We Speak Entertainment
‘Atlanta Fx’ Season 2 Is Simply the Best Show on TV
Is Atlanta the best comedy on TV? Or the best drama? The best family saga about the impossibility of either fatherhood or son-hood? The funniest crime story? The most depressive stoner romp? The most anti-romantic love letter to a city? The most absurdist state-of-the-nation report, in the form of a deeply black, deeply American, deeply 2018 chronicle of how the urge to work can sabotage all the other urges? As Donald Glover steps up his already-stunning game on the second season of his groundbreaking FX hit, it’s all these things and more. Simply “the best show on TV” will have to do.
Atlanta is Glover’s brainchild – he stars as Earnest “Earn” Marks, a guy who went to Princeton, dropped out, wound up broke and desperate back home in Atlanta. Now he struggles to get over by managing his cousin Alfred, a rapper who goes by the nom du hip-hop Paper Boi (the superb Brian Tyree Henry). Earn can’t catch a break whatever he does – the whole world stunts on him, whether he’s trying to get a good night’s sleep in a storage unit or live large at the strip club. He’s got a kid with his off-and-on girlfriend Vanessa (Zazie Beetz), but he feels like a failure at both roles. And the whole city has gone dark on him: It’s “Robbin’ Season,” the time when the crime rate rises right before everybody needs cash at Christmas.
The show’s second season is in the tradition of classic hip-hop second albums like De La Soul Is Dead or Kanye’s Late Registration – having spent the first season overflowing with creative ebullience, eccentric yet crowd-pleasing, the second chapter swerves hard into the grim. Glover has often called Atlanta “Twin Peaks for rappers,” and this season definitely enters the Black Lodge. There are tense and abrupt moments where violence is in the air; the emotional conflicts get even crueler. Paper Boi has become a ghetto superstar, but now he’s got the burden of local rap notoriety without the checks to go with it. In one perfect scene, he stares at his phone, watching in horror as a suburban white girl named Amber with a guitar sings her version of “Paper Boi” on YouTube. “An acoustic rap cover,” Darius explains. “Them white girls love that shit.”
There’s still the kind of sweetly zonked stoner comedy in a parking-lot philosophy question like “What flavor is a Flaming Hot Cheeto?” – if that’s all Glover had wanted to achieve with Atlanta, that would have been plenty. But after seeing how much weird dankness he got away with the first time, he’s aiming even higher now. There’s a funny moment where he listens to a small-time criminal operator go off about a certain cartoon horseman: “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a funny show, but the way they dive into depression, and especially after what he did to her daughter, I was like can I even feel bad for this horse anymore?!” Like Bojack Horseman,Earn struggles with his own depression, but also he also has to negotiate the depression piled up all over the city and its history. He’s between different worlds and not really at home in any of them, as in the moment when he tries to defuse a stand-off between the cops and his uncle – beautifully played by stand-up comic Katt Williams as a crotchety old man who keeps an alligator in the bathtub.
Many of us became huge Donald Glover fans when he was on Dan Harmon’s Community – but at this point, Community barely even makes his top ten career highlights. As the obsessive science-fiction geek Troy, Glover had a great Community moment in the episode about their model U.N. – he’s the representative from Georgia, adopting a cartoonish Southern accent and hamming it up. He gets testy when anyone points out it’s supposed to be the Georgia that’s a country in Eastern Europe. When the model U.N. votes on a resolution, Glover smiles sweetly and drawls, “Georgia – the country – is much obliiiiiged.” The easily overlooked tension in that moment all comes out in Atlanta – his relationship with his home state, like Earn’s relationship with his family, is a source of creative rage and pain. But as Glover keeps proving on Atlanta, he’s just getting more restless and ambitious all the time. The best might be yet to come.
The best TV shows to watch this March – from the return of ‘Atlanta’ and the final season of ‘The Americans’ to a rebooted Trump-era ‘Roseanne.’
Actor Milos Bikovic began his career in his home country of Serbia, before finding huge success in Russia. He’s currently starring in the spy thriller ‘Red Silk’, a joint production between Russia and China that marks a new collaboration between the countries’ film industries. The movie is set on the Trans-Siberian Express in the 1920s, where a young Red Army soldier and a former Tsarist agent have to team up to uncover a common enemy. Milos has previously starred in major films and TV shows and worked with Hollywood legend Johnny Depp, who he directed in animated TV series ‘Puffins Impossible’. Last year he starred in the film ‘The Challenge’, which made history in world cinema, as parts of the film were shot in space. We asked him about working on “cinematic spectacle” ‘Red Silk’, and why he thinks audiences of all nationalities will enjoy the film’s exciting twists and turns.
‘Red Silk’ is a collaboration between two major cinematographic industries; tell us a bit more about it.
“Both the Russian and Chinese film industries are large and lucrative, so this project was a massive undertaking. I think the audience will love the excitement of being taken back 100 years to remote Siberia, on the road between Russia and China. And I’m thrilled that the movie is going to be treated in Chinese cinemas as a domestic movie. That’s a big deal.”
What was it like working with Chinese actors?
“It was a great honour to be cast in an international production. I’ve always been attracted to period movie roles, and it was inspiring to partner with Chinese actors. This film is so authentic: it has elements of a spy thriller, an intense dramatic plot, and great action scenes that only experienced directors can create. Preparing for the project took a very long time, because of the character development, and also due to the physically demanding action and fighting scenes. I had to speak both Chinese and French, which was challenging, since I’ve never worked in the Chinese language before. It reminded me of my early days in Russia when I couldn’t speak a word of the language, and now I am fluent as if it was my mother tongue. Acting constantly offers opportunities to gain knowledge and work with new people and cultures.”
Do you think European audiences will enjoy and appreciate ‘Red Silk’?
“I truly hope so, because ‘Red Silk’ is a cinematic spectacle. It’s a universal spy thriller, but its unique theme and the collaboration between two major film industries makes it distinct and authentic. It uses a global movie language that is easily understood by all audiences, so I think it will resonate strongly with European and maybe even American audiences.”
Last year, you played the lead role in ‘The Challenge’, parts of which were shot in space! What was that like?
“‘The Challenge’ made history because of the remarkable fact that parts of the film were shot in space. Although I didn’t have the opportunity to film in space myself, I underwent the same rigorous preparations as the actors who did, including on a falling airplane that created a ‘no gravity’ feeling. I also spent time in a centrifuge, which can take you up to 9G. The director Klim Shipenko is an extraordinary artist and every time I work with him I know we’re crafting cinematic art that will leave a lasting impact.”
‘Red Silk’ will premiere in Russia on 20 February, followed by a European release later in the year
Featured photo: Milos Bikovic, Red Silk Official Press Release Photos
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