Atlanta Season 4 Trailer Reveals The Final Episodes Are Coming Sooner Than You Think
"Atlanta" is coming back sooner than you think. After a nearly four-year gap between its second and third seasons, it seems like the surrealist comedy show is making up for lost time.
When last we caught up with Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) and his crew, the up-and-coming rapper had just returned from jetting across Europe on his first international tour, the events of which comprised the length of Season 3. By far the most experimental season of an already boundary-pushing show, Season 3 vacillated between anthological episodes that functioned as morality plays a-la "The Twilight Zone" and regular episodes following the exploits of Earn (Donald Glover), Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Paper Boi.
The season received some mixed reviews, with The Washington Post noting that fewer episodes featuring the core cast "feels like we were denied time with the people that kept us watching in the first place." Still, others appreciated Glover and team's bold ambitions, with The Ringer observing, "The show's most recent episodes have peered behind the veil of stardom and shown how taxing and downright frightening it can be." Indeed, much of the season took the show's horror-informed sensibilities and dialed the creepiness up to 11.
Given the obsessive attention to detail "Atlanta" has become known for, fans could be forgiven for expecting the next season to take its time getting here. But as was reported in August last year, the scripts for Season 4 were already written by the time Season 3 had wrapped production (via Deadline). Due to that hasty schedule, "Atlanta" fans are getting treated to a fourth season far earlier than they may have expected, with a new trailer making the fall release date official.
Atlanta Season 4 premieres on FX in September
With the release of a brand-new trailer, FX confirmed that "Atlanta" Season 4 will arrive on the network beginning September 15, with same-day streaming on Hulu. For those keeping track, yes, that means fans will enjoy two full seasons of the hit show in a single year. We are truly eating good out here, fam.
The trailer for Season 4 of Atlanta is predictably cryptic, opening with a group of squeegee kids trying to finesse a dollar out of Earn for ice water to beat the Southern heat, though Earn notes that the last time he indulged them, they upcharged him for room temperature water. It's a fitting way to signal that the Paper Boi crew is finally back in their hometown, and later in the trailer we see Earn yelling at the kids to get off his car as they turn his windshield into an improvised drum kit and freestyle at him.
Among other things, Earn is in therapy (now that he's in the tax bracket to afford it), and Paper Boi is still dealing with the surrealism of fame when an older white gentleman asks him, "How'd you do that," before imitating his on-stage rapper moves. There's a quick shot of someone getting hit by a car, a shot of Paper Boi pouring champagne into a recording studio's mixing console, and another one of a Black church choir dancing in whiteface. All of it is just par for the course on "Atlanta."