved his episode for last with “It Was All A Dream”. He undergoes sensory depravation techniques to soothe himself, and continuously mistakes reality with his hallucinations (and vice versa). He tries to imagine a “thick Judge Judy” to bring himself back to Earth, like the totems in Inception (if you will), but these kinds of strange tactics can only get him so far: he is still confused beyond belief. Meanwhile, Earn, Van, and Paper Boi are all checking out a local sushi restaurant operated by an entirely African American staff, but the food isn’t to their liking, and they keep getting tempted by that Popeye’s joint that is staring them in the face from across the parking lot. The restauranteur notices and gives them a bit of a verbal onslaught that circles around the very themes brought up before: trying to chase one’s legacy, and feeling like the pursuits to rectify one’s heritage and people against stereotypes feeling like a lost cause. Still, Paper Boi and his friends don’t want to try that poison fish that is prepared for them, not to enable bigoted notions, but because they just don’t want to eat it.

This is that challenging grey area that Atlanta has been presenting us this entire time. It never took clear sides. It made us have to decide how we felt about what we’ve seen, and Atlanta definitely exposed some of the worst elements of some viewers (but that’s also the power of socially conscious satire that is as well crafted as Atlanta). Paper Boi, Van, and Earn are about to be threatened by the restaurant owner for not eating the fish, and he actually instructs his staff to lock the doors. That’s when Darius — the amazing man that he is — rushes in, knocks the owner out, and rescues his friends in (what we find out is) a stolen, purple Maserati (and it happens to have Popeye’s in it! Hallelujah!). It looks like an image of everything that the restauranteur was fighting against, but these four friends are happier than we’ve ever seen them in the entire series. We end the episode with Darius realizing that this wasn’t one of his deprivation hallucinations in the tank, and he really just did commit a couple of felonies in the real world (maybe that fever dream of him running into an old friend and getting into trouble with a police officer convinced him wrongly). Just like Inception, however, we’re left on a cliffhanger. Earn, Van, and Paper Boi are outside enjoying some weed. Darius is trying to watch Judge Judy and figure out if this is even real or not. We don’t see the television when he realizes, and his response is cryptic: a perplexed smile and wince, which unfurls into a legitimate grin.

So, what does it all mean? Maybe he’s just discovered that this is real life and he did steal a car and beat up a guy (but it’s too late to worry now, because we’re in a great moment, as long as we ignore those distant sirens that may be coming towards us). Maybe this episode was all a dream, and the happiest moments failed to exist (but what a dream that was). Maybe he’s reflecting on some of the horrors he experienced earlier, like reliving some trauma (again, stuff we never knew until now; I feel compelled to restart the entire series just to see Darius in a whole new light and love him even more for knowing he is hurting deep down and wanting to be there for him), but at least he got to see his dearly departed brother again. Or maybe the entire series has been a dream. Earn, Van, and Paper Boi didn’t achieve what they set out to do. This was all fiction. This would definitely explain all of the surreal and experimental aspects of the series, but it would be soul crushing to know that the naysaying of the sushi restaurant owner was right. Either way, Atlanta was a ride, and Darius knows it: all good things come to an end (hopefully not at the detriment of the successes of its characters). We haven’t a clue what the actual final moment represents. It’s for us to discuss for the many years that Atlanta will remain relevant and analyzed.

With that, one of the best seasons of 2022 concludes, and it wraps up what I can safely call one of the greatest series of all time (most certainly of the last few years). Atlanta is highly engaging and thought provoking in many ways; should I have laughed at this?; what does this moment mean?; who is in the wrong here?; is any of this even real (we’ve been thinking this far before this finale, let’s not kid ourselves)? Glover approached the good old American satire with bite, and with his musical and sketch writing background, creating this episodic-yet-fluid apparition of America and its political tensions, systemic injustices, and frequently failed attempts at addressing real issues. We got a handful of loveable characters out of this, and many insane scenarios. If you think about it, we experienced universes of ideas, comedy, and satire in only forty one episodes (all seasons had only ten entries, outside of the eleven in season 2). Atlanta felt like it was one hundred episodes. It easily could have been a thousand. Donald Glover and friends knew they had to stop it while it was good, not just for creative reasons, but also the scheduling conflicts that would clearly mar what could come. They instead stopped the series while it was nearly perfect: a gorgeous sendoff for such a bizarre, unparalleled series.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Atlanta Season 4: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?

Written by Andreas Babiolakis