‘Atlanta’s Hauntingly Weird Moments Serve A Higher Purpose Than Random Comedy

A man inexplicably knocking on a stranger’s door in a Batman mask. An invisible car that runs over a group of club goers without consequence. A series of increasingly dark commercial breaks that run throughout only one episode. Donald Glover’s FX comedy is packed with moments like these, moments that are so head-scratchingly random they almost feel like a test to see if the viewer is paying attention. Randomness is a common comedy tactic, but in Atlanta the unexpected serves a higher purpose. Atlanta masterfully uses its oddities as a form of social commentary.

Weird and random moments are a common comedy tactic. Turn on literally any Adult Swim show to see what I’m talking about. All of comedy is predicated on the unexpected, but that goes doubly for random humor, which takes a funny premise and elevates it to a bizarre, out-of-field conclusion. In most comedies, the random moment happens, and the laugh comes from the comically straight person’s reaction to the events. Vulture’s Jesse David Fox wonderfully broke down a successful execution of random humor with his explanation of SNL’s David S. Pumpkins sketch. However, in Atlanta, that final cementing reaction shot never has the payoff you expect. Our straight man, whether they be Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), Van (Zazie Beetz), or Earn (Donald Glover), more often than not only reacts with mild surprise or aggravation. There are rarely any outraged breakdowns in Atlanta. Rather, we often exist in Earn’s calm but disenchanted dream-like bubble of a world. This remains true when the show shifts from general absurdity to racial absurdity, and that’s what transforms Atlanta’s use of randomness from interesting to brilliant.

It’s clear that Earn’s lack of a reaction isn’t because he’s unable to express himself. His interactions with his daughter and Van prove that he’s capable of raw, genuine emotions. Rather, it seems his lack of a response is because he’s tired of the flood of absurdity that pervades his life on a daily basis. That absence of the “reaction” moments we’re waiting for as an audience is social commentary in and of itself.

As is the show’s complicated style, Atlanta rarely explicitly says what being an African-American man or woman in America is like, but the series is overwhelmingly about race. Earn is surrounded by people who consistently say and do mildly to overtly absurd things that constantly interfere with his life, often negatively. Sometimes the randomness is completely unexplained, like the Batman mask. However, other times, it’s characterized by racial undertones. From a white dinner party host chastising Earn for not visiting Africa, or the “motherland” as he calls it, to Justin Bieber appearing as an African-American teenager, Atlanta often blends race with its most absurd moments, and through it is rarely completely clear what the show is saying, it’s always clear that it’s questioning race and racism. And at the center of this complicated and nuanced conversation is a character who is 100 percent over it.

Unlike Issa (Issa Rae) from Insecure or Dre (Anthony Anderson) from Black-ish, Earn doesn’t react to racially charged offenses with outrage. He reacts with apathy. Earn has seen and lives with so much weirdness, he’s numb. Randomness and racism are tightly linked in Atlanta, and Earn is exhausted by all of it. As a white woman, I can never fully understand what being an African-American man or woman in America is like, but if it’s anything like what Earn goes through, I would be exhausted too. Earn is constantly attacked, both with micro aggressions to full on offensive comments and actions, for absolutely no reason at all hours of the day. Of course he doesn’t try to understand the whirlwind of absurdity that constantly makes his life mildly worse. He’s just trying to survive.

A lot of shows use randomness to their comedic advantage, but it’s rare for those odd moments to be anything more than what they are on a surface level — random. In its own confusing, brilliant, and insightful fashion, Atlanta has, at least by this viewer’s interpretation, subverted all of those expectations, using confusion itself to create a nuanced portrayal of race in America. Add that to the growing list of reasons why Glover’s show is one of the smartest series to grace television.

You can watch the Season One finale of Atlanta on FX or on FX NOW tonight, November 1, at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.

[Where to watch Atlanta]