The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Atlanta' Season 4 Premiere

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Charles and Van are back to break down the first two episodes of Season 4 of 'Atlanta.' The guys dive into the hidden meanings behind the journeys of Earn, Van, Alfred, and Darius in their return to Atlanta in Episode 1 (2:00). Later, the guys take a close look at Earn's trip to therapy and the events that follow in Episode 2 (24:00). Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Welcome to the Prestige TV, podcast. My name is Charles Holmes of the ringer music show and the Midnight Boys. I'm joined with the better half of the Midnight Boys, Van Lathen and the host of Higher Learning. Yo, Dan, are you ready to get into? The Midnight Boys are four people.

You're just saying this because Jomey's sitting right next to you. I wouldn't have you not been there. It's very true. What's up, Van Lee? Checking in with Charles Holmes. What's going on? We're back. Atlanta, bro. Final season. Man. I don't season, yeah. It feels like an end of an error a little bit.

It doesn't. It doesn't? No. It feels like the era ended actually a little while ago. Well, that is true. Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the more interesting things about Atlanta is just how anticlimatic, the end of this really monumental and revolutionary show has been, has become. Atlanta was a television show like we had never seen before, in my opinion.

and it ushered in to me or brought to the forefront, black surrealism in television in a way that a lot of people weren't really ready for. And because it was so funny, so avant-garde, and so different, it took everybody by storm. But the people that I heard talking about Atlanta, when the show was popping, I don't hear them talking about it very much right now.

I mean, to be fair, I also think that we are living in a world that was created by Atlanta. If you just look at FX, you have shows that obviously reservation dogs or Dave or all of these shows that are obviously taking that surrealism, that Atlanta was like, you can do this on network TV and blowing it out. But this is the fourth season, the final season. We have two episodes to talk about today. The first is The Most Atlanta, directed by Hero Morai, written by Stephen Glover. episode two, the homeliest horse, directed by Angela Barnes,

written by Ibra Ake. Should we go about, like, let's go one by one. Sure. Episode one, divided into three parts. We have three stories. The first story is Darius,

who is trying to return an air friar to a store that is supposed to be a target, and it's playing off of the white woman in a wheelchair who was trying to defend a target after the death of George Floyd. and was trying to stab people. The second story is Paperboy. His favorite rapper Blue Blood dies.

And he goes on a scavenger hunt to try to figure out what Blue Blood is trying to tell him after his death. And then the third are Earn and Vern and Van go to this Atlantic Center where it's almost like they're trapped in a time loop. with all of their exes and they are trying to escape. First impressions, episode one,

what'd you think? First of all, shout out to everybody at Atlantic Station. I've only been there a couple of times, but, you know, they got shops like a grove type of situation. Have you ever met an ex there? No, no, no, no, no.

I don't have any exes in Atlanta just because, like, once people go to Atlanta, they fall into the vortex of Atlanta and you never, never to be heard from again. Moving to Atlanta is one of the biggest life decisions one you can make. Because once you go there, everything becomes about Atlanta. You can move to LA and still kind of move to Europe. But once you move to Atlanta, your goal now is to proselytize to everyone else about why they should move to Atlanta.

And I don't be trying to hear that shit. But to be fair, that is actually what this episode is partially about. When you're in Atlanta, you never escape Atlanta. And when it was actually very funny with By the way, I love Atlanta. Just saying. When Earn and Van kept meeting all of these exes who quite literally didn't change. The metaphor is not subtle.

They have gone. They, Earn is rich. Van was living her best life feeding people, human parts in Paris. And everybody back home is still the same. Everybody's still the same. Everybody, you know, Van runs into a guy.

at what looks to be a T-Mobile store or some kind of wireless store. And the last time she saw was at a Kid Inc. concert. By the way, such a stray for Kid Ink to catch. Because Kid Ink is being used as a time stamp that represents the early to mid-2000s. I mean, Arnd looks like, Kid Ink, really? Yeah, Kid Ink. This is a really important question. Sure.

Because you were from the South. Have you ever felt like Earn and Van when you come back from L.A. And like you feel like you've changed and literally everyone you've grown up with is still stuck in a time loop. Well, I don't feel that way at all, but they do because they remind me. They remind me. I go back and I'm like, oh, I'm happy. Because when I go back home, I'm happy to see people the way I remember them. So I'm actually excited to see things the way I remember it.

I went to my old high school and they put a fence up around the high school. I'm like, yo, man, why the fuck y'all put a fence up around the high school, dog? That's not dope. That's not the way I remember this. You know what I mean? I want things to be exactly how I remember them so I could feel those same feelings and go back in time. But they remind me stuff is different. If I've gained a pound, God damn, it's coming back, huh?

If I lose a pound, oh, shit. Mr. L.A., what you're vegan? You know what I'm saying? Like, whatever, they remind me how much I've changed. But I think a tenant of, I can't speak to it. but the tenet of growing up where I grew up is never changing. It's like the version of you that is the most pure and the version of you that is the most, I guess, authentic is the one that you start as.

And all you can do after that is incrementally get worse and faker and more inauthentic until somebody has to check you. And I think in a way, the episode itself is litigating that, right? In a way, the episode is saying, hey, all of these people are stuck in this loop. We're back here in Atlanta. Are we about to get stuck in this loop? Yeah. Like, are we about to kind of get stuck in the same thing?

We've been gone. We've been abroad. We've been doing all of this stuff. Are we just going to come back to our hometown and wander around? I mean, I think that is the big thematic driving force of that first episode because I think all of the characters are stuck in a loop where, Darius, he's not even looting. He's trying to return an air friar while everyone around him is looting. And he's stuck in this loop of no matter how far he goes,

this white woman who represents many white people still thinks, hey, it doesn't matter if you have the receipt or don't have the receipt. It doesn't matter if you were trying to return something. You're a criminal. It is my job. Society tells me it is my job to reprimand you. you have Alfred who is almost seeing

what he can eventually become with Blue Blood. Where it's like he's stuck in this loop of like once you're a rapper and like we've seen three episodes a lot of this season seems to be interrogating like where do you go from here?

You're stuck in this loop of like at the end of it what is there? You're just a rapper where five people show up at your funeral and don't even bother to listen in your album. And then you have the most direct, which is Earn and Van. And Earn

looks back at Van when they're trying to escape. And he's telling her, do you think that I would do this to you? Do you think that you're going to become one of my exes? And we see in the second episode, not to skip ahead, but Earn is thinking about going to L.A. So it is very much on top of his mind. Like, what happens if I actually leave Atlanta? Does Vance Can become, does Van and my daughter just become another version of people who think I've changed and never get to leave this place? It's interesting because I think one of the more compelling parts, it's very well said, I think one of the more the compelling parts of the show, or these last couple of seasons of the show, is the parts of their lives that we didn't get to see. We followed the rise of Paperboy. Like, Paperboy is all of a sudden now an old rapper.

Like, he's all of the sudden now, his career. In actual years since Atlanta first came out, his career has only been around six years, right? But actually six years in rap, if we're going to be real, is... It's not a short amount of time. It's like a long amount of time, you know what I mean? So it's just interesting to see... To see where he is,

not really knowing, like, where they really are. The show is so vague about so many things. It's vague as to the status of... what Ernie Van are right now. Yeah. It's vague as to how famous Paperboy is. But I don't know if Paperboy is a little baby, if Paperboy is a Freddie Gibbs,

if Paperboy is, you know what I mean? I actually think I know, because we were having this conversation yesterday. We were having a conversation about GZing Gucci, which is very apt because they're both from Atlanta. I actually think, after watching Episode 1, Paperboy is where Jeasy was

probably after the recession where everything that he makes after that we're like, damn, but this shit ain't thug motivation. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Where it's like, but I think what makes it hard to realize that is that Paperboy doesn't know.

Right. Paperboy hasn't come to terms yet with the fact that like, he's not whack by any regards, but he's like similar to a place where like two chains, the feeling that, that we got when like two chains finally renamed himself and was going on that run.

Yeah. He's not the feeling we have about two chains now. And that's not saying that his art is worse. It's just to your point, it's probably been like, what, a couple years? He's old now. Paperboy is old in terms of rap, even if in life not that much time has gone by. And you look at Paperboy and his entire journey with Blue Blood. Blue Blood is somebody that meant something to him.

Do you think he was a dude? Are they trying to say he's like a Doom? He's an MF Doom. He's definitely MF Doom. Because even remember when MF Doom died, when we got the news of MF Doom died, he had been already dead for a little while. But they were saying they were writing these,

they wrote these episodes before the pandemic. So I'm just like, we learned about Doom's passing what probably I think the second year into it. Yeah. I still think it's probably an MF Doom type of time. same because even when he was picking up the sandwich and I'm like this is primo do.

Yeah. So for me you know, having to have your funeral as not being a remembrance of you but in a sense being another performance. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It kind of representing in my opinion the chokehold that fandom has on rapper sometimes. I think for Paperboy But, you know, he's at this time, at this point in his life, too, I think a lot of rappers get to. I think we see rappers to where the crowd isn't at charity anymore, especially rappers,

to where the crowd is at cheer anymore, it's, and they change. Some become political. Some become clowns. Some become all three. Some become all three. Some want to sell you crypto. but anything to make people remember that they're still here. And I think looking at the skeleton of Blue Blood in the coffin,

in a way, represented the life cycle of a rapper. And this was a rapper that didn't get to the points that Paperboy got to, but it was something that meant a lot to him. And he's right there. You have to go through all of this stuff just to say goodbye. Like, we go through a lot culturally, right? We go through a lot culturally, like, to be able to send people away, to be able to send people off. We go through a lot culturally to enjoy people.

We go through a lot culturally to try to understand what they're trying to say to us. And me watching him go through all of that just to go to Blue Blood's funeral, it was just this Herculean undertaking. And it shouldn't be. Like, you know what I mean? It shouldn't be. Blue Blood deserved better than that. So I think when he's looking at him like that, he's like, look, this is his. last performance, this is what he wanted.

Only five people came. Like, what does all of this really mean? Actually, I took the journey that he goes on for Blue Blood as Blue Blood, as Blue Blood giving him, giving Paperboy a message because Alfred in the beginning of the episode is stuck in traffic. Metaphorically speaking, as a rapper, he's stuck in traffic. He can't, like, he's literally in between. his final destination and the beginning. And when he veers off and he goes to on the scavenger hunt for Blue Blood,

he's having so much fun. He gets to go to the movies. He gets to go to the arcade. He's doing all of these things that we never actually get to see Paperboy do at any point in Atlanta. He's having the funnest day of his life. And what does Blue Blood's wife say to him? She says, I think he expected more people. I'm surprised too.

all you had to do is listen to the album he put so much effort into it but I guess you don't always get back what you give and I think what a lot of this episode is about is like when you get to that part in your career

where people stop listening to all the albums they stop listening to the deep cuss they stop dissecting them you pour so much of your heart into your career and once your art is out there whether people care or not a lot of that is out of your hands a lot of it especially for rappers

is just time. If you're not the hottest thing, a lot of people will throw you to the wayside. And Blue Blood spent the majority of the last days of his life putting together the scavenger hunt. And what hopefully Paperboy realizes is that because his wife says it, like, you need to have fun. You need to live your life.

Your life can't just be you toiling away at this album, trying to recapture a moment that you will never, like, have. And it honestly, in a meta way, I don't think they wrote it this way, but I'll ask you this question. Can you name me the Donald Glover album that came after Awaken My Love?

I used to know the name of it. I can't. 315, 20. And I remember being a writer. That's the one with feels like summer on it. This one has, no, it has, it was also weird because they didn't have any names for it.

So they're just the numbers. Oh, yeah. No, I remember that was the one. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed the album as well. but think about the life cycle of Childish Gambino Donald Glover writer on this

like show around everything Awaken My Love was easily his biggest album in just in terms of like what it did Redbone he's coming off because of the internet as well super huge super big makes him a star I saw him in Madison Square Garden

he drops this album out of nowhere and I don't know the label politics of why I didn't do what it did but Donald Glover's at that point in his career I don't think he is. As a rapper, I think that more, all right, I'll put it to you this way. Do you think that the new rappers in Atlanta look at Donald Glover as a peer or as an O.G? Or any rapper, to be honest, do you think the rappers coming up look at him as like, yo, we're peers?

I don't. Like, he's literally at that age now where he's like, it doesn't feel like it to us because we're probably closer in age. But when I look at Childish Gambino's career, I'm like, oh, yeah, like, I don't think, but I think the problem with that is that I don't think mainstream rap or I don't think hip hop really ever accepted Donald Glover. I really don't. I think that when Chowell's Gapito first dropped and it was camp in that whole era, right? Like, I remember, and I might be able to pull up the, I might be able to pull up the email that was on the email thread during that time that me and my friends went through. I remember, like, putting in an email thread, like, yo, this.

is not bad. Like, he's rapping now. This is not, this is not bad. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, he's actually got something. And my entire crew being like, yeah, this is the type of rap for white guys that say that they like rap.

This is the type of rap for college frat boys that can't in any way understand what real hip hop is. And he is going to, and he is going to, uh, he's going to, uh, he's, going to like, thrive at that. Like, that's going to be his thing, right? So that comes and goes. What then happens is because the internet comes out, right? Because the internet comes out, just real quick,

a real retrospective, in my opinion, on Donald Glover's career. Because the internet comes out, it's better than people thought it was going to be. But it still fails to connect with a certain degree of hip-hop fans, with a certain group of hip-hop fans, because it's very out of our guard. And also, there's a lot of how we tend to talk about Donald Glover at that. time because he's a writer on 30 Rock. He's on community. I think a lot of people like, I fuck with community.

I love 30 Rock. I was watching a bunch of Donald Glover standup. But I do think to a certain type of person is for white people. Atlanta changes that, but that is what the culture was saying. He was on the breakfast club, and Angela Yee was like, I didn't know you as a rapper. I knew you as this guy who's a great writer. it's on 30 Round Tina Faye type of situation but really what happens after that

around that because the internet time Donna Glover does what most people who are fans of hip hop of hip hop artists he does what they do he breaks down and people love that

it makes you more human and it makes you more accessible to people you remember the thing on Instagram with the notes that he wrote to remember him going on on stage and saying that he was better than Drake, that he was better than Kanye West. He seemed to be spasying out or spasying out.

He went places if he was dressed all disheveled. Now you see. I remember him freestyle and on like sway and that was a moment where people were like, oh, is Donald Clever? Like there was a bunch of people who thought he was whacked. Yep. That was around the time of the, of the messages that he put on like the hotel like stationary.

And to your point, I think a lot of people had written him off now he was endearing. Right. Now they're like, well, this guy has something else to say.

Like, this guy is a little bit more because in order for people to really sell themselves as artists most time, they have to sell the fact that they're a little bit troubled. This guy isn't just this uber talented dude

that we like on community, blah, blah, he's got a little something more to say. Then he could really rap. And he starts snapping everywhere that he goes, right? And when he starts snapping, he falls back into the community.

The reality is this, that Donald Glover as a comedian and Donald Glover as a writer, director prior to Atlanta, his audience was not black people. That's a fact. He comes back, he starts to make,

he makes Atlanta, he starts to rap. He almost reembraces, and I'm not saying that he was purposely trying to be a part. He reembraces and reaccess the culture. He's working a lot with Chance the rapper.

Do you remember that royalty mixtape? I'm looking at he had nipsey hustle on it, school boy Q, absal, Bun B, Rizza, ghost face killer. Yeah, like there was a moment where I think he even was just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Because I don't think you get Atlanta

unless he does that hard pivot. Absolutely. And so after that he becomes a soul singer. You know what I mean? Like literally, like after that, around this whole time, then Redbone comes out. He becomes a soul singer. So what I'm saying is, I think part of the intrigue of Atlanta is Donald Glover comes from a perch to where a lot of people

still have questions about who the actual real Donald Glover is. And the show itself is more reflective of that than anything I've ever seen. Atlanta is more reflective of there's something familiar about it, but yet there's something so unfamiliar about it. There's something familiar about Donald Glover, yet there's something so unfamiliar about Donald Glover. And I think that's the reason why a lot of people wouldn't consider him peer or OG. He is one of the few performers that gets to exist in their own bubble, gets to make a song with all of these allegories in it and all of this end you window in it, this video that we're still trying to figure out what it means even today is the song revolutionary, is the song

pandering, what does the song really mean? we know it's that it's great. And I think what people are going to struggle with, even coming into maybe this season of Atlanta, is the things that you related to, at least in the episodes that I've watched, they're less there. I will say this.

These episodes are not drop-deaf funny. You're not really laughing. Well, it's almost, and this is going to sound dramatic, episode one and two especially, are almost like the funeral of a rap career where they're like, looking at a stage of life that's not popular. Think about it.

Every single big rap movie that we think of eight mile, hustle and flow, what does it document? The rise, you know? Oh, yeah, absolutely. The rise. Very few document the fall. And this isn't saying that Paperboy is falling in this season, but he is getting to that point.

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I get why they put these two out. Because if the first one, we leave Blue Blood's wife saying, like, yo, he created an entire project, and only five people did the homework to lead them here. You get episode two where Earn is dealing with this idea of spite, how to spite serve you. It starts with this white woman. and we don't really know for the entire story

why she's here. She's a children's author. She gets called by this agent. She's so excited. And the whole, you see Tracy. He's one of the assistants. And there's something off. You don't know how this is part of this main narrative.

And then the main narrative is Earn going to therapy. He has a black therapist. And you're finally learning what happened at Princeton. And then we get the twist. And I knew the twist once Ern said the airport story about the TSA agent who was a white woman who wouldn't let them through. I knew at that moment, I'm like, oh, that's the woman. That's the white woman. And at the end, the big twist is that Donne played this whole big prank on this woman who ruined one of his days.

And Paperboy and Darius look at him like, are you a sociopath? Yeah. How did you like this episode? First, reactions? I thought the episode was incredibly interesting, but I think the most interesting thing about the episode was what we learned about Earn. And one of the most affecting scenes I've ever seen on television.

I think you can make the argument that this might be one of Donald Glover's best performances. Absolutely. So there's a scene in episode two where Ern is talking to his therapist. The therapist brilliantly played by Sullivan Jones so authentic, so authentic for a guy who goes so a lot of therapy, just was really, really working.

Can I also say just shout out, there is a difference between, when you're black, at least I feel there's a difference between going to a black therapist and one who is not, because there's just a level of shorthand, which I appreciated because, like, I've had probably two or three black black therapists in my life who have changed my life. Absolutely. They help.

They help. We learned that Earn, was abused. As a child. As a child by a family member. And that's what contributes to the fact

that he doesn't trust people. He says when the therapist has some questions, he says, I trust people to be themselves based on their incentives and what they rationalize. And that,

I think this episode was so powerful because we, honestly, for the first three seasons of Atlanta, it's hard to understand. what Earns deal is.

We know that he left Princeton. You are so right. We know that there's something, but we don't particularly know what it is. And Al, and Al knows that there's something off. But it's funny, you kind of think in the first couple seasons, you're like, are they just being an asshole to earn because it's different? Or is it because they grew up with him?

And they know, like, dude, like, what is, what are you not telling us? Why are you home? The situation for him leaving Princeton, you left to assume that he's a washout. Yeah. But in some kind of way he went up there, was supposed to change everything,

either fucked off his grades or did something stupid, to hear the story of why and how he was dismissed from Princeton, not only makes him a victim, it makes him a tragic story of somebody who didn't achieve whatever, what it is that they wanted to achieve by going to a big Ivy. It makes you super sad, and it explains to you why he's sometimes hard to connect with

and why he's also fiercely loyal, why he's the kind of guy that you can call at 3 o'clock in the morning and say that you need 300 chicken wings from nandoes, and he'll get up and do it. It's not just his job, it's because the people that he trusts, that he really trusts,

they mean a lot to him and he is, he's willing to do anything for them. It honestly makes the episode where Al is having that bad drug trip and the only person who is there for him in that room is earned.

Like it just shows you kind of how hard he loves, but how scared he is of the people who love him leaving him or hurting him. or hurting him. And I think, I'll be honest, this episode was triggering in a way

because when he tells the story of going to this Ivy League school, being one of 12 black people, being an R.A., and there's the white woman, Sasha, who's also an R.A., and he tells this story of giving her this suit that he spent all his money on,

her not returning his calls when he needed to pick up the suit from her room, and that betrayal, it reminded me. The first school I went, I went from one year. I went to University of Delaware, the fucking widest place on the face of the planet. The first time I was there,

somebody told me, you're the first black person I ever talked to in my entire life, and I'm like, oh, my God, I have to get out of here. And I left that school because I had a music teacher, and for extra credit, we were supposed to go to an opera. I didn't understand the language. I just didn't understand it. So I went on Wikipedia, read about it.

And then it was an extra credit excitement, and he accused me of plagiarism. I'm like, all right, whatever, this is serious. and he was trying to get me expelled, and it was a white teacher. And I remember, I, like, it was, I had experienced racism before, but I had never experienced a helplessness that was, this teacher emails me, and he sends this email, and then he doesn't think that I will understand a word,

so he sends a link to Urban Dictionary. And I was like, wait, what the fuck is happening? Did it help you, though? And the other kid, no, there was another kid. It was me, and there was another kid, And I think he was Hispanic as well. We were both looking at each other like, yo, what is what is happening? And I was going to all these people and I'm like, yo, why is this teacher like trying to get me expelled?

And like no one would help me. Like overnight I'd become like this demon spawn. And I was like I never like I transferred to another college. But in that moment I got, I felt that because I don't think that this is why Atlanta is so great is that we rarely talk about. the toll that like black excellence, for lack of a better word, takes on a person. What you have to, there's a trade, there's an exchange that you have to make for widening your world, for going out to a place to where you don't have the comfort that you might at a, at a HBCU or even in the city of Atlanta, you're up in Princeton, you're in New Jersey.

Remember, he wanted to go to a party. So look at what's going on. A girl invites him to a party of Philly. He wants to go to the party in Philly. So that's a part of him that he knows. It's pulling him to go have a good time and, you know, celebrate with the people that he's used to celebrating with. But in order to do that, he has to put his trust in faith in a white friend that he's just met. So in order to be him where he's at, he's got to trust the situation that is foreign to him.

And what does it do? Bites him in the ass. And also this Sasha, there's stuff in this episode. So that's not said, but you understand it. Whereas, like, Earn had to call home to get this suit, to ask to borrow money. Sasha, this white woman, doesn't understand not only how important that this job is to earn, but what it means when you're in college to have to call back home and be like, ask people who probably don't have it, hey, can I borrow some money?

And what I think is genius about this episode is that you have to think about what happens with the twist, where we're seeing this white woman on the cusp of her dream, right? We're seeing her finally potentially becoming a children's author, and she's exhausted everything. Her friend is like, I can't give you another $500. Like, I can't do this. And Earn has this breakthrough. He's talking about spite,

and he's finally coming around to his therapist, like, yes, spite doesn't serve. me. None of this might need to have revenge on a world because the whole reason this comes up is because Princeton wants him to come back. Princeton wants him to

talk at this panel and he's like, no. And what I think is so genius is that think about what happens with the twist. When Ern says he makes this breakthrough and when he goes and he's like, I'm going to go to Princeton, but this white woman stops him van and

his daughter from going and ruins the experience. Earn uses his money to make this elaborate prank where he's going to ruin this white woman's life and career and send her into debt. And you think about it,

Erne was on the cusp of it. He was on the cusp of having everything. He was on the cusp of getting this job in L.A., of repairing this relationship with Van, of getting closer to his daughter, and this white woman, one white woman who denied him that, he goes out of his way to deny her, her dream.

And I think that is so beautiful because you look at it and you're like, oh my God, Donald Glover is a, like, or at least Earn is a sociopath. And I looked at it as, wait, why are we so hard on him? So I think I looked at it almost totally differently. Let me tell you why. I think that this is an indictment. And I think this is an indictment of several different cultures. One being outraged grievance culture. we've seen him

so we saw in the one episode where Liam Neeson popped up right? Liam Neeson pops up in the episode and obviously that's talking about Twitter culture, outrage culture, what it means and whether or not we were too hard on Liam Neeson okay and this particular episode

at the end Arn was like the asshole his friends, his very own community being that you know Darius and Al are representing, they say, oh, you think that's a little too much? It's probably a little too much, right? We don't ever see what happens to earn. We don't see it. It's recounted to us. Okay? They don't even

give us flashback of how Van looked. He said she was crying. They don't give us flashback of their daughter. They don't let us see just how evil this woman was being. We don't see any of that. What we see is what happens to this woman. This episode, even in a clandestine way, is a White Lives Matter episode. And just hear me out. Okay. When you look at it, what do we get?

We get her apartment. We get her looking a little disheveled. She has a stressful life. she's having to borrow money, even though you would think she'd have money working at the airport. She has to borrow money. She has a dream

that she can't quite access. She has all of these hopes and desires, right? She's been working at them for a long time. Nobody thinks she's good enough. This is a character that anybody can relate to. And for some reason, today is her lucky day.

Somebody has rent her, somebody has understood her. Now, one, the human being alive cannot relate. Two, I have something really interesting and very special to say, but nobody wants to hear it. Either is because I hear people tell me all the time, Van Shea, they will give me a podcast, but I'm too real. She, they could put a mic in front of me, I'm going to be too real, I'm going to be too real. I'm like, you really getting on my fucking nerves. You know what I mean?

Everybody feels that way, and we watch her big break. And what do we see? a group of children, black children. That Earn has hired. That Earn has hired black children. Excoriate her to the point to where I'm almost like, yo man, what's wrong with these little motherfuckers? We see black children.

We see a woman that won't allow her a black woman. Wait, can we also just say, really quick, the nastiest part of this wasn't that he hired the black children hired. It's that he sent her to what looked like a black salon and her fucking edges were laid in the fucking most disgusting. The crazy way, right? Like, yeah. So, so, so we, we see, we see a black woman.

She's very nervous. We see that she's trying to bring her dog. I have a dog, a beautiful dog, who just this morning jumped in the bed with me and, and said, Dad, it's time they wake up. I love my dog. Any place I had, this is going to sound so crazy. I was in Greece and it was great. But I was jet lagged.

a lot of stuff going on and I had a panic attack in Greece do you know what calm me down like we're riding in the car and I'm having the panic attack Kalika starts showing me pictures of Bozeman She starts She starts saw me pieces of Bozeman

Pictures and videos of Bozeman Running and playing and I'm looking I'm like oh look at my boy and like I start to calm down So she has her dog with it she wasn't really The woman says no you can't do it So in every step of the way you're thinking, God damn, why they're kicking this fucking woman in the ass? Like, she's really...

But think about this. I think, because here's the thing. Earn is an asshole. By the end, I'm like, Erd, you asshole. But I think there's a reason why they did not show the flashback. The reason why they didn't show the flashback is the point that I'm getting in. I'm sorry I'm being so verbose. The reason why they didn't show the flashback is because they wanted you to connect with her and not him.

Yes. Like, you know what I mean? But think about media. Think about what happens when a white person does something fucked up to a black person. How many times you get the black person side of the story and how many times does the media be like, he was a good kid. She comes from this great home. They show you this big smile.

They want you to feel so bad for the white person in this scenario. I disagree. I think it's the opposite. I think you get to see the black person's trauma and you get to hear the, you get to hear the, white person's side of it. And I think he's purposely inverting that. I think in these videos that we see, be it the

Amy Cooper video in the Bramble Bush, or be it whatever, you get to see, in order for it to matter, we can't just tell the story. We got to have video. So, like, we can't just say, hey, man, what's the target day was mean? Like, you got to have video. But think about it. That's why

it looks wild. You're like, Earn, what's wrong with you? When he has the celebration for this moment, he is a broad broadcasting this white woman's pain in a way if like if that was like a black person it wouldn't have hit as hard because like we're used to like hitting the TV and it's just like the TV documenting the worst part of a black person's life.

Whether somebody got shot, whether somebody got like unlawfully arrested, all of these things. When you see it happened to a white person, the worst day, it does this thing to you where it's like you have the response that Darius and Alhead. It's like what the fuck is wrong with you? But see, all of it. Also for me, by the time we got there with her,

I didn't even really care so much about what happened with Earn anymore, right? I didn't really care as much what happened with him. Now, intellectually, I'm like, well, fuck her. She fucked up. She fucked over my man. Like, intellectually. But I was more in the moment tied to this big, huge, fucked up thing that happened. When the TVs came back and it showed them looking at her, at first of us,

I was like, oh, shit. shit, she talked about the airport. She is the woman, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm that damn, that's fucked up. But then I'm thinking, I have to ask myself because I go back, well, look how fucked up it was what she did. But, like, the question he's asking is, who's the real asshole? And that question, I'm sorry, to me, is a both sides of that I'm not that comfortable with. All right, so can I ask you this, though?

I'm just being for real. Let me ask you this question, though. inadvertently, because one thing I think this episode is asking us is inadvertently, how many lives does your average racist ruin? It depends what you mean about ruin. Can't know racist ruin my life. No, but think about it. How many lives has racism ruined?

No, no, in terms, but in terms of like something that is not actively, like we're not talking about something like this person killed you or this person, like, the police are harassed. you. We're talking about your average racist, robbing you of a moment that you can never get back. Earn will never get, he was going to Princeton to face his past. He was bringing Van and his daughter along to say like, hey, look, like this is what I've built. Like, I want to take, he wants to take his daughter to Sesame Street. He wants to reconnect with Van. He wants to say like, hey, I have this big opportunity in my life in L.A. He's taking them there to be like, hey, let's reconnect as a family and figure this out. So think about that. What I think that, what I think that, The episode is asking. Charles, what Erd did to her is. It's bad. It's unequivocally worse.

No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. It's not worse. It's absolutely worse. He's a sociopath.

I'm not saying what he did. It was good. What, like, okay, so, like, she, like, what he did to her is, like, demonstrably worse. It's, it's much worse. It's, it is. I'm not saying that, look, I'm all my fuck her shit. I actually.

think that this whole episode is interesting because it's trying to make her into a sympathetic character. And I think that's why I call it a White Lives Matter episode. But what I'm saying is when you look at all of the scheming, the plotting, the fact that she had to, did she have to fuck over her job to come to the place? Yeah, she quit her job. Can I ask you this? So the reality, so the reality is now this is somebody who was already having money problems. I thought the dog was going to get hit by a car.

I thought the dog was, I was like, if they hit the dog with the car. So what he did to her is she inconvenienced him in a big, huge, absolutely bad way by being a dickhead. He ruined her life. But think about the cycle of this. And I think the big thing, my big, like, departing thing is like, you have to think about where the story starts. This story starts with Earn at Princeton. Think about what Sasha denied him. Sasha denied him a life.

where he's a Princeton graduate. He says it himself, I can't open a doctor's office with a fucking honorary degree. It sets racism as a cycle. So Sasha denies him. She doesn't answer him. He has to leave school.

All of his well-laid plans, he has to literally pull himself back up through paper boy. Sure. Right? Yeah, you're right. Now he's at a point in the fork of the road where he's like,

all right, I'm going to let the pass go. I'm going to let go of my spite. and right when he's about to let go despite what happens another Sasha appears the question of this episode is asking my opinion is it worth it I know that is exactly

is it worth it to what we do to our souls is it worth it to what we're going to be going through is it worth it? I'd land where you are though I think here's the thing I don't think this end of this episode is saying that what earned it is right I actually think what the end of this episode

is saying is that Earn has become no better than Sasha. He's become no better than this author because what he had to do has irrevocably made him someone who was capable of ruining another life

to satisfy his own ego, to satisfy his own ends. And he looks ugly. And I think that's where I landed with this, where it's just like, I think who was worse off? Like, I don't know if I'm going to,

Like, that is the best argument to have. But I do think that, like, what this episode is saying by the end is like, Earn is now a different person. And the person that he's become is not better. Spite has irrevocably changed him. Huh. We liked Atlanta season three. It seems like the culture was in a little bit of a revolt.

Do you think that after these first two episodes, there are going to be people who are like Atlanta's back. No. You don't think so. No. Absolutely not. And I think that the show is being purposely subversive in a way that I really find refreshing. I think Atlanta was funny.

And, you know, Atlanta was relatable. And it's increasingly becoming, less funny and less relatable. But for some reason, I know this sounds like Cap, but for some reason, that's working for me. These weren't the two best episodes of Atlanta,

but they were incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, incredibly compelling and interesting. I'm not sure why. I just like the way they do what they do. But the reality is, I purposely think a lot of people thought coming back to Atlanta

might admit that you were going to get the show that you got in the first two seasons again, and that's gone. I'm with you where I think that I would rather have this. The way that they're doing this last season is actually what I want from Atlanta, because what's the alternative? They just play the hits.

They play the greatest hits from season two, season one. I think the thing that is honestly similar to like Donald Glover's career, is that every season of Atlanta is trying for something different. Its ambitions are, I truly do think that Donald Glover is trying to create the best TV show ever. Now, I'm not here to litigate whether Atlanta is, but I do think that once we have the totality of Atlanta, you cannot look me in the face and say that there is another show

that's ever been created that did what it did. and swung for the fences, especially a black TV show that swung for the fences in the way that these four seasons have. Huh. Interesting. I'd have to... And that's not me saying it's... I'm not having... This is the greatest of all time. I'm just saying that, like, it's trying to do something different. And that's why I think it's so difficult.

Like, if you take something like... I like Abbott Elementary, but Abbott Elementary is literally doing something different. I've talked to Quinta. She's doing something different than Atlanta. she is trying to make the greatest sitcom that she can using the formulas in the way that she knows how and when you watch you're like, oh my God, this is someone at the peak of their powers who understands this medium.

While I think Donald Glover is like, hey, I understand everything about this. I'm trying to break it with every single episode. And I think that that's, you can celebrate both. I just think it's harder to wrap your arms around that because a lot of people don't want to see genre broken every single episode.

And that's what they're doing. Do I think it's, I agree with you, but I also think it's trying to do something else as well. I think it's trying to drag us along to accepting different things from television. I think it's trying to, it's challenging this audience in a way that sometimes, I think, some people think that black art won't. Now, I don't agree. I watch plenty of people that challenge the audience, Terence Nance, Trout, challenged the, challenge, the audience in a way. I mean, people weren't

raving about Nope. Like, I like Nope. But, like, I think it's very funny that you do have your Jordan Peels. You do have your Donald Glovers. You do have a lot of these people who are like, okay, we are, we did the successful shit. We're successful now.

To your point, we are trying to drag you into something that's different. Right. And I think that, to me, is going to be the lasting sort of legacy of Atlanta. That in the fan service, era that we live in now, that there are a couple of people out there, no, no,

no, no, I want to tell this beautifully weird allegorical story that you're going to have to do a little work with me. You've got to come with me. I'm not coming to you. And I think that, to be honest with you, the audience was groomed. The audience was groomed. You give me a weird scene in a club where there's an invisible car. Shit that's just off kilter enough to make you go, this is different, but that resonates with you just enough to where you're like, I understand it. Now we're in the new frontier, man. Interesting to see how the season goes. They said, fuck you.

Yeah. Yo, guys, that has been the prestige TV first episode of the final season of Atlanta. Thank you so much to Jonathan Kerm. Kermie. For, you know, being the best on the boards. Thank you to Van Lathan, as always. And my name is Charles Holmes. We will be back next week.