Do You Believe In Ghosts? A Review of Atlanta 3x3 “The Old Man And The Tree”
Ghosts have been rumored to be real, and as stories, since humans were able to articulate speech. From people claiming they have seen ghosts, even to the point where people have even recorded them seeing ghosts, like the “reality” television show Ghost Hunters. People have told stories of ghosts as moral tales also known as folklore or fables since the beginning of human communication. Think back to my Episode One and Two review of the season. One of the biggest aspects of ghost fables is karma. In episode one, the white ladies get karma for what they did to the children they adopted over the years. The kid got rewarded for not doing anything morally bad. A lot of people see ghosts as protectors of the world. That leads to this episode.
If You Believe In God You Have To Believe In The Devil
The antagonist of this episode could be seen as the unsettling Fernando. Al and the rest of the crew come to this “party” or gathering. Al meets Fernando, meanwhile, the rest do their own thing. Fernando shows Al his precious tree, which he claims is the oldest in London. Al seemed to think the tree meant, Marijuana. After a while, Al decides to gamble with Fernando, and he decides to tell Al a story. About a “pale black man who is soaking wet”. The pale man in episode one? Ghost town underwater? I am not saying it does connect, but it could. Fernando concluded that because it was not raining, and there were “all locked doors” he was a ghost. And that he had sex with him. This is told to make a joke. And it’s a pretty funny one. But, I think this show is really special. And because it’s really special, nothing just happens for a joke. I think Fernando was telling a story. It’s not real, but he had a reason for telling this story. Fernando also mentions that if you believe in God you have to believe in the Devil. There has to be bad and good. Yin and Yang. And he seems to infer that the devil is on his side. But, that comes up to importance later in the episode. After Al wins the gamble, Fernando and his friends abruptly leave the table. After Al fails to “wake up” Fernando from his fake slumber, he decides to take a chainsaw that came out of nowhere and cut down Fernando’s precious tree. In legends, when you destroy a spirit’s property or even destroy a person a spirit treasures, it is supposed to bring a curse onto you. Karma. Who knows how this season will conclude, but Fernando claiming he has the devil on his side can’t be good for Al destroying his tree. And the actor also happens to be number one in the credit order for Episode four of this season. I guess we will have to see.
White Activism
Despite all I had to say about Fernando and Ghosts, he takes up very little screentime of what this episode is. Of course, is classic Atlanta fashion, this party is all white people except for Al, Earn, Darius, and Van. And, in very surprising Atlanta fashion, they aren’t racist! (Maybe) Darius approaches a woman and immediately thinks Darius is hitting on her. After she says black men don’t ask her out, a guy named Socks decides that he needs to save Darius from the Asian woman’s racism. A British rap star “TJ” wants to Earn to make a deal with him, including NFTs. Which Earn just plays off. I wasn’t expecting Donald to criticize NFTs, despite everything he has criticized, as he still is a rich man. But, I’m glad he did criticize them. Subtly, because all his best friends are likely into NFTs. Socks starts describing the woman that Darius was with doing some “real 12 years a slave shit” what does Socks think she owns slaves or something? All the other white people are also horrified. Even though they don’t even know who Darius is, other than being a black man. Socks starts making up a story that a woman said “all lives matter” to Darius, and then one of the white women in the room starts crying. Even though the first two seasons dealt with how white people act like they care so much about black people, even though it is just an act, this season is kind of on another level, obviously because of the popularization of Black Lives Matter in 2020. In the first episode of the season, the two lesbians take under the wing black children wow they are so honorable and nice! But, they end up driving them over a cliff. Now, the white people in this episode aren’t dangerous like that. Other than Socks. But, they don’t see Darius as a person, more as an object. An object they “love” but still an object. This has always been a thing in America, but much more after George Floyd was killed. White People started to act as if they cared about black people by putting BLM stickers on their cars, putting BLM in their Twitter bio, and using the hashtag #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor. But, once those people or movements aren’t trending anymore, they don’t care. And still, see black people as objects. I’ve seen people say this episode is about capitalism and racism intersecting, but I don’t think that was the point. That could’ve come naturally, but I don’t think Donald and Stephen Glover were getting at that. Rap Artists especially get seen as objects, people never see Kanye West as a real person. Just a “crazy black dude”. Just the other night, on the Jimmy Kimmell show, Kimmel says Glover is like “Will Smith and Chris rock combined”. Just a day or two after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. It almost seemed like it would be something so ridiculous, that it would be Atlanta. But it wasn’t.
Final Thoughts
The promo for this episode made me expect this episode would be very different, but I’m glad it wasn’t what I was expecting, because of what we got from it. I think I could see the direction they are going this season surrealism-wise, but it could take a 180. Social Commentary wise, it definitely will keep going the route of white people activism. This was an Incredible episode, this season couldn’t have been any better so far.
