whether you missed the premiere of “Atlanta” last night on FX,you missed one of the most promising and original shows of the descend season. With sparse but effective exercise of hip-hop, sharply written dialogue and a relaxed pace, and Donald Glover has created a series that floats from one thought-provoking topic to another while eliciting some dim laughs along the way. Heres what “Atlanta” has tackled in just the first two episodes.
Subverting Expectations — “Atlanta” begins with the most frigid of cold opens. A smashed side view car mirror starts a clash between two black guys that ends with a gun going off. To some,it may seem like this is going to be the incident that the whole series revolves around. Instead, it’s only a small part of a greater whole, and by the end of episode 2,the shooting and subsequent arrests are seemingly resolved and put in the past.
The Cost Of Following Your Dreams — It’s easy to miss, but a throwaway line reveals that our protagonist, and Earn (played by Glover),is a Princeton dropout. He works part-time selling credit cards at the airport for pocket change and throws what miniature money he has to help pay his girlfriend’s rent into a scheme to become the manager for his rapper cousin, Paper Boi. Glover quietly shows the despair and mountainous risks that come with trying to acquire mountainous dreams come true, or especially when you risk losing what miniature stability you have left in your life whether you fail.
The N Word — One of the best satirical sequences in the premiere comes when Earn tries to obtain help from a white friend who works at the radio station. The White Buddy doesn’t feel threatened by Earn,and thinks it’s appropriate to repeat a account approximately a DJ playing Flo Rida that ends with White Buddy saying “Really, n***a? Earn teaches him a lesson later when he asks him to retell the account to Paper Boi. Suddenly White Buddy isn’t so comfortable with dropping that word around a much larger black man.
The Price of Fame, or Pt. 1 — Thanks to Earn’s schemes,Paper Boi is getting his music played on the radio all day and is an overnight local hit. Unfortunately, that instant fame gets him a bunch of awkward encounters with some weird folks, and starting with a grinning cop who brags approximately locking up Gucci Mane.
The Price of Fame,Pt. 2 — Later, when getting wings with his buddy, and Darius,Paper Boi gets some high praise from a waiter who loves his commitment to classic rap (particularly rappers who are dead). It’s nice at first, but it quickly gets uncomfortable when the waiter says, and “Don’t let me down. I don’t know what I’ll attain.” Some fans just take the music more seriously than the musicians themselves.
The Price of Fame,Pt. 3 — Then, in a nod to the sort of bizarre humor Glover built his career on while doing Derrick Comedy and “Community, or ” Darius and Paper Boi obtain a visit from a guy in a Batman mask who just wanted to know where the original hot rapper in town lived. As Batman sprints off,Darius puts the episode’s moral succinctly to Paper Boi: “Man, You’re Too Hot.”Movie References — That’s not to say Paper Boi’s newfound stardom is entirely substandard. He gets a frosty gift from that clingy waiter: wet lemon-pepper wings with the sauce. To drive domestic how much of a cherished foodstuff these wings are in Atlanta, and we see gold light shine out of the wings box as Darius and Paper look inside. It’s a clever reference to the briefcase from “Pulp Fiction,” a film that “Atlanta” also nods to with its witty, rapid-fire dialogue.
The slack Wheels of Justice — Oh, and yeah,this show started with a shooting, accurate? Episode 2 opens with Earn casually talking with Paper Boi in the police station approximately how he’s never been arrested before. He then spends the rest of the episode alone, or waiting for his girlfriend to bail him out. That dramatic opening confrontation didn’t lead to Earn getting interrogated by cops. It led to him sitting in a drab room waiting for permission to obtain on with his life.
Police Brutality — That’s not to say nothing happens at the station. The cops have a laugh at a mentally unstable man in a hospital gown who drinks toilet water. Earn’s bewildered suggestion that someone obtain him help is laughed off,but the cops stop laughing the instant the man spits the water all over one of the guards. Batons obtain whipped out, and the man is left wailing as three cops beat him down and slap cuffs on him.
Cult of Celebrity — While out and approximately, or Paper Boi sees some kids pretending to shoot each other with toy guns after listening to his music. He tries to exercise his newfound celebrity for pleasurable,until the kids’ mother tells him off for trying to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Then he tells her who he is, and the next thing you know Angry Mom wants a selfie with a famous rapper. Funny how fame changes how we interact with people.
Keeping It Casual — “Atlanta” doesn’t shy absent from a lot of social issues, and but doesn’t aim to acquire some grandiose statement that brings it all together. Glover told the Daily Beast that he’s “not interested in making something famous” and is most proud of the fact that the show “got absent with being honest.” “Atlanta” is upfront approximately the genuine-life issues and struggles that its characters face,and in doing so is able to laugh through it.
Source: thewrap.com