--- title: "Are You Watching Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” Yet?" description: "Because you really should be…" date: "2016-10-19" modified: "2016-10-19" authors: - name: "Max Prince" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/max-prince" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/article/5610/are-you-watching-donald-glovers-atlanta-yet" categories: - "News" tags: - "Ads" - "atlanta" - "charger" - "donald glover" - "sports car" - "TV Shows" --- # Are You Watching Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” Yet? ![]() *\www.thedrive.com* Sorry, *Game of Thrones* cosplay doofuses: *Atlanta* is the best show on television. The series, which airs on FX, follows a cast late-twentysomethings trying to get by in the eponymous title city. Its writer and star is Donald Glover, a.k.a. indie hip-hop impresario Childish Gambino, formerly of *Community* and *30 Rock*. In *Atlanta*, he plays Earnest “Earn” Marks, an Ivy League dropout and new father who takes up managing his cousin, Alfred (stage actor Brian Tyree Henry, *The Book of Mormon*), a mixtape rapper who’s struggling with impending fame and his public typecast as a Gucci Mane thug. There’s also Vanessa, a schoolteacher and the mother of Earn’s toddler daughter, traversing a cultural minefield of unflattering tropes about black womanhood, and Darius, their click’s token stoner conspiracy theorist and hype man. (Driving past a billboard for HIV testing: “AIDS was invented to keep Wilt Chamberlain from beating Steve McQueen’s sex record.”) Solid. *Atlanta* is a comedy, and a drama, and a biting social commentary. Mostly, though, it’s just flat-out brilliant. Glover’s got a knack for non-traditional storytelling, and the entirety of last week’s *Atlanta*, titled “B.A.N.”, was presented as a fictional talk show on a BET-esque network. After tweeting out some vaguely homophobic lyrics, Alfred lands on a panel discussion with a transgender rights advocate, moderated by a fantastic sendup of Don Lemon. What unfolds might be the gutsiest, smartest, most experimental half-hours of television this year. And, to keep us all immersed in the talk show shtick, Glover intersperses fake commercials from real companies. The lead-in is a spot for the Dodge Charger. It’s pretty much perfect.​ ![screen\_shot\_2016-10-18\_at\_10.55.48\_am.png]() **FX/FX.com** Non-enthusiasts probably won’t catch all the nuance, but *Atlanta*’s parody absolutely pegs the glossy aesthetic and vacuous verbiage of modern auto ads. It’s even got the “professional driver” disclaimer running across the bottom. I watched the show with two car guy friends, and it took all three of us a few moments to realize it wasn’t an actual Dodge commercial. There are two other fake Charger spots at the episode’s midpoint and end; watch it all the way through, because the final one delivers the SNL-worthy punchline. If you’ve got cable, you can stream “B.A.N.”, and the rest of *Atlanta*, on FX’s website [here](). If not, the full episode, Dodge Charger spoof included, is hosted on a number of less scrupulous outlets across the web. Not that anybody here is endorsing that. Of course not. *The eighth episode of* Atlanta *airs Tuesday, October 18, at 10 p.m. EST on FX.* ### Author social links [Twitter]()