Will Cisko
Personally, I’ve always found Donald Glover to be extremely talented in both his music and films. I decided to watch his show Atlanta and after watching the first couple episodes it became a total binge watch and I loved it. The story behind Earnest Marks (played by Donald Glover himself) trying to scavenge money and all of a sudden finding out his cousin Alfred Miles (played by Brian Tyree Henry,an oscar worthy and interesting dressing actor is an up and coming rap star in the inner city of Atlanta. Season 2 was just as masterful if not more than the first season of the Glover directed series and I’ll tell you some things the man of many talents mastered in this second season.
The first thing Glover brings into this series is the incorporation of pop culture. Social Media has a prominent stance in the show, whether it’s some instagram beef being started by a hating follower that Alfred feels he has to settle in real life, which… usually doesn’t end well. Social media is used in the show for spreading the music made by Earn’s (short for Earnest) cousin and trying to show off the friend’s crazy life. Pop culture plays into the music scene in the show. Different rappers approaching Alfred because they have heard his mixtape online whether that be through social media or a music platform but it is obviously made a very prominent point. Another way Glover uses pop culture is using the Atlanta rap scene that he of course is a part of. Mentions of Gucci Mane or guest appearances by the Migos are not uncommon in the series. Most of the time the rap artists are worked into the comedy of the show. The Migos were supposed to be a very strange rap group that no one has ever heard of before that live out of their trailer deep in the Georgia woods, when in reality they are all multi millionaire, platinum recording artists.
While writing this Be Reel Blog post I’m currently listening to Donald Glover’s 2013 album, Because the Internet, and have been a fan of Childish Gambino’s (Donald Glover’s stage name). Glover does a great job with the soundtrack of the show tying the pop culture aspect and Gambino’s musical expertise into the show. Like I said before Glover brings notice to the Atlanta rap scene quite a lot. Promoting much smaller artists from the 303 and putting them on and giving them a platform where people will hear their music is not uncommon by any means. A young Atlanta rapper named Sahbabii received a huge amount of popularity after being featured in the show’s outro multiple times. Glover does a great job incorporating music into a show that is so music oriented and who can do it better than a platinum artist himself?
The last thing that really stands out in the second season is the comedy. In my opinion the second season is much funnier and Glover uses one of the methods of comedy so much throughout the entire show. The use of the congruity theory of comedy makes this show into the comedy it is. A character in the show who is the master of the congruity theory of comedy is Darius. Darius, played by Lakeith Stanfield, is a wanderer and the audience never really knows where Darius’ mind wanders to. Whether he makes irrelevant jokes in a time of a life or death situation or brings up something completely random that will just make you scratch your head and wonder what the thought process was in the mind of Darius.
The Relief theory is used in the show just as much as the incongruity theory. Where as the incongruity theory will be used by a man that Alfred is very close to and asks Earn to go check up on him has an alligator in the bathroom for the past 6 years, the Relief theory will consist of a man screaming “WORLDSTAR” in the background while a gun is focused on the chest of one of the main characters.
I enjoy the show tremendously and fully believe the second season of Atlanta deserves a GOOD GOOD rating. Hopefully the third season is able to be released sooner than later. Thank you for reading!
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