9 Moments That Made Atlanta One of the Best and Most Surreal Shows on Television (2024)

Spoiler alert: This article contains details about Season 1 of Atlanta.

Donald Glover often describes Atlanta, his hit FX series, as Twin Peaks with rappers, but in reality he’s created something that stands purely on its own two legs. The show, a sharp comedy that plunges into deep valleys of drama, is an acute observation of life in the Georgia city, revolving around Glover’s character, a young father and rap manager. Since its premiere, Atlanta has quickly set itself apart as one of the standout shows of the season, heralded for its incisive humor and playful surreality. There are numerous moments that made the show stand out, but as the season comes to a close, here are nine that highlight the show’s brilliance at combining absurdist comedy with heartbreaking reality to create something entirely unique.

1. Nutella sandwich

In the first episode, Glover's Earn meets a strange older man on a bus who convinces him to confess his troubles. As they chat, the man starts making a Nutella sandwich, later delivering some intense philosophical platitudes (“Actual victory belongs to things that simply do not see failure”), before leaning in and demanding Earn take a bite of his sandwich.

The scene is a fascinating bit of surrealism, leaving just enough to the imagination to make you wonder if it was making a statement (perhaps commentary on the magical negro stereotype?), or if it was nothing more than a poignant hallucination. The man shows up later in Episode 7, though, so something tells us there’s a deeper story (more on that in a bit).

2. The jail scene

Earn spends the majority of the next episode in jail, encountering a variety of new characters, including an ex-couple—a man and a trans woman—who flirt across from him. However, the man doesn’t realize the woman is trans, and it culminates in a brutal revelation that can’t help but resonate.

Another major moment occurs when a mentally ill man in a hospital gown (who’s apparently there every week) is attacked after spitting on an officer. “Why’s he in here every week?” Earn asks, perplexed. Though shocking, the short scene is reflective of our current reality, where mentally ill people are mistreated and, in some cases, killed due to poor treatment and police brutality.

3. The Migos cameo

Gritty and dark, Episode 3 was one of the most brutal to watch. While Earn's date with Van turns into a painfully relatable financial nightmare (brought to you by the waitress from hell), Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) and Darius (Keith Stanfield) are off on a tense drug deal with a group known as the “Migos” . . . which turns out to be the real Atlanta-based rap group Migos. It’s a perfect nod to the famous hip-hop trio, but the comedy turns into a bleakfest when member Quavo wordlessly shoots a sobbing captive with a shotgun. Quick and merciless, the moment feels like being doused with a bucket of cold water.

4. Zansexual

The next episode serves a striking parody of corny social-media stars whose entire presence is defined by hoverboards, awful hashtags, and crappy YouTube videos. Zan (Freddie Kuguru) plays our main social star, a combination of social leech and annoying troll. His presence starts off stupidly playful, but turns creepy when when it’s revealed his social addiction truly knows no bounds, particularly when he watches a little boy (his “business partner”) get robbed while delivering a pizza. But he’s not going to help—he just pulls up his phone and hits record. Sure, it’s easy to call this scene a typical commentary on social-media obsession, which has been tackled a thousand times before, but the core of the joke is so gently insidious that it keeps you from rolling your eyes.

5. The mysterious visitor

This was a small, seemingly throwaway moment from Episode 4, but it’s so bizarre it demands attention. While Paper Boi is shooting pool and grumbling about Zan, the bartender tells him that a rather strange man came looking for him. He fit this ominous description: “Shaved side of his head, pink jacket. And he wasn’t a friend. Sitting in his car when I opened up. Dodge Challenger, 70s, tan, cleaner than the board of health. I tell you, smoking a swisher with no weed. Guy gave me the creeps.”

Who is this? The mysterious man is seemingly never brought up again, but the moment is so oddly specific that it has to mean something more, right? Some fans have theorized that he might be connected to the Nutella sandwich man, Ahmad White, who pops up again in Episode 7 in a trippy informercial. Some fans also compare him to the Giant in Twin Peaks. What mysterious web are you weaving, Glover?

6. Black Justin Bieber

This straightforward premise encapsulates so much of what the show is about: music, social commentary, perception of reality. The episode, very simply, recasts Justin Bieber as a black artist, with no explanation or allusion that something might be off here. The concept almost seems too on-the-nose, but it works on so many levels and deconstructs the way society views pop music’s enfant terrible. “It makes you ask yourself questions about the way you perceive Justin Bieber,” writer Stephen Glover later told Vulture, who adds it was a “jarring” concept that even initially confused FX.

7. B.A.N.

The entirety of Episode 7 took viewers by surprise, set up as an episode of fake talk show Montague that works as a send-up of numerous things, including “transracial” people (hello, Rachel Dolezal) and nonsensical critiques of the hip-hop community. In between segments are fake commercials for everything from Arizona Iced Tea to swisher sweets, parodies reminiscent of Chappelle’s Show. However, one of the most pointed moments is a fake commercial for Coconut Crunch-O’s that turns into an uncomfortably realistic replica of a violent police arrest, a moment that speaks volumes in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. That commercial—hewing dangerously close to reality, but constructed within the framework of a cartoon—is one of the most shocking in the episode.

8. White-guy slam poetry

Episode 8 introduces us to Craig, a know-it-all white man obsessed with black culture. He does many absurd things, but the most absurd of all is a chest-thumping slam poem he performs in the living room of his mansion. “Jim Crow has the name of a man but is a ghost / I am a man / But Jim Crow is haunting me,” he howls. There aren’t many white people in Atlanta, but when they are, they usually become the butt of the joke—Craig included.

9. “Could you check his pockets?”

You ever ask someone to do something for you, even though you know it will make you look like a monstrous person? That’s the crux of the most awkward moment in the finale, when Earn has to ask an officer to check the pockets of a man the police just brutally shot to death. It’s a culmination of many of the show’s strong suits—pushing characters to desperation, marrying absurdism to reality, and inspiring moments so painful that all you can do is laugh.