‘Atlanta’ Retakes Its Comedy Throne With ‘Robbin’ Season’

If there’s one complaint to make about Atlanta, Donald Glover‘s masterful show about being black in America, it would have to with plot continuity. The show’s pilot started with Alfred, aka Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) shooting a man, and though the confrontation was mentioned sporadically throughout Season 1, it never affected Alfred beyond building his street cred.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this shooting would never be addressed — or that it doesn’t really matter. That’s just the kind of Lynchian show Atlanta has become. It’s a nice surprise, then, that Season 2 — now titled Atlanta Robbin’ Season — opens with Alfred under house arrest for the shooting, and in an unaddressed fight with Darius (Lakeith Stanfield). There has always been a conventional plot lurking beneath the surface of the show, but the brilliance of Atlanta rests in the fact we never see it unless Atlanta wants us to. When it comes to Glover’s FX series, it’s never the end point that’s most interesting; it’s how we get there.

The same stories and themes turn up in Atlanta Robbin’ Season that have always been in the show’s DNA. Earn (Donald Glover) is still struggling to make money and find a more permanent home that isn’t a storage unit. Alfred is still reveling in the success of “Paper Boi”, though now some of that initial joy has soured. Darius is still floating in the background, equally dolling out sage wisdom and insane conspiracy theories. Van (Zazie Beetz) is just as grounded as ever, though she now seems a bit less hostile to Earn. Unexplained things still happen in the universe of this show, like Season 1’s invisible cars, use of whiteface, and Batman mask, and no one seems to respond to these oddities in a way that makes sense. Atlanta Robbin’ Season can often feel like just another drifting chapter of this beautiful, twisting, and bizarre show.

But lurking beneath the surface, tensions from the show’s often unseen overarching plot are delicately tearing apart the fabric of this world apart. Earn is no longer the desperate yet insightful and listless character we were first introduced to. Becoming Alfred’s manager, and more importantly getting paid to be his manager, has made him confident and a bit reckless. This season Earn takes risks that would like make his past self frown. Likewise, Earn’s relationship with Alfred isn’t as easy as it was last season. As Alfred becomes more and more famous, he begins to question what Earn is doing for him as a manager. These criticisms are never overtly addressed. At most, they’re communicated through perfectly-timed eyebrow raises and looks from Henry. However, they’re always there, slowly and silently warping their relationship.

Alfred also starts to become disenchanted with his own fame, in an arc that seems to directly channel Glover’s own experiences. Atlanta Robbin’ Season gives Henry more nuanced stories to work with, while infusing Stanfield’s Darius with more beautiful oddity. If Season 1 was all about praising and contemplating Glover’s Earn, Season 2 shines a deserved spotlight on the rest of this show’s marvelous cast.

But more than anything else, this new season feels confident. When Atlanta first premiered, it had a lot to establish in a short amount of time — its glamour-free plot about an Atlanta rapper on the rise, its winding and absurdist tone, its status as a show overtly about black life in America in an aggressively white television landscape. That first season didn’t walk; it ran, and it ran because it had to. Atlanta is now returning to a very different television climate, one in which it has already more than proven itself (its first season won two Golden Globes and two Emmys), and can slow down to explore the more nuanced corners of its universe. In this new season, Atlanta finally feels like the show its always wanted to be. The new king of TV comedies is back, and with Robbin’ Season, it wears its crown well.

New episodes of Atlanta Robbin’ Season premiere on FX Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET

Stream Atlanta Robbin' Season on FXNOW and FX+