Atlanta executive producer Stephen Glover promises 'a little more hope' in final season
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Atlanta's return was really a departure. After a four-year hiatus, the acclaimed comedy's third season debuted in March with one shock after another. Previously up-and-coming rapper Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) was now a globe-trotting music sensation, which meant his once-struggling manager, cousin Earn (creator Donald Glover) was now a successful music-biz guy with big-money "tour clout." This new Atlanta was notably short on, well, Atlanta, tracking characters like Van (Zazie Beetz) and Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) to far-off places on Paper Boi's European tour. Except even that's not quite right, because four of the episodes — almost half the season! — broke away from the main cast to track anthology-style tales of ambient racial surrealism.
Now the show is back for its final run of episodes, and executive producer Stephen Glover has a promise: "This whole season takes place in space." He's kidding, of course. "We're in Atlanta for season 4. The plan was to have this journey through season 3 outside the country. Season 4 is about: You've changed so much, how do you kind of re-adapt back to where you came from? Can you do that?"
Guy D'Alema/FX Donald Glover and Zazie Beetz on 'Atlanta'
According to Glover, the writers' room had just started working on this final run of episodes when the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. Whereas the European phase of the series tracked complex themes about the curse of whiteness, a different mission statement emerged for season 4. "I think the the mantra or idea we kind of came to was, 'Just have more fun,'" he explains. Although specific plot details are hard to come by, Glover does note that Earn will spend at least some time in therapy ("It's just a good way to kind of understand where our characters are at.") and that there will be a reappearance by Katt Williams' Uncle Willy (though only for a "brief moment").
Seriously, though: How many black-and-white episodes with no main cast members are coming up? "Just enough for people to hate us still, but also, like, just a touch," Glover laughs, with a knowing nod to the loud reactions to season 3's breakaway episodes. "What's funny to me is those episodes were so polarizing, I guess is the word I'll use now. But I think our show has always done things like that. It was the maximalist season. I think the people who enjoyed that from season 3 will be happy and I think the people who were like 'I didn't like that' will be happy with season 4 also."
The trailer for the fourth season features Earn talking, rather eerily, about all hell breaking loose. And Glover specifically calls out The Sopranos' immortally bold cut-to-black finale as one of his favorite example of a TV show ending on its own terms. These are all reasons to be somewhat concerned for the Atlanta characters — right? "I feel like we've always had a very real and realist sort of view on celebrities and fame and the internet," Glover says. "Now we're kind of, in season 4, maybe giving something a little bit more hopeful, you know? There's all this s---y stuff, but maybe there's a hopeful side, too. That was something that I think also came from the pandemic. 'Yeah, maybe everything is s---, but there's little things, too, you know?' I think there's definitely a little more hope this time around."
As always with Atlanta, though, expect the unexpected. "Sometimes I think because of that pressure of satisfying endings, we get really stale endings, or things that try and wrap up everything, or wrap up stuff too much," Glover says. "Wouldn't that be so disappointing, if our show just ended like every other show ever? Who wants that?"
Atlanta returns Thursday, Sept. 15 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX. The show streams on Hulu.
Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story — as well as all of our 2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29.
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