Today, we look at a clever early episode of Atlanta that took aim on how “crime” is handled by the police.
This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.
This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.
All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.
The pilot of Atlanta introduced us to Earnest “Earn” Marks (Donald Glover, the creator of the series), a Princeton dropout who is living in the home of his girlfriend (who he has a child with), Vanessa “Van” Keefer (Zazie Beetz), after he got kicked out of his parent’s home. He discovers that his cousin, Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry), has released a rap single with a little bit of buzz on it, and Earn decides to essentially glom on to his cousin. Alfred acknowledges what Earn is doing, but at the same time, Earn IS a smart guy, and he is able to bribe a radio station into playing Paper Boi’s song, so it seems like this partnership actually IS good for him.
However, at the end of the episode, the pair were caught up in an altercation (right after celebrating hearing Paper Boi’s song on the radio), and a shootout ensued. Alfred’s stoner friend, Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), was able to get away, but Alfred and Earn were both arrested, which leads us to the second episode of the series, “Streets on Lock,” written by Glover’s younger brother, Stephen Glover, who became a major factor in the voice of Atlanta.
Alfred is bailed out by Darius early in the episode, but since Earn is not in the system, it takes longer for him to get bailed out, especially since he can’t get into contact with Van (and, of course, he worries about Van’s reaction to the news that he is in jail and that he needs her to bail him out). As Earn waits for his processing, he sees the various injustices experienced by the other people being detained.
Meanwhile, Paper Boi is dealing with the fact that his song being played on the radio, directly followed by his shootout and arrest, had led to him becoming a minor celebrity, and he is having a hard time dealing with the adulation (while at a chicken joint, they got special “lemon-pepper wet” chicken wings, that they don’t normally do, of course), not to mention the attention (as people keep trying to take his photo at weird times). He is particularly disturbed when he sees little kids imitating his shootout. He goes to apologize to the mother over the incident, and at first, the kid’s mother is irked at his apology until she realizes that he is actually IS Paper Boi, and then suddenly her attitude changes dramatically, and starts wanting to get photos with him. It is capped off by a guy in a Batman mask knocking on Paper Boi and Darius’ house to see if Paper Boi lives there. When they confirm he does, the guy runs off. Darius notes that Paper Boi might be a bit TOO hot right now.
Atlanta had one of the strongest narrative voices around, and while a number of its most famous episodes were more experimental (and thus a bit out of the purview of this feature), the “regular” episodes like this one were still outstanding.
Glover was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for this episode (his brother, Donald, won the Emmy for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the pilot, as well as Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the show’s most famous Season 1 episode, “B.A.N.” an experimental episode that also netted the elder Glover a nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series). This was Stephen Glover’s first TV writing credit.
Okay, if I’m going to have 330 more of these (and 22 more this month), I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!
