Image via FX
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Atlanta’s Season 3 delivered 10 of the most bizarre yet powerful episodes in television history. While the hit FX series started by following up-and-coming rapper Alfred Miles aka Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) and his crew—his manager Earn (Donald Glover) and right-hand man Darius (LaKeith Stanfield)—as his career was taking off, fans quickly realized the show served a much bigger purpose. Paper Boi’s journey into fame is just a vessel for the show’s creators to tell bigger stories about societal issues and the often-dark history of the United States.
It was known ahead of time that the group would be leaving Atlanta, Georgia this season as the rapper embarked on a European tour. Viewers may have known the location was changing, but there was no way to prepare for what else was in store. Four of Season 3’s episodes were standalone stories with entirely different casts and themes. Those episodes, Episode 1 (“Three Slaps”), Episode 4 (“The Big Payback”) and Episode 9 (“Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga”) were among the most impactful and talked about episodes of the season—and with good reason.
One fan tweeted that each episode of Atlanta should come with a study guide, and they weren’t wrong. There’s so much history and symbolism and real-life stories and anecdotes weaved into each script that deserves to be unraveled and dissected. Even in episodes that might seem like the characters are just having a regular, good time, there is a lesson to be learned from their experiences and encounters.
Season 3 unpacked so many conversations from reparations to racism in fashion to depression and mental health to cancel culture. There were also outstanding performances and surprising cameos—Liam Neeson? Chet Hanks? Kevin Samuels? Justin Bartha?—that cemented this show as one of the most provocative of all time. After experiencing each episode more than once, we’ve ranked Atlanta’s Season 3 episodes from worst to best, and everything in between. Needless to say, there are major spoilers for each episode, so continue reading at your own discretion.
10."Cancer Attack" (Season 3, Episode 5)
Logline: “Sometimes shows just be over my head acting fake deep. Where’s the poop jokes?”
This episode comes in last because I’m not sure we learned anything from it, aside from this being the episode where Earn is struggling to get ahold of Van, who had joined him and the guys in Europe. “Cancer Attack” brought back one of the funniest new characters we met this season, Socks (Hugh Coles), who made his debut as Darius’ friend in Episode 3 “The Old Man and the Tree.” The crew is getting ready for Paper Boi’s Budapest concert and Socks has come along for the ride. Paper Boi meets a little boy who has cancer ahead of the show, and later they realize the rapper’s phone has been stolen. It’s a big deal because he finally found some inspiration about struggling with some deep writer’s block. They suspect everyone, even the sick child, when the culprit was right in front of them all along. What was the point of this episode and of the Socks character (aside from him being hilarious and a mess)? Not a clue. There’s not much to be learned from this episode, and that’s why it landed at the bottom of our list.
9."White Fashion" (Season 3, Episode 6)
Logline: “I’ve definitely seen this before on a better show. They’re always stealing ideas. But the fashion industry gotta be exposed #streetwear.”
One of the best things Atlanta does is use current events in pop culture and in the world to tell their stories. “White Fashion” explores so many trending and recurring topics that have been parts of our conversations in recent years. A high fashion designer being racially and culturally insensitive is nothing new in real life. We’ve seen it all before. Episode 6 took inspiration from that by introducing a designer who leans on Black entertainers and influencers to help rehabilitate their image after using “Central Park 5” on one of their clothing pieces.
Paper Boi intended to help make things right but the other influencers soon teach him that there’s really no fixing this, and all they can do is reap the benefits of being aligned with the brand. On the other hand, Darius learns the hard lesson of what happens when you expose white people to your culture only to see them appropriate it, water it down and make a profit from it. “White Fashion” wasn’t one of this season’s strongest but it did highlight the way some companies have been pretending to be all about equality and celebrating Black people and people of color in recent years without actually implementing the necessary internal changes to make things better.
8."Sinterklaas is Coming to Town" (Season 3, Episode 2)
Logline: “I think everybody knows blackface ain’t cool anymore, we get it. They be trying too hard to go viral.”
After a remarkable season premiere, viewers finally got to reunite with the main cast after nearly four long years. The group is now in Europe and we get to see how they’re adjusting to life outside of Atlanta. We find Earn in bed with a stranger and he has missed his flight to Amsterdam, Paper Boi is in jail and Darius is exploring the city by himself. One of my favorite lines this season is when Darius tells Earn over the phone in the most sincere way: “I’ve been roaming the streets, high since twilight. This city is my Jesus.” We learned that Van is also in town and Darius is in charge of picking her up and the pair have an eccentric adventure together. This episode serves as evidence of how much things have changed for all of them since Season 1.
7.“Trini 2 De Bone” (Season 3, Episode 7)
Logline: “White people watching this be like… Pain.”
Episode 7 titled “Trini 2 De Bone,” covered a topic I personally have never seen on TV before. The episode followed a well-off couple living in New York City as they try to figure out how to handle their son’s nanny passing away. As the episode goes on, viewers realize how deeply entrenched the little boy is in his nanny’s Trinidadian culture because she’s the one he spends the most time with. (The kid was not happy with the bland breakfast his mom made him one morning and asked for a little more flavor.) The parents also began to see how little they really know about their son, and how involved Sylvia had become in every aspect of his life. But at her funeral, the parents see how her dedication to their son and other kids she has worked with in the past—including one played by Chet Hanks—has come at the expense of her own children who express how her absence affected them. This was yet another standalone episode this season that focused on societal injustices and class inequalities that go on in our worlds that we perhaps ignore, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less real.
6.“New Jazz” (Season 3, Episode 8)
Logline: “Al and Darius walk around Amsterdam. Psssh, I could make a way better tv show than this.”
Episode 8 saw Alfred Miles in one of his trademark solo adventures. This time around it happens after he eats a special treat with Darius that causes them to lose each other. Alfred starts to roam alone but finds it hard to dodge fans who instantly recognize him as Paper Boi. The entirety of the series focuses on the rapper’s come up and now that he’s found more stability and success in his career, he starts to grapple with what his fame and newfound wealth mean for the people around him. Does Earn truly care about his well-being? Is Darius simply along for the ride and mooching off of him? Do his European fans care about him and his humanity or only see him as a fad? During his high, Alfred meets a woman that walks him through those questions and takes him to a spot called the Cancel Club, where the most interesting part of the episode takes place. Liam Neeson makes a cameo and pokes fun at people’s attempts to cancel him recently after he expressed wanting to harm Black men after a friend of his was sexually assaulted. The actor was unapologetic during the interaction but made it known that that is one of the true benefits of being white—you don’t really have to learn from your mistakes. Was any of this real or was Alfred just high? I guess we’ll never know.
5."Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga" (Season 3, Episode 9)
Logline: “Black and White episode? Yawn. Emmy Bait. Why do they hate black women so much?”
Episode 9 was yet another incredible standalone episode and the last one of the season. Kevin Samuels made an appearance as a rich man named Robert S. Lee, who promises to cover any college loans for the Black students at a high school. The black-and-white episode’s premiere was a bit eerie since it aired the same week the infamous YouTube star passed away. The timing of the episode shows how current and relevant Atlanta is, even if the episode’s release coinciding with the death wasn’t intentional. Sometimes it really does feel like the writers on this show know something we don’t about the future.
Anyway, the protagonist in this episode is a biracial high school senior named Aaron (Tyriq Withers), whose Black father has told him he will not be paying for his college education. Aaron has clear identity issues and hides his race from his white friends at school. Things get tricky when the Black students have to prove their Blackness in order to be given the scholarship, and Aaron struggles to connect with that side of himself when he’s put to the test. He soon finds out that you can only deny who you are and your truth for so long, before it catches up to you.
4."The Old Man and the Tree" (Season 3, Episode 3)
Logline: “This one was cool. Going to rich parties and meeting weirdos. Season 1 was better.”
Episode 3 was fun as hell. There is no better way to describe it. Seeing all four of them out on a European excursion is probably what viewers were probably expecting for this season—and they got it with “The Old Man and the Tree.” While in London, Paper Boi gets invited to the home of an affluent guy named Fernando, who is a fan of his. While inside, the crew realizes how wealthy this guy really is when they see he has his own Nando’s inside his house. He also built his home around one of the biggest trees in the city. The guys and Van are a bit apprehensive at first but they explore the party separately and have their own experiences as they mingle around. Darius deals with a microaggression from an Asian woman who assumes he’s hitting on her simply because she thinks Black men love Asian women. That’s when a vibrant new character named Socks is introduced into the story after he witnessed the awkward interaction. Darius is then surrounded by people expressing their white guilt, while Van’s erratic behavior starts to surface and Paper Boi gets scammed by the rich guy. Meanwhile, Earn seems to be the only one who benefits from this situation and finds himself another managerial gig. As usual, the dialogue between the characters and the writing is what makes this show such a standout, and this episode surely did not disappoint.
3."Tarrare" (Season 3, Episode 10)
Logline: “Yo Tarrare was a real person. Wild. They gotta stop biting these better shows tho.”
The season finale, which aired on May 19, answered this season’s main question: “What’s really going on with Van?” Episode 10 finds Van pretending to be French, beating people up with baguettes, and cutting human hands-off to be served breaded and deep-fried at a dinner. She’s also hooking up with Alex Skarsgard? WTF? None of it makes sense in theory, but if you’ve been paying attention, this sort of mental breakdown she is having was bound to happen and the whole season has been building up to this.
Van left everything behind in Atlanta, including her daughter Lottie and a boyfriend, to join Earn and the crew in Europe with no explanation at all in. Viewers learn that she was looking to wander, explore and just be, something she hadn’t been able to do as the responsible one in a duo of co-parents. Now that Earn is seemingly getting his shit together as Paper Boi’s manager, her friends are living exciting lives and her daughter is getting older, Van has come to a point where she doesn’t know who she is when she’s not around them. That level of frustration led to the season finale, which found Van in Paris with an Amélie wig, a French ass accent, and living a strange, unhinged life. She finally explodes, which leads to a heart-to-heart with a friend that explains her state of mind. This is by far Zazie Beetz’s best performance in the series and seeing her character stray away from her stoic, serious, straightedge nature was refreshing. No one can pretend to have it all together for this long without cracking at some point. Complex chatted with the episode’s writer and Atlanta executive producer Stefani Robinson ahead of the season finale and she went even more into detail about where Van’s mental state is at the end of Season 3. Read our interview here.
2."The Big Payback" (Season 3, Episode 4)
Logline: “I was legit scared watching this.”
There is so much to be said about this episode. “The Big Payback,” written by Francesca Sloane and directed by Hiro Murai, stars Justin Bartha. We hopped on a call with the National Treasure actor to break down the intricacies of this episode when it aired in April, and you can read that here. The episode gave a glimpse of what reparations could actually look like in the United States and what it would mean for both Black and white people. Nothing should be surprising about Atlanta but tackling such a controversial conversation in the way they did was magnificent. Viewers got to imagine a world where Black people are given the resources that are owed to them after hundreds of years of inequality and mistreatment in this country.
Bartha’s tormented character was also a vessel into how even the least suspecting white person could have benefited from their ancestors profiting from slavery centuries ago. This episode really made you consider what the world could look like when everyone is on an even financial playing field. There are certain states that are exploring the idea and concept of reparations already, so once again, Atlanta was ahead of the game with this episode and it’s easily one of the best of the whole series.
1."Three Slaps" (Season 3, Episode 1)
Logline: “Wow it’s been a minute. I mean, I like this episode about the troubled kid but we waited 50 years for this?”
“Three Slaps” follows a young Black boy named Loquareeous, who is loosely inspired by a boy named Devonte Hart’s tragic and viral story. The then-12-year-old was adopted by white parents, and the family went viral thanks to a photo of the crying boy hugging a white police officer at a protest in Ferguson. His adoptive parents are believed to have driven their SUV drove off a cliff in California in a murder-suicide in March 2018 with Hart and his siblings inside.
In Episode 1, Loquareeous faces a similar fate, while viewers get a reimagining of what Hart’s life might have been like with his adoptive parents. The episode uses other viral moments and popular Twitter conversations as inspiration, like how white people don’t use washcloths in the shower or how they don’t season their food. Those are the things that make the child appreciate how good life was back home with his mother. The episode was written by Stephen Glover and directed by Hiro Murai and it really set the tone for the remaining standalone and symbolic episodes that fans would be getting this season.
Atlanta’s Season 3 is now available for streaming on Hulu.