It has been nearly four years since a new episode aired on television, but the FX Networks comedy-drama series Atlanta is back for its third season and its stars, cast, and crew were out in full force last night in Hollywood to celebrate.
With its season two premiere raking in a combined 2.7 million viewers over all platforms in its first week with adults 18 to 49 during March 2018, there are definitely some high hopes for this 10-episode season three.
Emmy winner Donald Glover, having an extensive list of responsibilities on Atlanta from being one of its stars, the show creator, executive producer, writer, director, and executive music producer, speaks out about bringing these storylines between his character “Earn Marks” and his three friends back to television after this rather long hiatus.
“It means a lot,” Glover tells me. “I mean, we worked on this for a really, really long time. I’m just excited that people get to see it and that my aunt can stop complaining that I didn’t make it fast enough.”
Emmy nominated actor Brian Tyree Henry, who plays Glover’s rapper cousin “Alfred ‘Paper Boi’ Miles” on Atlanta, shares similar feelings about the show’s return. “It means a great deal, honestly. I used to wonder why everyone was so angry at us. People would literally be like ‘When are you coming back? What’s going on? What’s taking so long?’ I get it now.”
Appropriately being the show’s title, the first two seasons were filmed largely around the Atlanta, Georgia area. This third season, however, the story finds these characters having jet-setting adventures across Europe.
Emmy nominated actress Zazie Beetz, who plays “Van” on Atlanta, the on-again-off-again girlfriend of Glover’s character and the mother of his child, hopes that fans see the evolving nature of her character as these stories continue.
“I just want them to see that ‘Van’ is always in the expiration of woman in terms of like can you be a mother and a lover and just an autonomous person? Have fun, be responsible - can that package all exist in the same time? Who am I within those identities? I think ‘Van’ continues to explore that in this season and I would hope that people can take away that a woman can be all the things and more.”
2021 Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield continues on in his role as “Darius,” the soft-spoken, humorous, yet often times insightfully “high” right-hand man to “Paper Boi.” Stanfield shares in his co-stars’ excitement about returning to this Atlanta world, following a tumultuous few years of the Covid-19 pandemic and many other impactful events.
“We’ve been waiting for a long time,” Stanfield continues. “I’ve been away from the character for a minute but it was cool to bring all the things that I learned into the character and just kind of influence his wisdom and his growth. He’s constantly on a growth of exploration and figuring out what life is and synthesizing how it means. I kind of do that same thing, so I just brought it into the character.”
Just as May 2018 was when the Atlanta season two finale episode last premiered, Glover also put out an eye-opening and much-discussed music video that same month under his stage name Childish Gambino titled “This Is America.” With now more than 825 million views on YouTube and counting, I wondered if Glover has noticed any progress or changes over these past few years surrounding racism, violence, and misconduct in our nation today.
“As far as in general where we are, the world is a very predictable place,” Glover continues. “As scary and as crazy as it can be, it’s actually pretty predictable because you can count on people to be people. I hope our show kind of shows that. It’s not about this or that or whatever - it’s like people are people and hopefully you’re being a person in good faith and not being just somebody who’s like, I don’t know, some ideology or something. It’s like be a person.”
Beyond the funny scenarios and circumstances that these characters sometimes find themselves in on this series, I wondered what types of storytelling and themes actor Henry hopes that he, his cast, and crew seek to get across to their Atlanta viewers most these days.
“How much more we need transparency about what’s going on in the world,” Henry says. “How we need to be seen, first and foremost, but just more transparency about the absurdity that we live through on day-to-day basis. We want to sometimes turn the lens on ourselves and we’re so afraid to do that, so it’s like what we want to do is provide that lens for you to kind of look through and be like ‘Ah shit, I feel that, too. Oh my god, I didn’t even know.’ That’s what it is.”
Stanfield goes on to share his own hopes and intentions with Atlanta season three saying, “We just want to make something that make people feel something. It’s real simple, but it’s black, that’s the thing. We bring blackness to the forefront, showing you how our experience is, giving you glimpses into what it’s like to live in an absurd world that don’t seem to understand that black is just human sometimes. So, we just want to bridge that gap and let people know that we here and we been here before everybody and it’s all good.”
Now with season three airing on Thursday nights on FX and streaming the next day on Hulu, the best news might be that Atlanta fans can rest assured that they will not have to wait another four years for a fourth season. In fact, the fourth and final season has already been filmed and is expected to premiere later this year.
When speaking about his three Atlanta co-stars Glover, Beetz, and Henry, Stanfield expresses to me that they are his people and he loves them. Henry also believes that these four years apart has allowed them all to go out individually into the world and experience their own growth and elevation to bring to their characters, calling the break a game-changer for all of them.
“It’s so special because this show is such a sacred place, at least for me,” Beetz adds. “This show changed my life and I think we all got sort of baptized in the industry in this show and we have that bond and I think we’ll always have that bond. So, coming back feels like a family and I felt very safe and excited to be back.”
