Donald Glover’s Hip-Hop Dramedy ‘Atlanta’ Finds Laughter in Everyday Dread

Aryeh Harris-Shapiro

Donald Glover is a man of many talents. Originally known as rapper Childish Gambino, he has earned his a feverish online following. Now, Glover combines his passions into “Atlanta,” a half-hour FX dramedy about the title city’s underground rap scene. Not only did Glover create the show and write several episodes, he also stars, returning to television screens for the first time since “Community” in 2014.

Fans of Glover’s may have expected the looney comedy of his “30 Rock” and “Community” days or the vulnerability of his work as Childish Gambino, but as he’s said, “Atlanta” is closer in tone to “Twin Peaks,” fusing David Lynch’s deadpan humor, existential dread with his own musical and social preoccupations to form something new.

Glover himself stars as Earnest “Earn” Marks, a “technically homeless” college dropout who signs up people for credit cards at the airport. Earn decides to make a better life for himself, his daughter Lottie and her mother Van (Zazie Beetz) by managing his cousin Alfred (Bryan Tyree Henry), also known as Paper Boi, to rap stardom. Earn wins over Alfred by getting his self-titled single onto the radio at the end of the pilot, but instead of a meteoric rise to the top of the rap game, the series takes a far more realistic turn. Alfred is locally famous but no more, and he’s ambivalent about the fame he does have. Earn feels the walls of poverty closing in as he struggles to even provide a semblance of support to a woman who has a far better grip on adulthood than he does.

That ambivalence extends to the show’s aesthetic and its sense of reality as a whole. Glover and director Hiro Murai drain Atlanta of its color while emphasizing its size. The city isn’t empty, but it feels distinctly lonely, an impression emphasized by Earn and Alfred’s wary treatment of the bizarre people they deal with. Occasionally, the series dips into full-on surrealism without blinking an eye, including a hilarious subplot that sends Earn and Alfred’s stoner friend Darius (Keith Stanfield) on a the trade of a samurai sword for a rare breed of dog. Even that flight of fancy is grounded by Earn’s need to make money. The show is frequently hilarious, while keeping its characters in focus and giving serious treatment to subjects such as police brutality and transphobia.

“Atlanta” resists classification and categorization, slipping between comedy, drama and even horror as Glover and his team draw from the absurdism of Samuel Beckett and the ennui of millennial aimlessness. It’s a difficult blend, but Glover’s makes it look easy.

“Atlanta” premieres Sept. 6 on FX. Cable subscribers can stream the episodes on the FXNow app.