Atlanta

This show was the first in years where I planned to watch it when it aired despite me setting the DVR to record it. The same way people geeked out on Game of Thrones, this show just struck my funny bone with the obvious situational humor and subded dark tones intertwined in it all. The basis of the show is about a upcoming rapper set in modern day Atlanta and his cousin who wants to be his manager. But what makes the show great is how the story is told. The storyline works like a drama but the perspective works like a comedy. This is much like the movie and show Parenthood; the storyline is not really a comedy but misery loving company can be funny. Atlanta works out the same way with the plot filtered through the lens of dark humor seen in Married with Children and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The show is well acted, well written, surprising, engaging, and most important it is funny.

As a long time fan of Glover from Community, his stand up comedy, and even to his rapping (Childish Gambino), I was of course excited to see this show.

As a pale white guy from Ohio, I still found the show to be very enjoyable and with the way they did the first episode, it has a monumental chance to be successful. Darius cracks me up with how he thinks, he's exactly the type of quirky person you need in this type of show (assuming I know how it's going to continue), but he is basically the Daryl of Walking Dead. Everyone will love him and if he ever dies the show may go downhill without him.

Since I've been a fan of Donald since Community I may be a tiny bit biased, but he yet again seems to be a superb actor and I already felt connected to him and wanting him to 'win'.

It's no surprise Donald will turn this into an amazing series because he is a great actor and writer.

Just please don't kill Darius. How will we ever have rat phones if he dies?

There is a lot about this program that I shouldn't relate to. I don't live in America, I'm not black, I'm gaining a few years on the cast. But through impeccable writing, casting and acting Atlanta draws me in to a world that finds a strange yet utterly compelling way to tell a story. The comedy and tragedy mix as happens in real life. The often brutal reality of being young and black and poor in America fuses seamlessly with more existential themes of growth (personal and professional), family, race, power dynamics, legacy and much more. This work is beautiful in both a comedic and dramatic sense.

Season 1: 8/10 Season 2: 9/10 Season 3: 8/10

Can't wait for more.

Having reached the conclusion of the fourth and final season, I'm in a position to review "Atlanta" Donald Glover's inspired, eccentric, brilliant ... sitcom (I guess). Though starting with a relatively straight forward narrative, the shows use of bottle episodes, diversions and flights of fancy make for a truly memorable experience.

Earnest Marks (Donald Glover) drops out of Princeton and returns home to Atlanta. His cousin Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) has been earning some local acclaim rapping under the name "Paper Boi". Though initially wary of his help, Earn slowly earns Paper Boi's trust and eventually becomes his manager. Together with their friend Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) and Earn's sometime girlfriend Vanessa (Zazie Beetz) they struggle to negotiate the hip-hop scene, America, and the World.

What I liked about "Atlanta" might be something that other people disliked about it; in that it's not really interested in what might have been its own central story. If you want to follow their rise to stardom, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. You can tell that Paper Boi becomes a celebrity, but again more based on where they are and what they're doing, rather than seeing each stage of his star rising. The first season is perhaps more dedicated to that story than any of the other three are, but it very quickly starts to tell stories more about the African American experience, rather than specifically about these characters, indeed there are several episodes across the run where they don't feature at all.

The third season sees them leave Atlanta for a tour of Europe and has some interesting faces appearing in the show, from an English point of view, including Sean Gilder and Aaron Heffernan. It's the strange ideas that take it over the top for me, concepts such as shopping malls you can't escape from, looping dream sequences and elseworld history.

Though it's often an authentic exploration of relatively deep issues such as racism, it's repeatedly and genuinely funny with it and I'd absolutely recommend it.