Atlanta: White Fashion

April 24, 2022 4:01 PM - Season 3, Episode 6

Al joins a fashion company's diversity advisory board, Vanessa reconnects with Earn, and Darius searches for jollof as Paper Boi's European tour continues.

The Ringer recap
Sepinwall says time in this episode "feels a bit odd, as if the three subplots are moving at different speeds"
AV Club thinks "we’ve been getting hints that this season’s happenings are taking part mostly in Earn’s head"

posted by mediareport (6 comments total)

A funny, rich satire for the most part - "Get this girl a cigarette, she's freezing!" was such a sharp, quick line. Cracked me up. Loved seeing Van again; the Ringer recap calls her vibe "extreme apathy" but it strikes me as just very, very, very chill. She's enjoying her little crime spree vacation in a place where no one knows her, had fun with Earn, then is back out the door for more solo adventure.

Darius feeling so at home with the fellow Nigerian restaurant owner was a delight, and made the eventual outcome that much more poignant. I kind of agree with the AV club that the satire of the diversity panelists' social justice work was a bit broad ("we believe racism will be done by 2024"), but there were definitely some great stinging bits. A white girl in a Central Park 5 shirt in a train station ad does pretty much capture corporate attempts at social relevance. Interesting how Al took on the mantle after seeing how self-serving everyone was.

I was leery at first when the queer-coded Marcello appeared, given the awful way trans issues were handled during the first season, but both he and Khalil were believable enough, and Khalil actually had some depth - I think that's a first for queer characters on this show. The heavy reliance on queerness in that commercial to do a lot of the "look how hilariously awful this is" work did leave me cold. But overall, I liked this episode a lot, and look forward to watching again to pick up the little details I always miss.
posted by mediareport at 4:43 PM on April 24, 2022

A white girl in a Central Park 5 shirt in a train station ad

The clues were all there leading up to it but it still caught me off guard when that popped up on screen.

Not sure what’s all going on with Van but I enjoy the little glimpses of it.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 5:56 PM on April 24, 2022

I found this episode crushingly cynical. Not a complaint, and as satire it was terrific. Perhaps Atlanta is not a show one should watch to feel hope.
posted by Nelson at 7:22 AM on April 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

It gives me hope in the way that I'm sitting here looking at the world going "UHHHh is anyone else seeing this?" And Atlanta is like "We are seeing this, yeah".
posted by bleep at 3:17 PM on April 25, 2022 [9 favorites]

The plots were moving at different speeds and I had a DIFFICULT time with it out of the gate. My partner was like *shrug* as I tried to explain at length how discombobulating it was.
posted by jeoc at 5:32 PM on April 25, 2022

That was a great episode. The Nigerian restaurant closure was particularly poignant in that not only did they get rid of the actual Nigerian and bastardised the food; they turned it into a food truck anyway and odds are the premises will end up as something else.
posted by Marticus at 1:36 AM on April 26, 2022