Until the last few minutes of the “Atlanta” finale, Donald Glover, creator of the show and protagonist Earnest “Earn” Marks, grants the audience only this — a lost jacket with an unexpected and increasingly alarming significance. In this culmination of a short, 10-episode season, the audience is indeed left with little plot advancement, but with every promise of an unspoken, long-desired camaraderie with modern black television.
As Earn moves through the episode, none of the season’s traditional comic commentary is lost. In the same skit-like structure seen in a previous episode showing rapper Alfred “Paper Boi” — also Earn’s cousin — on a talk show complete with fake commercials, Earn sifts through the Snapchat photos from his previous night out with his cousin using the signature, Glover-style deadpan comedy. While some may see these devices — employed more heavily throughout the later half of the season as overbearing or gimmicky — the witty insertions attest more to Glover’s mastery of craft. Retracing one’s crazy Friday night through Snapchat is relatable even in dire circumstances.
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of where the lost jacket hunt leads Earn and Alfred rests not in the resulting police violence witnessed when the pair get lost in a drug sting, but rather the quiet emphasis of how routine struggle and violence has become to the black narrative. Only minutes after witnessing the shooting of a man who stole his jacket, Earn asks officers on the scene to check the dead man’s pockets, far more desperate for the pocket’s contents than any assurance that justice would be served.
The finale of “Atlanta” ends not with a bang, but with a sigh. The audience sees Earn find the contents of his jacket — one small key he forgot he left with a friend before going out with Alfred. Alfred drives Earn home, gives his cousin money for Earn’s work as Alfred rap manager and Earn hands most of the money over to his daughter’s mother, Vanessa. The show closes with Earn using the small key to open a storage closet — minutes pass and one sees that Earn sleeps there, eyes closing while a small bicycle light glints off his headphones.
No insight is given into what will happen next. Yet, Glover cements what is important — blackness, which in the world of “Atlanta,” can exist unbothered. Hardship persists but it can also coexist with joy, youthfulness and freedom on this show in a way black television has rarely been. “Atlanta” is a specific yet relatable narrative of blackness remaining free of judgment. The first season offers an unapologetic picture of the beautiful struggle, packaged in the ruthless hope spilling through Earn’s headphones. One can only hope Glover continues to develop his story further, as overwhelming and simple as it deserves to be.
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