The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Atlanta’ Season 4, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Van is joined by Ringer editor Khal Davenport to dive into the latest episode of ‘the final season of Atlanta.’ The guys discuss the beauty of Sade’s love songs, the potential hidden meaning of the snipe in this episode, and of course Van and Earn’s love finally being solidified. Host: Van Lathan Guest: Khal Davenport Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Rob Harvilla from 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, the world's greatest loopy and perverse and inaccurately named music nostalgia podcast. We're doing 90 songs now because there's too many songs. Pearl Jam, JZ, Jewel, YouTube, Cher, Hootie. These are just some of the names people yell at me on the internet because we're back. More great songs, more rad special guests, more loopy perversity. Join us once more on 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, starting Wednesday, October 26th on Spud. Welcome to the ringer's prestige TV podcast feed.

I am Van Lathen from Higher Learning with Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay. I'm joined here by Cal, who is a senior editor at the Ringer. And also, you do wrestling stuff for the Ringer. Tell everybody what is that you do, because we were just talking about some amazing wrestling historical facts. Yeah, thank you, thank you, Van. It's good to be here. I guess it's about four and a half months since I started at the Ringer. Hired to basically get a lot of wrestling content on the site.

So if you go to the fight section or the WWE section, since the summertime has been a lot of words up there about pro wrestling, everything from Antonio Anoki's passing to, you know, stuff going on week to week, who's Bianca Bel Air being up, you know, why people aren't as good. You know, a Finn Baylor piece just went up recently. So, you know, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Before we get into Atlanta, which is what this podcast is about, episode, what's this,

seven of Atlanta? Episode seven of Atlanta, Snipe Hunt, written by Francesca Sloan, directed by Hero Mori. Before we talk about it, I want to ask you a question. Give me a wrestling dream match that never happened. That never happened? Oh my gosh. If I could have gotten like, I don't think I've never seen like, damn, I'd have to Google. Have I gotten a...

Kerr says, HBK versus A.J. Stiles is amazing. I'm thinking like, I don't know if I've ever seen like a great mood of Ray Mysterio match. If that's happened, I need to find the tape. But if it hasn't happened, they're still around. So let me get that at some point. So normally we do this podcast here with me and Charles Holmes. And so people are well aware of the Midnight Boys of Charles Holmes by his feelings of Atlanta. But before we, Cal, you and I talk all the time.

We got some stuff upcoming that we do if I can ever finish. doing what I'm supposed to be doing here. Facts, facts. What's your experience with Atlanta of the show? What's been your experience with Atlanta over the course of its run? How are you enjoying it this season? What do you think about the discourse around the show? Just give us your whole spiel and your whole background with you.

Oh, my. I'm glad I was asked to do, grateful to do an episode of Precise TV for the final season of the show. It's one of my favorite shows that has been since season one. I kind of, as I started getting more into like pop culture news writing and interviewing and just editorial stuff in the industry, Atlanta was one of those shows where I was able to kind of chart, you know, my progress and how well I was doing. How many screeners was I able to get? And I remember being, you know, the former employers, we would get a, we would block out time

in the, in some little break rooms or some of the, you know, the conference rooms, boot up an episode and hold like a little screen. Party. Like it was, Atlanta was one of those shows that kind of felt, it felt like it spoke to me as a black man, as a lover of television, as a guy who's just kind of

into quirky, weird stuff when I'm watching stuff. Like, it's one of those shows. It's the timeline, you know, put in, on display. You know, there's a lot of things about Atlanta that I love. Season two, Robin Seasons Holds a special place in my heart. I can watch

that batch of episodes anytime. a day, any any day out the week. I'm kind of frustrated because I don't know how many of us are out there, but I'm a real big fan of season three and the risk that they took and the moves that they did

that in season three, even if I don't know if it's going to pay off this season because there was a lot of things that were going on that kind of, if you don't connect the dots, some things kind of feel like they were like just happy experiments. But I'm more frustrated

because I think season four is they've been doing great work week in and week out. But I think because of season three in the way maybe people kind of reacted to a season that was a little more challenging, maybe, you know, it wasn't so much of a linear story that people were wanting, but, you know, throwing some of these episodes that kind of, maybe it didn't feel funny, maybe it didn't feel like it needed to be on the show. But I think every season I feel like Donald Glover and their crew, they not only did their best work, but they learned from what they did,

and they started to take bigger risk, because they don't want to do what they did, you know, 10 episodes ago. They want to do new stuff. So I feel like season four feels like the culmination of everything they've learned doing the show while being in the industry. And I love it.

I love this episode. It feels kind of like a departure from some of the insanity from this season. But, you know, I appreciate being able to kind of hone And I hope people are watching because if you want some of these inner stories between these main characters, like episode seven has got it all right there. Absolutely. So I think Snipe Hunt as an episode speaks to kind of some of the stuff that you're talking about

because whereas Atlanta doesn't seem to have the same presence in the cultural zeitgeist that it used to, this season has been fantastic. And this episode of television itself was fantastic as well. Now, we had come off of three episodes that I had talked about early on in the season, was Atlanta still funny? It was definitely meaningful, definitely brilliant, but was it still funny? We came, we're coming off the backs of three episodes that prove overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly that the show is still funny.

Right. That the show is not just funny. The show is fucking hysterical, okay? And it has been hysterical. Now, this show, this particular. particular show is devoid of the laughs, Snipe Hunt is devoid of the laughs,

but it brings so much else, this might be one of the more meaningful episodes of the show ever. It's paced almost like a, this seems like in all of, we know that this is the final season. This episode

seems like the culmination of so many feelings, so many misunderstandings, so many things left to be said that unsaid, along with the sort of symbolism of the sniper hunt. Of course, we know if you've seen the episode, what happens is Van, Erne and Lottie, it's Lottie's

sixth birthday. Happy birthday to Lottie. They earn rents an entire campground for them to go and camp out and celebrate Lottie's sixth birthday. Baller. Baller. He's making money now. This is a different earn from the first season. And he didn't even think about bringing any other family, though. It was literally just, all right, just the three. of us, we got this.

Doing the most. A 12-person tent, the whole nine, all of that stuff. And the reality is that this is not as much about Lottie's birthday as this is about Earn trying to convince Van to come to Los Angeles with him and to bring Lottie as well. Okay, throughout, there's a sniper hunt in this, which I didn't know what a sniper was before this. We'll talk about that in a second. Right.

Your opinions of this particular episode as it fits into this season, but also as it fits into the overall story of Atlanta, because this seems to be the episode where Van and Earn get it together. Yeah, I think the question of why do you want to stay in Atlanta? I don't know if that was like a loaded question for Van, as well as the people who maybe want the season in the show to be one way when it's really something else. But coming off of the season three finale,

coming off of the way their relationship had, the journey they both have been on together, because there's been highs, well, maybe not too many highs, a lot of lows. We've seen a lot of lows between these two. But you can obviously tell, I mean, they could acquit each other a while ago,

and it feels like they kind of tried to, but they naturally gravitate toward each other. But with what Van, you know, admitted in season, three in regards to her head and what's going on with her, you know, mentally and what this stuff she's trying to work through, you know, personally. It's, I love the line of I've been dreaming about you every night since Amsterdam. Like, there was a lot. I don't know if that it feels Kanye type passion. I forget the exact line of shit. I don't know how that's going to hit for people, but it's one of those things where it's for so much of the series.

especially when it came to Van, Ernd would not say anything. He wouldn't open up. He really kept himself guarded, I think, because he was unsure if he really wanted to step into a lifetime with Van. And I think

with season three, it seems like quietly, introspectively, he realized a lot about life in the past season. And in this season, they started together. You know, they went on a whole crazy journey throughout the airport together. And being able to see him say, okay, there's a lot he could do.

He could be doing a lot of things in his life right now. And he wants to spend the bread to buy out a whole park and get the 12-person tent and spend the time with what clear to be the two most important people in his life. So I was just hoping that conversation between the two of them was so crucial because if it went left, I think it would have been a different, we would. would have been seen a different last couple of episodes. So I was waiting for, you know, almost hoping that Van was going to say, I didn't want to see her say no, because I wouldn't have known what that would have meant for them for the rest of this show. And they're not perfect, which you can clearly see, but I'm glad that they both admit that they love each other and that they want to continue on to really build a family unit.

I think this, that moment is connected to another moment earlier on in the series, in this, in this season. So I, when Earn was able to stand up, crouch up in the tent and deliver a clear thought about his feelings, clearly translate his emotions into words and give them to her with such free vulnerability. so excessively, I couldn't help think about the fact that he's been in therapy. Yes. Yeah, he's trying to work on himself. And so the Earn that we saw at the beginning of the season, we didn't know very much about him why he was the way that he was, what had happened to push him away from Princeton,

and why he seemed like he only saw exactly what was in front of him, and it was kind of, you know, in that same situation. It seemed like Earn was a very A to B to C type of, a guy and there wasn't much more there. And you could see how that would be an ingredient that would be missing in relationships that he would have, right? Everything seemed very transactional with him. It was hard to understand. And he seemed guarded and sullen and withdrawn. And we know now why. We know that when Erne was a kid, he was abused by family member. We also know that when he did get to college and tried to open up to somebody else, he was once again taking advantage of. So you might

dealing with someone who doesn't have the tools needed to express his emotions, to allow people in and make them and let them know that he is leaning on them and needs them and trust them. It's very hard to know how to protect other people if you don't know how to protect yourself. So when he stands up or he turns around and he looks at her and he delivers, a fantastic mini soliloquy a little monologue about how he feels about her

how he feels about her in proximity to him being the mother of his child how he feels about their life together, what he wants and how he feels, that's to me the fruit of the work that Earn has been doing on himself and

I think this entire episode is it represents more than anything. He represents a new beginning for Earn and for Lottie who smiles at the end of the episode so moving. But it also represents the culmination of a character that we've

been watching since episode one. Like the end of that character. The finality of that character. This is the last episode with the Earn that we knew. That is why he tried to do this whole thing like a rapper. He tried to

go big. He tried to get the most expensive tent. He tried to cross, he was trying to force everything. He tried to cross a waterway that he shouldn't be, he's trying to force it. He's not letting things come to him. He finally, at the end, let's go. He let's go. He succumbs to his feelings for Van.

He succumbs, and he was able to do it because he realizes that all the other stuff that he's doing is not it. The way he's going to do it is to be real and available to his woman. and tell her what's on his mind. I thought it was a beautiful, beautiful turn of events. Right. Damn. I like that you touch on the therapy.

Because when we were introduced to him doing therapy, we were also introduced to him using all of the money that he earned to extract some evil with his power. Still learning lessons, yeah. The job was done, but he clearly wasn't fulfilled. So he's done the work. It took three and a half seasons of this show to really get through all of that.

But being able to see that, that's why I say, I hope people who were kind of falling back on the show last season have been picking up because it's not only phenomenal work. You're getting what you've been asking for. It's just not going to be delivered to you the way you may normally be accustomed to getting it.

What did you think about the snipe hunt itself? I didn't know what a snipe hunt was, and now I know that it's a cruel joke played on children at the Boy Scouts to make them believe, leave it's something that's not real. I mean, I guess all these things are cruel jokes. Were you a Santa guy? Did your parents...

Where are you from, first of all? Like, where... I'm born and raised in Jersey. Still live, Central Jersey. Yeah, I grew up, about seven years old. I realized that Santa Claus's handwriting was so close to my mom's handwriting. And when I mentioned that, she was like, yeah,

you're right. So I... But, you know, I never did, like, too much camping. So I didn't know anything about, was this a ploy to just make the kids go to sleep in the woods? Like, what's the point of the sniper? I looked it up. So a snip, a sniper hunt, this is what a snipe hunt is defined as.

And this is so interesting. The snipe hunt is defined as a practical joke or a fool's errand use its existence in North America dates back to the early 1840s. And when an unexpected, an unsuspecting newcomer is duped. into trying to catch a non-existent animal called a snipe. Hmm. Maybe, because, I mean, there's the obvious snipe hunt in there, but, I mean, and this is just off the, this is just off the dome. So is the fool's errand is, it's not earned going to ask about L.A. It's the idea of having to be so baller that I'm going to take you and our daughter to,

this, you know, secluded place to have this, you know, have the perfect, when he probably could have just done that at home. She don't really want to leave Atlanta anyway, but she will for him. But if he had realized that, hey, maybe I could have just been that raw and open with her, maybe season two, maybe, you know, at some point during season three, those times when she was maybe looking for somebody to latch on and he wasn't really there for her emotionally. Again, I think that all of that is kind of wrapped up in that conversation. and the tears that fall from his eyes and the emotion,

you know, this carried in his words, I think it's all kind of there. Come with me on the journey. Okay. About what I think the sniper is about. Let's go. Kerm, do me a favor. What's up?

Don't censor me, Kerm. Oh, let's go. I heard you. I got you. Because you, a lot of times, Kerm, there's a little thing between me and Kerm, There's a little, sometimes Kerm Lysa Flexis producer hat on me. Don't censor me, Kerm. I heard you, hurry, heard you.

Because I'm about to go deep. Okay. All right. So, I think the snipe is love. Hmm. Do tell. Okay, so they talk about the snipe hunt, right? Lottie is there.

Lottie's trying to catch something. Mm-hmm. They're talking about the snipe hunt. They're talking about them. is their situation between one another. He's trying to have the conversation. When Lottie catches the toad, right, what do they say? Maybe put it down.

Yeah, you can't catch that. Like, you can't catch it. Once you have it in your hands, it's something that you're always trying to catch. But once you have it in your hands, you want to make sure that you don't squeeze too hard and crush it. Right. Like, maybe you want to put it down. like release it, let it go. 100%.

100%. Love. Later on, they put her up to the snipe hunt. The snipe both represents to them to earn and van, something that can't be caught because it's not real. Like you can't catch something that doesn't really exist. Right, right, right. So the question is sometimes that this show asks and that,

I think we ask ourselves is, are our feelings real? Is this a real thing? Is love real? Is love either the confluence of all of these chemical signals that come to our brain, mix that with attachment, mix that with proximity, mix that with all of those things, and boom, you have love? Or is there some real tangible force that binds human beings together in this superhumor and superhuman, and superhuman and ethereal way. Is that the thing?

Is love like the snipe? Something that we tell ourselves is real that we use to distract ourselves that we use to give us purpose, but then it's at the end you can never really catch it. Right.

Except for the fact that Lottie catches a snipe. Didn't even know what she was doing. Didn't even know what she's doing. She's a kid. she's like that you use the snipe hunt when you're in Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, she catches a snipe and every time she catches something

what do her parents do? They get afraid. Yeah, yeah. They react and they get afraid, hey, what is that thing? And we never really get to see what it was. That same type, that same time, that same time in the tent. The tent is that pillowcase.

Yeah, oh, wow. The tent is that pillowcase. Okay. Earn and Van inside of the tent, they caught the snipe. They finally were able to tell each other how they feel. When she says, I love you, he says, I know. I know. Shout out to Han Solo, which he was in Solo.

Yes. I see you. I see you. Shout out to Han Solo. But he does know, but that love. would have stayed fake had they not chosen in that moment to make it real. That's my thing on a sniper. Kerm, did I go to?

Kerm, Cal, did I go too far? Nah, no, I'm feeling it. I think you hit it right on the head. Because it's definitely, as I'm getting older, I'm trying to, especially with a show like this where I know it's never just one layer. I honestly, I'll watch this show and I think Donald talking to me. There's a couple times. There's a couple times heard that psychiatrist.

I was like, is he talking to me right now? But it's one of those things where the episode, it's constructed. Because it's so far away and the way it's shot, the three of them are in the distance a lot of the time. There's a lot of times where you see Lottie going off on her own and you hear them having a conversation. I tried, I turned it up. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. I don't know what. When they came back, it sounded like they were trying to figure out what the end of the

the snipe hunt trickery was going to be something about saying it was going to be a bird or something like that. But there's a lot of these instances where you really don't know what's going on. And I love the fact that the episode itself was a metaphor for love while Erne was trying to assemble the last pieces of the puzzle to secure the last. love that he was looking for. Absolutely. And he doesn't want to leave and go to L.A.

without bringing that hope and that feeling that he feels with him. She thinks that he wants to do it because he doesn't want to be alone. But him bringing his family with him is bringing his reality with him. He doesn't want to go out to a place. And so I think that this was the episode where a lot. It doesn't really happen that much in Atlanta. Atlanta's a show that likes to leave you guessing. It's a show that likes to make you try to go, what the hell?

Like, what's the answer? Like, even last week's episode with the Crank That Killer, I read all kinds of amazing theories that some guy named Doug actually sent the Crank That Killer, that some guy named Doug is the Crank That Killer, and that he was doing that to come pick up paper, but so many things that are out there. But on the most, on the hardest subject, the most mysterious subject in human existence, which is love, Atlanta decided to give you a definitive answer.

And the definitive answer is that these two characters are soulmates. Yeah, no, clearly. Yeah. That's why I also love that responsive. I know when she said I love. Like, I feel like throughout the series, we've known that. At one point, it felt like Van would have. Van was probably ready for what Ern is ready for now, season one.

She was working. She had a home. She had a baby. She would have loved to have him be in the house all the time and really, you know, build a family. He was home dealing with, you know, probably PTSD, a lot of internal stuff that he was living in a damn storage facility. Season two gets a little more papers. Things start to look a little nice. But life still clearly isn't right.

You know what I'm saying? It took them going overseas, experiencing, you know, hands and all other types of insanity going on over there for earned to... I mean, of course, he's financially set, but there's been a void missing in him for a while. He's known that it's been banned,

but he just wasn't ready for it. being able to see him flick that switch and understand it in that moment. It was really, I like, it was a raw moment. It's probably one of the most open moments we've got. And I think a lot of it is because you mentioned it being cold. A lot of that's because Erne was turned off, more than likely because he didn't know how people were going to react to things that were going on. So a lot of it is ringing true to what we're now realizing about the character.

But again, I think people wanted, so tell me how big Paperboy's check was when he signed. Tell me exactly how they said. And they wanted it in episode three or four. And again, they called the show Twin Peaks. I don't know people, like, it's Twin Peaks with rappers. If you don't know Twin Peaks, I don't know what to tell you, but you're not. They were still trying to figure out who killed Laura Palmer. It's just one of those things where it's so into that.

It's a fascinating, it's a quirky, fascinating show, but it's, A show that's not there to solve the question. That's Atlanta in a nutshell. But when you do get the answers, pay attention. Absolutely. No, you're cooking. Here's the thing. There's another thing that I realized in this episode.

Earn is an answer guy. What you mean? In the show. Paperboy has a problem. Earn finds an answer. True. Darius has an issue. Earn finds an answer.

Earn's job is to find an answer. He's an answer man. Most good managers are answer men. Some managers are problems. Not my team. Some managers out there just bring you all kinds of problems. Right. Some managers, they're answer people.

Right. The answer person in Ern's life is van. Right. Right. They're driving on the road. she says to him, maybe you should slow down. He doesn't slow down. Right.

The guy didn't tell him, hey, I might want to slow it down a little bit while you're driving through there. They are trying to get across a thing. He's like, he wants to cross it. We can't see it. Right. She goes, no, we can't cross that. Look at that. How are we going to cross that?

We didn't get a pull out of it. And no way you should be taking a kid through that. That's how something stupid happens. No way he was. going to have her on his shoulders doing that. Yeah, no way. They get to the tent. Earn is pressing so hard.

She's like, well, I don't know. It's like, we're going to be cold in the tent because we're not going to be able to insulate a larger tent. There's only three of us. If the tent is made for 12 people, it needs that many people. It's a tent. We're going to be cold, right? So it's not that earn.

shouldn't go to L.A. without Van, is that he's going to fail if he does. He can't go without her. This right here, besides any other thing that he's ever done, this is actually the fight of his life. Can he go out to L.A. whole? The questions that we ask each other as human beings are, how does one other person make you whole?

How do you fit into somebody's life? We can clearly see how she fits. And we could also clearly see why she has some reservations about their bond. Of course. She thinks that their entire bond is based around the fact that she had a baby. He has done a poor job telling her how much she means to him because he probably doesn't feel confident enough to do it. And this episode and what was said,

and in what wasn't said and all of that did a perfect job of letting us know how and why these two characters work for one another. It was great. It was amazing.

And at the end, when that little baby smiled, I felt so good for her. Look at her appearance. They're cool. And I will say, I'm a fan of a great needle drop. Shadee anything,

but specifically, love is stronger than pride, the perfect song for this episode. There wasn't, again, you mostly got nature sounds and conversation in this episode. So if you're going to play a song to close out or to, because I believe it might have played at the beginning as well, I'd have to go back and check. But if you're going to have an artist or a song bookend this conversation in the series, you want it to be love is stronger than pride. I mean, that's basically what urn is realized throughout the series.

Kerm, what's your favorite Shadee song? Don't do that, man. Damn. Disgusting. I'm 24, dog. Don't do that. Disgusting. You better get a playlist, man.

You better, you better. Like, I'm disgusting. Kerm, next time. You find out what Drake's answer is and just start using that. Shadee coming out. She's coming out on tour again. They say she might be coming out on tour. I wonder who she'll tour with if she comes back out.

That's a good question. Who, like, is it Cizza? Like who's the artist that she's going out with? Because Chade is a vibe. You got to have certain pieces to connect with. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think. Who should if, okay, I mean,

a Drake Chadee situation. I mean, I'm not, like, Drake is going to try to get in there. A lot of people are going to say Drake. I wouldn't say that it should be, Drake. I would say that it should be like, I don't know, man, Shade and I want to see. a double feature Shadee Anita Baker type situation. I know there's two different audiences, but...

Anita's been performing. I remember seeing the video. She was singing to a Lil Wayne. Little Wayne was about to cry in the audience looking at her performing up on that stage. Anita Baker, I mean, I'm sorry, Shade and Drake, I don't know if that would do bad bunny numbers,

but I feel like a lot of people would be lined up around the block to see that concert would be insane. A lot of people... A lot of people not going to want to see that, though. A lot of people... Like, a lot of people who like Chadee are not going to want to go because of the rest of the concert. Right.

Boy, man. Like, Chade got a, I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm going to go see Chadee when she tours, man. I don't know. You know who else could go with Chadee? Like, Chauze Gambino could go with Chade. That, I mean, yeah, yeah, at this point.

He can't do, like, there's certain records. I don't want to hear him doing a Chadee bill. Like what? This is America? You don't want to hear it? I don't do that. No, I'm like anything before camp, like, you know, a lot of that early stuff, I don't think that's going to translate well lyrically.

I doubt he does those records when he's doing the show. He's running around and jumping, and he's so high energy and into the music. This is America's probably the biggest rap song that he does on the show. So, do you have any final thoughts about Snipe Hunt, this episode of Atlanta? Do you have any final thoughts about what we're going to? got, I think, three episodes left. Yeah, I think that's... Are there any outstanding storylines, any questions, any other things like that that you want to see cleaned up?

With three episodes left at some point, because I don't think they've... And I hate to be the person that I was talking about earlier, but Darius, I don't... Not that we haven't gotten like a Darius-centric episode, but what... Like, is there, do, if they wanted to explore anybody, I would like to see them take some time to kind of give us a nugget into what exactly is his deal. Even if it's just a monologue, a stray conversation that, that, you know, he just kind of is real enough to explain, you know, the way he sees things. Or if, if something happened is kind of, you know, affected the way he acts now. Because, I mean, he ain't got a job. He doesn't, he, in Amsterdam, like, with no money.

like paper was like, I'm going to give you no fucking myself. I don't know. After that episode, the space cookie situation, I was really intrigued on where Darius's mind goes when he's not rolling L's and asking for money, you know, on the paper boy paper trip. Yeah, no, I get it. I think I want to know a little bit more about Darius. I think that works. And I also feel like I want to, we have a resolution.

now between earn and van I want to see how to this next three episodes like you say wrap up the relationship of the crew the four of them where are we going to be when this show leaves off with our characters that we follow before we go I do want to have

a small conversation about something that you touched on earlier which is about the narrative and the conversation around Atlanta so I was sure that after the Kirkwood Chocolate episode of Atlanta that there would be that there would be huge

Huge, huge, huge, huge discussion on Twitter because it was taking aim directly at Tyler Perry. It really wasn't that much. I'm wondering what's going on that is making people pay a little bit less attention to this show

that's hitting such enormous highs. I know there's a lot out there to watch. I know they took some time off. I know the last season wasn't what a lot of people said. You said this earlier. It wasn't tremendously digestible for a lot of the traditional fan base. I'm just wondering, though, what it's going to take for the show to go back to what it,

or is that just gone? I mean, we've got three episodes left, so I guess it is. My working theory, all right, because season two was 2018. At that time, Donald Glover was also, you mentioned solo. He was doing solo. I believe he did the Lion King as well. There were a number of things he was doing, or as we know, now starting to work on.

And as he got busy, Brian Tyree Henry was working, Zazi Beetz was working. You know, Lekeiths-Field, they've all been putting in work. Hell, here on Mariah directed, how much of Barry. Like, they've all been working in the interim.

And I think you couple a busy head of Voltron plus, and mind you, like in the interim, because these shows, they could take a year or two between filming and stuff, in the interim was the beginning of COVID.

They're right in, shoot both seasons. They just started dropping it early this year. I don't know if it's a situation where it's, there was too much time in between season two and three

plus season three kind of not really being the meal that many of the people in the timeline wanted. And I think you do cup. I mean, hell, NFL just started not too long ago. It's on Thursday nights.

NBA's coming back. I think there's too much time in between. plus a lesser than a well-received season in a more, a muddier content landscape, yeah. I hate it because I would stack season four against anybody's favorites in some of these other seasons, but, you know, it's kind of what happens. And the conversation with our we're having is amazing,

but I feel like Donald Glover and them, he's already gone. You know what I mean? He's already in Mr. Mrs. Smithland, Maybe he's thinking about, you know, whatever, the rest of the child just can. I think he's, he, they did this for a reason. They wanted to put the button on the end of this for a reason. They're going out on a high.

It's going to be like so many of these other great shows that I love, years later. Someone's, a TikTok is going to pop up with Mr. Chocolate, you know, talking to people in the speaker. Maybe that's going to turn to a trend in like three years. And then people are like, oh, damn, season four really was kind of hard. Why would the viewer numbers down? And then maybe they'll come back to this podcast and they'll hear this and it'll be, you know, 360. I don't know. I don't know.

360, just like you rapper's record deals. All right. We are done. Cal, thank you for joining me. This is the Ringer's podcast, prestige podcast feat. We're talking about Atlanta. We will be back next week to do this again. Guys, we got three more of these.

I really, truly hope that out there, you guys are loving. and enjoying this show because it's really good. I'm hoping that Kerm, a young man of immense talent and potential, don't know very many 24-year-olds doing it like Kerm. Right. Okay. All right. Kerm, what year were you born?

98, man. Obscene. 98 is crazy. Y'all need to put me on to which Charday I want to start with. All of them. Because I know smooth operated, like, but I didn't want to say, I don't want to do like, my favorite song, smooth operator, because that's what I don't Curm, can I be honest with you?

Do you realize, I don't know if we've ever talked about this, do you really realize that you are legitimately young enough to be my son? Wow. Let's not talk about that, then. We've never had that conversation. I'm 18 years older than Kern. Wow. That's nuts.

Like, you are legitimate. I'm 42. Like, you are legitimately younger. enough, if I'd have been, I've dodged a couple bullets at that age, too. You're legitimately young enough to be my son. So all of the shot A related stuff, I absolve you. You're right. 1998, that's sick.

That's sick. Go to her first album and just press play. Trust me, it'll just keep playing and you'll be good. Bob, you're going to be a better person. All right, you guys, we are out of here. We're going to be back next week, more at Lans. on the ringer's prestige podcast fee. Thank you, Cal, thank you, Karen.

We're out.