FX always has and might always be my favorite network for TV shows, and while it doesn’t necessarily have the classics that HBO has, it has some of my all-time favorites including, Donald Glover’s “Atlanta”. Glover’s masterpiece follows emerging rapper “Paperboi” who is trying to understand the line between real life and street life. He’s managed by his cousin, Earn, who gets caught up in the local rap scene and his cousin’s career after returning home to the ATL. Earn does whatever he can to try to get Alfred’s career to the next level. Darius, the rapper’s right-hand man and visionary, is also in Alfred’s entourage. While it feels like I waited years for season 3 to release, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Season 3 picks off right where season 2 left us and dives deep into the nuances and relationship between an artist manager and their artist, as well as tour life and overall insight into the music business. However, this season took a more horror/twilight zone type approach to the season with splitting up half of the 8 episodes with one-off, non-story related episodes exploring themes of racism and black culture within America. Donald Glover pulls out some true, but anxiety-inducing scenes in these episodes similar to what we saw in season 2, but really commits to his artistic approach to covering these issues and should be praised for it.

Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” is entertaining, but underwhelming 8.9 out of 10. I had amazingly high hopes for this season after how good the first 2 seasons were AND with how good FX’s “Dave” is. While it’s hard for me to compare the two shows, they are both music industry and rap-based TV shows starring the artists themselves. With the previous seasons being overall hilarious and more comedy-driven, Glover was able to focus more on the story’s core, being the characters and their navigation through the music industry and the streets. With season 2 splitting the focus between Paperboi and these one-off stories, I really didn’t feel like I got as much out of the season as I wanted. The cast is one of the best aspects of the show along with the storylines of how they are on the come up in the rap game. Not being able to see the story or characters progress as much as they have in the previous seasons left me feeling underwhelmed. Overall, if you have access to Hulu/FX and you haven’t seen any of Atlanta or you need to catch up, I highly recommend sitting down and binging it like I did. It’s one of the most unique, creative, and entertaining shows on television and it’s about time we gave Donald Glover his roses for being a top tier writer and actor.