Every Episode Of Atlanta Season One Ranked Worst To Best
Where it all began...
Childish Gambino AKA Donald Glover is a creative genius (not a prodigy, they're very different!), and as a musician, actor and comedian, his ability to roll all those fundamental creative elements into his own project is something that should not be ignored.
Atlanta, the multiple award-winning comedy-drama series, is really something that has to be seen and not explained. On the surface, the series tells the story of two cousins rising from the grass roots of the American rap industry. But peel back the surface a bit and what you will find is a twisted alternate reality that skews both satire and non-sequential comedy.
There have been two seasons so far premiered, and it's been over two years since the second ended. A third and fourth are set to premiere in 2021, and fans can hardly wait.
In the very long preparation of the third season, it's always fun to look back at what came and before. So let's begin with a ranking of the ten episodes of Atlanta's first season.
10. Episode 1 - The Big Bang
To put the debut episode last in the list is enough to get a serious slap on the wrist, but really episode one's The Big Bang acts as the framing device for the episodes that follow. Atlanta is a semi-anthology series; with a narrative and recurring handful of four main characters, the situations and scenarios are what differ so much.
The Big Bang establishes who are the main characters of the show, what their relationships might entail. We're just getting to know this world that Donald and director Hiro Murai are developing.
The premiere has a lot of ground to cover within the episode; the rupturing and unstable relationship between Earn and Van, the inciting incident that establishes the three characteristics of Paper Boi, Darius and Earn, and of course the ambitions of Earn and Alfred and what the series might have in store for them this morning.
Compared to what's to come in Atlanta, The Big Bang is a tame gathering of character beats that gives the show sober room to breathe. We learn about Earn, Van and Alfred in the first episode, and not matter how much he talks, we learn less and less about Darius.