Atlanta: Robbin’ Season Review
Atlanta: Robbin’ Season is about a lot of things. The second season of the show created by and starring Donald Glover focuses mainly on themes such as fame and celebrity, black identity, and the wide-ranging influence of social media on our everyday lives. Modern relationships, morality in the music industry, and reality itself have been challenged over the past seven episodes. The thirty minute episode format, in the hands of directors Glover, Hiro Murai, and Amy Seimetz, is used to its full potential in that it allows each director to essentially create a complete world around a single premise, leading to a unique cinematic experience in each . As such, everyone who watches the show will most likely have episodes they like more than others, and the stories can feel a bit rushed from time to time, but the repertoire of content that makes up this season (and the previous one) should satisfy even the most critical of viewers.
The show is about four people that seem perpetually lost in life: Earn Marks is an ivy-league dropout struggling to make ends meet who becomes the manager for his cousin. His cousin, Alfred, is the up and coming rapper known as Paper Boi, constantly caught between the gaze of the public and the criminal activity he needs to participate in to survive. Van, the mother of Earn’s child, is a former school teacher trying to find a purpose, and a relationship that works. And Darius, a man who seems content being lost, is a sort of wandering savant who is either incredibly knowledgeable about the workings of the universe, fairly high, or both.
While the first season followed these four in a somewhat disjointed series of escapades and antics, this one is somewhat more focused thematically. Each episode does have a completely different story, but there are always similar elements present, the most obvious of which is that most of this season takes place in the titular city in Winter, before Christmas: “Robbin’ Season.” An increase in crime is the backdrop to a series of storylines that always feature a (usually literal, sometimes metaphorical) robbery, and always have a negative tone ranging from melancholic to terrifying.
There’s also a recurring theme (as David Dennis Jr. of Uproxx points out in his piece “The Second Season Of ‘Atlanta’ Has Been A Chilling Tour Of Broken-Down Heroes”) of approaching the darkness that often lies behind the seemingly heroic glamour of celebrities, and especially those in the black community.
Kat Williams appears in the role of a broken-down former celebrity manager, echoing the shortcomings in his own career through conversations with Earn. Michael Vick appears as himself, running races with strangers outside of a strip club. Drake’s entire existence is brought into question. And in the most haunting episode of the series, Darius is taken on a journey into the mind of Teddy Perkins, a stand-in for Michael Jackson, in an episode meant to discuss the intersection of personal suffering and art, and the consequences of thinking that this intersection is necessary. In a way, this season is also about a community robbed of heroes.
All of this feels very personal to Glover, who is also quick to deconstruct the supposed heroism of his own protagonist, Earn. The show is often funny, but this season particularly has leaned into darkness, cynicism, and surreality in a way that is as compelling as it is occasionally difficult to watch. For better or worse, it is probably unlike anything else you’ve seen on television.
