‘Atlanta’ Closes Out Its First Season a Total Triumph
Tuesday night’s first-season finale of Atlanta is titled “The Jacket.” The plot, credited to Stephen Glover, follows a classic shaggy-dog-story arc: Donald Glover’s Earnest “Earn” Marks spends most of the episode looking for his jacket, which he’s pretty sure he lost the previous night while out partying with Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry), their pals and hangers-on. As directed by Hiro Murai, who oversaw most of the season’s 10 episodes, “The Jacket” is at once simple and enormously complex, as the hero’s small-scale quest serves as a metaphor for Earn’s ongoing search for what he thinks belongs to him: a good future for himself, his friends, and his child; some peace from the chaos of his present life; some humanity from his immediate world, which frequently seems so cruel and punishing.
If that’s a lot to place upon the shoulders of a rookie sitcom, well, show creator and star Donald Glover asked for it: No new sitcom this season has been more ambitious, has reached further in seeking out different ways to present half-hour stories, and has showcased more kinds of lives that are rarely, if ever, seen on television. For anyone who knew Donald Glover primarily from his work on Community, Atlanta isn’t just a revelation, it’s a mind-blower. His acting here, in his portrayal of the sensitive, hustling Earn, is superbly nuanced. Earn is a man who wants to do something that will earn money and also allow him to live with himself morally — as a music-business manager, he doesn’t want to sell out either himself or the career of his cousin, the budding rap star Paper Boi.
The show has already taken some big chances — ones that might easily have put off viewers just coming upon the show midway through its run. I’m thinking of episodes such as “Value,” which takes place primarily in a restaurant with Van (Zazie Beetz), Earn’s friend/lover/mother of his child, having dinner with a friend that ends in an argument layered with regret, humor, and sadness. I’ve never seen black women presented this way on television before, as co-written by Glover and Stefani Robinson. I’m thinking also of the extraordinary Oct. 18 episode “B.A.N.,” in which Paper Boi is an episode-long guest on Montague — a low-key talk show that’s a clever blend of Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley — and which discussed issues of race and gender, again in a way few white viewers have probably heard them explored. What Henry and Glover have been able to do with the character of Paper Boi over the course of this season is exceptional, transcending every cliché about rappers, slackers, and a black man trying to make it in the entertainment industry. I’d hand Henry a supporting-actor Emmy tomorrow.
Tonight’s “The Jacket” has its share of solid laughs — about Uber drivers, about strip clubs — and it ends on a note of painful poignance. It leaves you wanting more Atlanta the second the episode concludes.
Atlanta airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.