Image via FX
[Ed note: Spoilers for the fourth episode of Atlanta’s Season 3 below.]
What would reparations actually look like? That’s what this week’s Atlanta episode, titled “The Big Payback,” attempted to depict, and Justin Bartha, who plays Mashall Johnson, a run-of-the-mill middle-aged white guy, is at the center of it. Bartha is known for his secondary roles in films like National Treasure, Gigli, and The Hangover, but he really excels as the lead in this episode and it’s one of his best performances to date.
In Atlanta, he plays a man in denial about his family’s impact on slavery, and viewers got to watch his character face the truth about his ancestors. In less than an hour, Bartha’s character goes from desperation and affliction to slowly coming to terms with the past and surrendering to his new life as a server at a restaurant in order to pay his dues. “For Marshall, he goes through the five stages of grief within the episode,” Bartha tells Complex. “It’s willful ignorance. I started thinking about it as a very fine line between willful ignorance and curated innocence, or whether the spectrum of bad faith or a conscious bad faith with this feeling of self-imposed powerlessness.”
The episode was written by Francesca Sloane and directed by Hiro Murai, and it’s a unique exploration of what reparations could mean for our society if it ever comes to fruition. The characters in Episode 4 are learning about a Black man winning a lawsuit against a Tesla executive whose relatives enslaved the man’s ancestors (similar to a recent racism lawsuit against the car company). “The Big Payback” is another reminder of the deep symbolism and historical references that have made Atlanta the show that it is, especially in Season 3. While Earn, Darius, and the rest of the crew are learning what it’s like to be Black in Europe, Murai brings viewers back to America to show what the future could bring.
“I was a huge fan of the show. I’d seen every episode and it was one of the few shows that I would watch in real-time. When I got a call to meet with the casting director, I was like, ‘I would’ve done a walk-on background part in Atlanta,’” Bartha says. “I honestly think it’s one of the great shows of our times. So I was as surprised as you were when you turned on that episode.”
Complex hopped on a call with Bartha before the episode premiered, and we broke down the intricacies of this story, as well as what it was like for him as an actor to take on this role.
The show is all about symbolism. So we start with the first scene where he realizes he has a cookie in his pocket. What does that represent to you?
Oh, man. I mean, this episode is just chock-full of symbols, small and big. The cookie is, to me, the most important symbol. And it’s something that comes back around at the end of the episode a bit. It represents in broad, big terms, theft. If this episode’s called “The Big Payback,” it’s in response to the big theft of slavery, right?
So on a character level—and that’s what the challenge was with this piece—is separating the big metaphors from the little metaphors or the personal story with the societal story. So you’re talking about Marshall realizing he doesn’t overtly steal, or purposefully steal the cookie if you will.
But he finds that cookie in his pocket that he did take, not even really thinking about it, not being overly aware. He has the privilege of being able to look at that as almost a good omen, and eat the cookie without fear of repercussions about even thinking about that theft, and how it connects to anyone else. That small gesture of just a man being able to look at this mistake of stealing the cookie and then making, I guess, you could say the conscious decision to not return the cookie, to not tell anybody, and to not even look over his shoulder, to see if someone has seen, he just gets to sit there in the comfort of his car in his little bubble and eat the cookie and enjoy it and smile about it.
Basically what unfolds from there is the gradual ticking or breaking down of what that really means if he was more aware, if he actually understood what it means for someone like him, a white guy, middle-of-the-road guy, trying to get by for everybody else. How that theft has different implications for every single person, especially, people of color.
After that, when Marshall went to work he was like, ‘Oh, this is not my problem. This is not me. My family’s good, we never did anything.’ That’s the sentiment of a lot of people in America.
It’s not black and white, no pun intended. He would look at himself as someone that is aware of the world, he listens to the podcast. He probably skews a little liberal, but doesn’t have skin in the game, because he doesn’t have to have skin in the game. He can just eat the cookie. The more he can keep his blinders on the more comfort he can have. That’s probably the big middle of most white people is just being aware, but once your comfort is pushed on, that’s when we can be like, “That has nothing to do with me,” when the reality is something much different.
At one point when he’s having a conversation with his co-worker, she says, ‘Lucky them, they don’t have a care in the world,’ [referring to their Black co-workers].
I’ve gone over this script 100 times. It’s every single line, honestly, like it’s such a beautiful script, Francesca Sloane who’s the writer. Every line you can really pick apart like that line that you brought up. What you’re saying obviously is completely correct. Well, what’s fun too, is to look at a line like that which happens in the beginning third and you see it up against a line towards the end where after that—I guess the spoilers don’t matter—but after the guy kills himself at the end, the young Black waiter says, “There’s more where that came from.”
So that line to me is like the perfect pairing with the line that you just brought up. I never quite understood that until I really saw the piece. Whereas like the awakening, once white people truly wake up, that’s where you really see the repercussions will start to sink in.
The conversation in the hotel lobby was probably the most important part, I think, of the episode. What did that scene mean to you as an actor, but also as a person to hear the guy break down the ways reparations would be beneficial to Black people, but also a way for white people to understand that they’re deserving of it.
That scene was one of the hardest ones to figure out for me in film. Part of it is what you brought up, obviously, there has to be, I have to separate my own personal beliefs completely and try to figure out where this character is on that timeline, that evolution of awareness. The tricky part is we’re meeting that guy, who was also in the first episode. Did you remember that? If you saw the first episode, he’s the guy in the boat.
No. Oh my God.
Yeah. There’s a little Easter egg there. So this is a guy that is fully aware, right? The full extent of his empathy has taken him to the point where we meet him. And Marshall is not there yet. So as a character within that situation, what was tricky is he’s not ready to fully embrace it. But it is the real start of that last stage that he’s going through. He goes through denial, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. We’re picking him up at the beginning of his acceptance. So certain parts of what this man is telling him are getting through.
It’s almost like the beginning of his story in a way, which I think is so beautiful in the way that it’s structured. You’re witnessing the beginning of his acceptance, which then piggybacks at the end of the other character’s life. You’re basically left with that character, which seems like a low point because of the suicide, but when you’re back with Marshall, he can’t quite see where he’s headed, but we’re then presented with a choice: He could either end up in that pool or he can continue down that road of acceptance. That’s where we thankfully find him when we have that little piece at the end where he’s working. I had to separate, obviously, whatever my own beliefs are with tracking where this character’s evolution is in this short amount of time. So it felt tricky to figure out exactly what he could really hear from that stranger.
Right. Accepting the truth. In the end, you see him working at the restaurant and he is cheerful. He has a positive attitude and he’s friends with his co-workers. Going back to the beginning, his job used to be choosing between shrimp logos.
Choosing logos. That’s right. What did that mean to you? The choosing between those shrimp?
That his job was very easy, which reminded me of the conversation of unskilled workers vs. skilled workers that we’ve been hearing about because of the pandemic, and which jobs are more or less valuable.
That’s right. That’s beautiful, yeah. It’s not my place to explain the art. That’s why I’m so excited about that. I think why people love this show is that it really is a work of art, especially this episode. Something as simple as a picture of three shrimp is something that I ruminated over for days and it has grand meanings, it has metaphorical meanings and it has, exactly what you said, I think is a beautiful interpretation and I think it’s probably right on and so smart.
Thank you. The conversation about reparations has been ongoing for years. But I haven’t seen it depicted on TV or in movies this way. Do you think this represents what it could be or what it might look like in the future? And do you think that’s going to worry some people?
You haven’t really seen it before. That’s what makes this episode so exciting for me. It opens up a conversation, and it’s up for interpretation and hopefully, people will talk about it. I don’t know if I’m really in the place to speak on it, but obviously, the conversation has been taken in the modern age fairly seriously since Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic article.
I remember reading that when it came out and then I revisited it. I know that there are people like Cory Booker, who are trying to push ahead the conversation within our political system and it is something that has always seemed like an impossible thing, it’s hard to read the Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article without really having a serious conversation about reparations. If Atlanta and the brilliant people who work on the show and put the show together can bring that conversation to more people, it’s a worthwhile venture.
It’s obviously very complicated and I don’t think the answers are within an episode of television and it obviously would be incredibly difficult to put it into the hands of person-to-person like it is here. But there are certain corporations that are so obviously continuing to benefit off of unpaid labor and slavery, that it seems crazy that it’s not talked about more.
For sure. I have a feeling that everything in this season is going to tie in at some point. There is some conversation with people saying, “Why can’t we just focus on the crew?” But I think Atlanta is telling a bigger story.
That literally comes with the territory. Not to be hyperbolic, but it’s like every great artist gets blowback when they change up their style. It’s a universal opinion that Glover and the rest of the crew are great artists. It’s like [Bob] Dylan going electric in a way. It’s when an artist starts to paint, they change their style. When it all comes out in the wash, I have quite a bit of confidence that this season will be seen as some of the greatest television ever made.
What did you take away from working on this episode and what do you think fans will take away as the big picture message?
For me, it was just so meaningful in so many different ways. Obviously, from the inside, it’s just about being able to work with artists like this, with Hiro, and the rest of the crew. Being able to anchor this brilliant and important short film gave me newfound confidence and just deep gratitude to be able to continue working with artists who inspire me.
I can’t quite speak on the greater themes of the episode because I was living in it the whole entire time. So it certainly enlightened me to more of those nuances about the conversation. When you say there are these strong opinions, some people are pissed off that it’s not just this and not just that, it’s sad to know that people aren’t trusting the process and they love this artist, so let’s hear what this artist has to say and let’s see what this artist is doing. I’m left with just being so grateful that I am a part of what I consider one of the great shows of our time.
Season 3 of Atlanta is now available to stream on Hulu.