The cast returns to the city to begin the show’s last season and considers how it has changed.
Atlanta has returned to Atlanta after one head-trip of a European tour. In the third season, which debuted this spring, the main four protagonists were occasionally separated from the audience and placed in a number of absurd circumstances on a different continent. The events that occur when Earn, Alfred, Darius, and Van return home and restart lives they may have outgrown are the main emphasis of season four. Fans can exhale in comfort knowing that the final season will be back to basics while yet being properly elevated by the significance of what the characters have experienced based on this opening two-parter.
It should be noted that this is my first time reviewing for The A.V. Club. (Hi! Hello, everyone.) Therefore, I feel compelled to inform you that I am one of the viewers who soon lost interest in the stand-alone episodes of season three. When the surprise wore off, the abrupt departure from the main foursome turned out to be a disservice to the show. They initially appeared to be a method for the show to continue making comments about America without the characters actually being in America. Atlanta excels when it depicts the characters’ reactions to bizarre circumstances. Al and Darius were used as audience substitutes in its first two outings from the norm (“B.A.N.” and “Teddy Perkins”). We had a good idea of how they would react and could enjoy in them expressing what we had been waiting for or riding the scenario all the way to its conclusion, respectively. There wasn’t enough to keep us in when season three plunged us into character studies on reparations or “the culture of Black in America” without our familiar surrogates.