Long before the Emmys and Golden Globes, before the 10 episodes that defined him as one of the most visionary minds of TV, Donald Glover made his goal for Atlanta very clear: “The thesis with this show was to show people what it’s like to be black, and you can’t write that down. You have to feel it,” he said in August 2016, a month before the show's premiere.

Even that didn't prepare anyone for what was to come.

There's no real genre that defines Atlanta: It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it's surreal. It's absolutely unpredictable, and it will hit you with poignant observations on poverty and the experiences of a young black man or the Atlanta hip-hop scene when you least expect it, in ways you never would have guessed. It's structurally lose, sometimes abandoning the narrative arch to focus on the daily struggles of Earn (Donald Glover), Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz): a lost phone, a public access appearance, a basketball game featuring a black Justin Bieber, dating.

Lots of these play out like short films tied together by the same characters that loosely involve the same general premise of Earn, a broke Princeton dropout, working as the manager of his cousin, rapper Paper Boi, as they gain local prominence in the Atlanta hip-hop scene. That's really the most important thing to remember in terms of plot, which is really just used as a vehicle for Glover to tell intimate half-hour stories.

Meanwhile, it's good to remember a few key stories that connect between episodes.

Earn is broke and constantly struggling to get money to support his daughter, whom he had with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Van. There's not really money in hip-hop, especially in the early days (as we see in Episode Eight, when Earn's just trying to get Paper Boi paid for a club appearance), but Paper Boi is starting to get some traction in the Atlanta scene. Early in the season, Earn and Paper Boi go to jail in connection to a shooting in a parking lot. This mostly gets Paper Boi a reputation as a gang banger, which he's not—since he just sells a little weed with his buddy Darius, a philosophical stoner.

Van, meanwhile, is trying to date other people—struggling to reconcile her feelings for Earn, with his relative unstable financial and employment situation. In one episode, she gets dinner with an old friend who works as an escort for athletes, who scolds her for sticking around with Earn. Van gets stoned, but unfortunately it's right before a drug test at her work where she's a teacher at an elementary school. She admits to smoking weed and gets fired.

The season ends with Earn searching through Atlanta for a jacket he lost after a crazy night of partying. At one point during the episode, Earn gets a call and learns that the rapper Senator K wants to go on tour with Paper Boi. And he also finally gets some cash for managing Paper Boi. He doesn't get the jacket back, but what we find out is that Earn only wanted it because there was a key in the pocket to the storage unit he's been living in.

Really, I urge you to go back and watch the series again; it's a little over four hours long in total and totally worth a re-watch.

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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