After the trip to Europe in season 3, “Atlanta” returns home in the final season 4. And after season 3 mainly told individual little stories, there is now a common thread that runs through the 10 episodes of the final season. In the final episodes, Earn, Van, Darius and Al aka Paper Boi deal with their homeland of Atlanta and their relationships with each other. What does Atlanta mean to you? What does their friendship mean to them? That is the core of the almost consistently very successful episodes of the 4th season.
This already starts in the opening sequence, in which all 4 are on different paths, but in the end they come together again – albeit on very different and sometimes quite wacky paths. What runs through the episodes is that the four protagonists are constantly looking for ways out. As a result, Earn and Van attempt to escape from a mall parking garage where they keep running into ex-partners of both of them. Of course, it quickly becomes clear that this is no coincidence, and the story leaves a lot of room for speculation. Is it a dream, an idea, a time warp… fortunately it is not dissolved, you can rather make up your own mind about it.
Or in episode 3 when Earn is stuck in a room for days to meet D’Angelo. Here, too, a lot takes place in the fantastic space, but here too it is about the core behind it. Earn realizes that things often look different behind a facade than they appear on the outside.
There are also episodes that are great, but always give you a queasy feeling. Not being able to escape somewhere or not being able to arrive at your destination is also a kind of nightmare for me. This happens at several points this season. It’s not as awkward as the Season 2 episode of “Teddy Perkins,” but it gets weird at a few points. For example, when Van is on a shoot with Lottie, and both of them are somehow caught up in a mysterious “Mr. Chocolate” are recorded. Or when Al thinks he’s being followed until a killer actually turns up. Or Al again, who has retreated to a farm after the events and has to fight for survival somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And of course the last episode, where all four friends manage to escape through what they have in common, although Darius still thinks he is in a dream world. In the end, is “Atlanta” completely just a dream? Only Darius knows that – we don’t see it – fortunately here either.
In any case, it’s the end of “Atlanta”. The story of Al, Darius, Van and Earn continues – but in different places, no longer in Atlanta. The four of you say goodbye to Atlanta, and with that we say goodbye to “Atlanta”. This not only ends a season with great episodes, but a high-quality series that has set many strong accents and delivered some unforgettable episodes. Donald Glover’s series is bold, unconventional, and addresses many important issues when it comes to equality, cultural identity and racism. It is excellently told and staged, and it crosses borders. There is hardly a series that on the one hand I really wanted to watch, but on the other hand I would have preferred to switch off individual episodes because it made you feel so uncomfortable watching it, like “Atlanta”. The series does something to you, stimulates you to think, lets your imagination flow, provides a confrontation with your own actions – that’s the way it should be.
Images: FX