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Just popped in here to say that this is my favorite thread going on this board right now. 

I absolutely love Atlanta and feel like it’s making actual ground-breaking television right now, but that’s not the best part about this thread.  

The stuff supremebve and Elsalvajeloco are posting makes for a fascinating read. It’s like having a supplement to the themes of each episode.  I love it.

I just want to say thanks and please keep it up!

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Woods may be my favorite episode of the entire series. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but yeah, Al has some major issues with depression. The bulk of the episode being dedicated to what that sort of mania feels like was like nothing I've seen before. As someone who has battled depression and anxiety for their whole life, this episode really resonated with me. You can try to stuff it down for only so long until something triggers an episode and then it does feel like being lost in the woods. You're just trapped in your own mind and it is exhausting to find a way out. I've never been to the point where I wanted to commit suicide so I can't speak to that, but I do know what it's like to feel like the world is too much and I'm just going to wither away in bed. It's only after so long that I have to say fuck this, get up, take a shower, and rejoin the world.

The stuff with Al and Darius is so much more interesting than the stuff with Earn. I wonder if Glover felt like that midway through creating this season because the episode with Van and Earn was such a turning point. I don't care about these two fools who could really put their lives together, I care way more about Darius and Al because they're so much more thoughtful and so much deeper than Van and Earn.

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27 minutes ago, Craig H said:

 The stuff with Al and Darius is so much more interesting than the stuff with Earn. I wonder if Glover felt like that midway through creating this season because the episode with Van and Earn was such a turning point. I don't care about these two fools who could really put their lives together, I care way more about Darius and Al because they're so much more thoughtful and so much deeper than Van and Earn.

Van and Earn are both like people everyone knows in real life: they're dismissive of just about everyone and everything because they're quite sure that they're the smartest people in the room at all times despite their lives being shitshows of their own making. Once you realize that Van is sort of delusional about her lot in life and Earn is constantly doing Jim Halpert "you believe this shit" mugging like he's better than everyone he's talking to despite providing no evidence, you realize that they aren't sustainable as the main characters without major growth. 

Al and Darius have their own foibles (as interesting characters should), but they're much more accessible because they acknowledge their reality and are constantly making moves to improve their station. Even if sometimes they get in their own way, it's not this chronic, almost terminal problem that Earn and Van have at progressing. 

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7 hours ago, supremebve said:

This isn't necessarily true, but I get where you are going.  The thing about business that people don't understand is that every business isn't a corporation, and every business isn't a career.  As someone who is doing more and more work for himself, I am becoming more and more aware of the fallacy of entrepreneurship.  Yes you can start a business by yourself, yes you can be successful, but for the most part it is going to take a long time to get to be self-sustaining, and even longer to become a career.  People need to understand that the work you put in may never hit the jackpot, but that doesn't mean it isn't paying off.  The amount of supplemental income I make is worth it, and instead of looking to quit my full-time job and run my "business" full time, I'm looking to use this experience to branch out and do other things that will bring in more supplemental income.  The plan shouldn't be, I'm going to run a business, become Bill Gates and make billions.  The plan should be, I'm going to start this business, find out where I'm successful, and see how to turn those successes into more success.  Maybe you have an idea that is going to turn into some huge, multi-million dollar corporation, but most likely you have an idea that is going to let you save a little more money or take another vacation this year.  We have to stop looking at these things as a binary where one side is billions of dollars and the other side is an abject failure.  There are many steps in between where almost every business exists.  We aren't going to close the racial wealth gap by starting small businesses to supplement our income, but we can live better lives.  The problem is we measure success based on what we see on television not on what is actually realistic in our individual lives.  

It's absolute true in that you have to have honesty in what you're actually doing: Is it a business or a possible avenue to supplement income? Yes, you can start a business by yourself and possibly make it worth your while. However, once you get to a certain level if you ever get there, you need help to maintain that level unless you're an outlier to the point where you can drop everything in your life including the job to continue that success. Now the turning the one success into making them into more successes....let's use Sierra as a template. You can make money to doing what she is doing...on a certain level. Keep in mind, in Tennessee recently, the state went after mostly black women doing natural hair "illegally" which would have been disastrous for black hair salons everywhere in the state had that bill passed. Even when you're just making enough money just to get by, people are going to go after what you already have. If you're in a business like Sierra where you're already competing for crumbs, why do you believe that you will be the special one who gets it and somehow make it pass Latasha who has 100k more followers than you on Instagram. If the folks from IG and Youtube do you like the racist folks in TN did those black women and say you can't sell hair or makeup, you're done essentially. It isn't about everything between Jeff Bezos and failure as it how hard or easy is it to knock that house of cards over. She can open a storefront but something tells me Sierra doesn't fully understand redlining and how this will cause her business to ultimately go under even if she could be slightly successful. In addition, what could she do different from a Latasha who probably has one or two connections to where she can continue to find new and better products. Based on what we know about Sierra, how fast does she snap on one of friends who does stuff for her for free (probably also an ex dancer) and then she back to it being just her selling shit by herself? What I found funny was people on Twitter were talking about Sierra preaching the truth when actually that whole thing was a reveal on what it means to be doing business based on the knowledge you already have, which probably isn't much and you're trying to find a way to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So while much of the "fake" talk with Paper Boi is self loathing, there is a big kernel of truth when it comes to one of the girls he is messing with. She is a black entrepreneur who likely will be stuck where she is for years to come so how can she can tell Paper Boi how to get money? This isn't to say you can't get sage advice from some random person. It's saying check the source of that information. He can get that same advice from a more credible source that will be more fulfilling. If he ever blows up, she will be one of the people that comes up to him asking for money and talking about "remember when we had that talk years back in the nail shop" and how that helped him. I wouldn't be mad if he acted brand new when she did that because what she wants credit for giving him the street version of some Intro to Business 101 bullshit he could've got anywhere else.

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4 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

It isn't about everything between Jeff Bezos and failure as it how hard or easy is it to knock that house of cards over.

Yeah, this is what I meant by the fallacy of entrepreneurship.  There are no guarantees that you'll ever make a dime when starting a business, and there is a very high risk of failing outright and ending up worse off than when you started.  There is this Instagram account that is essentially non-stop messages about how you'll never get anywhere working for anyone but yourself and blah, blah, blah.  That is not the message that needs to be sent.  If you don't have an idea for a business that actually fits some sort of market, you probably aren't going to be successful.  If you don't have the means to exploit the hole in the market that you find, you aren't going to be successful.  If you don't have the training, the time to learn, the assets to start, etc., you aren't going to be successful.  If you can work a 9 to 5 that takes care of all of your needs, do that shit.  We need to stop romanticizing a lifestyle that is not practical for most of the population.  Sierra is probably going to be out of money and out of ideas if one or two things break wrong, but if the money exists in the space she's at right now, she needs to take advantage of that opportunity while it exists.  Her telling Paper Boi, that it doesn't matter how much those shoes cost, makes me believe that she's too frivolous for her short term hustle to work out, but that's not really the point.  If money is coming in, keep pumping that well until it runs dry.  Her business acumen is most likely horrible past that point, but she gets that piece 100%.  Al's problem is that he wants to keep doing what he's doing, which will ultimately be a short-term hustle.  He's not Jay-z who has been rapping for 20 years non-stop.  He's a dude who is hot right now, but instead of taking advantage of all of the potential earnings that could be coming his way, he's telling himself he's too good for money he's most likely going to need in the future.  He's thinking like he has a long-term hustle when he has a short-term hustle.  He has an orange and he's only eating a couple of segments.  Sierra is zesting that orange, juicing that orange, and eating the pulp.  She's getting as much out of that orange as she can.  Half of Paper Boi's orange is sitting on the counter about to rot.  The problem is once that orange is gone, I doubt if either of them has the ability to get another orange. 

Entrepreneurship should be about finding out how to build an orange tree.  If you have a skillset that allows you to start a business that can make a profit, that is great, but not the end of the road.  Once you do that, you still need to be constantly learning the skills that you need to be successful in whatever market you are in.  Once those skills are developed, you need to figure out if there are any extra opportunities that have opened based on those skills.  Once you find those opportunities, you need to exploit them.  The fact of the matter is if you are an entrepreneur, you need to have multiple sources of income.  You need to know how much money you need to live, to keep your business afloat, and an ability to save for when you have a down month or two.  The worst part about it is that there is no real life training for this type of thing, you just have to figure it out.  It is a constant cycle of learning, applying that knowledge, trying to profit from that knowledge, and then learning something else.  The issue with Sierra and Paper Boi is that they've jumped right past the first two steps and are just trying to profit.  That isn't going to work out well in the long term for either of them.

You can go to school for business, and learn a general outline for how these things work, but every single business is different and you kind of have to learn as you go.  All of this is before you decide to hire a single employee because that just adds more stuff you have to learn onto your already full plate.  How much can you afford to pay this employee?  Will you offer benefits?  How much more of a profit will that employee bring in?  Is it more or less than their salary?  Is that worth hiring someone else, or is that work you should just do yourself?  What happens if they aren't there?  Can the business still function?  You get a huge tax break once you reach five employees, how much money would it take to hire five people and guarantee you make payroll every month?  The reason so many businesses are one-man shows is that it costs way too much to hire one extra person.  If your business makes $50K in profit every year, you are doing great.  If you hire someone, pretty much half of that is gone if you are paying minimum wage.  If you can do that work yourself, you should probably just do that work.  Hiring people is not really how I would define the difference between a business and a hustle.  I would define that difference as whether or not it is sustainable for more than a year or two and if there is an opportunity for growth.  

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51 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Yeah, this is what I meant by the fallacy of entrepreneurship.  There are no guarantees that you'll ever make a dime when starting a business, and there is a very high risk of failing outright and ending up worse off than when you started.  There is this Instagram account that is essentially non-stop messages about how you'll never get anywhere working for anyone but yourself and blah, blah, blah.  That is not the message that needs to be sent.  If you don't have an idea for a business that actually fits some sort of market, you probably aren't going to be successful.  If you don't have the means to exploit the hole in the market that you find, you aren't going to be successful.  If you don't have the training, the time to learn, the assets to start, etc., you aren't going to be successful.  If you can work a 9 to 5 that takes care of all of your needs, do that shit.  We need to stop romanticizing a lifestyle that is not practical for most of the population.  Sierra is probably going to be out of money and out of ideas if one or two things break wrong, but if the money exists in the space she's at right now, she needs to take advantage of that opportunity while it exists.  Her telling Paper Boi, that it doesn't matter how much those shoes cost, makes me believe that she's too frivolous for her short term hustle to work out, but that's not really the point.  If money is coming in, keep pumping that well until it runs dry.  Her business acumen is most likely horrible past that point, but she gets that piece 100%.  Al's problem is that he wants to keep doing what he's doing, which will ultimately be a short-term hustle.  He's not Jay-z who has been rapping for 20 years non-stop.  He's a dude who is hot right now, but instead of taking advantage of all of the potential earnings that could be coming his way, he's telling himself he's too good for money he's most likely going to need in the future.  He's thinking like he has a long-term hustle when he has a short-term hustle.  He has an orange and he's only eating a couple of segments.  Sierra is zesting that orange, juicing that orange, and eating the pulp.  She's getting as much out of that orange as she can.  Half of Paper Boi's orange is sitting on the counter about to rot.  The problem is once that orange is gone, I doubt if either of them has the ability to get another orange. 

Entrepreneurship should be about finding out how to build an orange tree.  If you have a skillset that allows you to start a business that can make a profit, that is great, but not the end of the road.  Once you do that, you still need to be constantly learning the skills that you need to be successful in whatever market you are in.  Once those skills are developed, you need to figure out if there are any extra opportunities that have opened based on those skills.  Once you find those opportunities, you need to exploit them.  The fact of the matter is if you are an entrepreneur, you need to have multiple sources of income.  You need to know how much money you need to live, to keep your business afloat, and an ability to save for when you have a down month or two.  The worst part about it is that there is no real life training for this type of thing, you just have to figure it out.  It is a constant cycle of learning, applying that knowledge, trying to profit from that knowledge, and then learning something else.  The issue with Sierra and Paper Boi is that they've jumped right past the first two steps and are just trying to profit.  That isn't going to work out well in the long term for either of them.

You can go to school for business, and learn a general outline for how these things work, but every single business is different and you kind of have to learn as you go.  All of this is before you decide to hire a single employee because that just adds more stuff you have to learn onto your already full plate.  How much can you afford to pay this employee?  Will you offer benefits?  How much more of a profit will that employee bring in?  Is it more or less than their salary?  Is that worth hiring someone else, or is that work you should just do yourself?  What happens if they aren't there?  Can the business still function?  You get a huge tax break once you reach five employees, how much money would it take to hire five people and guarantee you make payroll every month?  The reason so many businesses are one-man shows is that it costs way too much to hire one extra person.  If your business makes $50K in profit every year, you are doing great.  If you hire someone, pretty much half of that is gone if you are paying minimum wage.  If you can do that work yourself, you should probably just do that work.  Hiring people is not really how I would define the difference between a business and a hustle.  I would define that difference as whether or not it is sustainable for more than a year or two and if there is an opportunity for growth.  

I think what should be considered is Al pretty much knows he has to exploit that well for all its resources. His actions show that whether or not it's being in the club, doing TV interviews, or trying to hook his himself to a more established name. I think the catch here is that when you're closer to the back end than the front end is when you pivot to something else, then you're tied to something else. He is no longer Alfred Miles because his one song took off and it's 24/7 Paper Boi. Once you go back into the lab and work on some more material, you're attached to whatever bullshit you produce. Sierra can BS with the hair and makeup thing because there is very little chance she is breaking new ground. You make a song that becomes an even bigger bonafide hit and you don't really fuck with it, then it becomes a bigger obstacle than what his first hit song was. Plus, you become a much bigger target, and nobody is going to give a shit except Al. The Robbin Season theme is so poignant in that Al is very fighting for his soul and that's not going to stop even if he begins enjoying what he does more thoroughly and trying pump as much out of this as possible. It's going to be about control. I think what Earn gets wrong based on what we've seen is he's playing the penny slots with Al's career. He has this flow chart that he knows is 50/50 at best, and that will inevitably force Al to comprise himself more and more. That's why he is on the hamster wheel. That's zero control. In comparison, Sierra wants Al to implement this strategy that's all shit from Empire and basically all cute words that can't be executed soundly. The best course of action is yes, finding someone who will allow Al to gain more control over his career and at the same time Al getting over the small shit. He also has to be able to create something that's more aligned with him personally while at the same time keeping in line with whatever is hot to a degree. Now that's going to be super tough but it's much easier to work on that than recreating the sound of one hit just stay relevant.

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On 5/5/2018 at 7:36 AM, peterien said:

I’m probably in the minority that thought season 1 was just ok but I started season 2 last night and was in stitches by about the tenth minute. 

I liked season one a lot.  But I do think it was there to lay the groundwork.  Establishes who everyone is, their relationships, the tone of the show, etc.

Then season two could hit the ground running and go into all of the wacky places its been able to go.

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Season 2 is unlike anything I've seen from a second season before. It pretty much shatters the mold, grinds the mold into dust, snorts it, and then that is the second season.

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Even season one felt like they had no idea if they were going to get picked up again and just went for it. The B.A.N. episode in particular feels like something most showrunners wouldn't have the nerve to do in their first season. 

If they Flinstone Kids the show with a spinoff based on last week's episode, I won't be mad. 

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I’m about halfway through season 2 and the range of emotions that I’ve gone through have been something else.

Feeling bad for Earn because he couldn’t catch a break in the first few episodes, then actually genuinely happy when he got the money from Darrius but fearing he would lose it all on the gift card scheme and sadness when he did.

Seeing the breakdown of Earn and Vans relationship in the German-themed episode is heartbreaking because Earn is acting like such a dick when all Van has done is support him. 

The haircut episode is hilarious but you also feel yourself getting frustrated along with Al because of Bibbys shenanigans and I guess that’s a testament to the actor that plays Bibby. 

Teddy Perkins episode is just a spectacle, start to finish is just amazing. 

 

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Loved, loved, loved the finale. Spoilering some thoughts to not ruin anything for peterien or anyone else.

Spoiler

Earn FINALLY did it. He finally looked out for #1 and pulled off one hell of a baller ass move by planting the gun in Clark County's bag. Holy shit. When they were in the TSA line Earn sets down his bag I though, "oh no, he didn't get rid of the gun, he's fucked, this sucks, he's fired for sure now." Instead of doing what Earn always does and just eats shit, he quickly moves the gun or switches bags, I forget which. Not only did he look out to save his own ass, he protected Al, and tried to fuck over Clark County so that Al would be the headliner.

I wondered if any of that would go noticed by Al and then Al is like, "I saw what you did in the TSA line." Again, my heart drops because he's going to fuck over Earn and instead it pays off something that's played out over years between these two guys where not only did Earn protect his client, he protected his family and Al recognized it. You just saw how Al looked out for Earn and threw Earn a bone when they were kids and that's pretty much how they've always been. You've never seen Earn come through and he finally did it.

The downside to all of this is that Clark County still made the flight, but you can't fault Earn for the result given the effort he put in.

For so long Earn has reminded me of Dante from Clerks. There's this line Dante has where he would rather shit his pants rather than inconvenience anyone else. That's a fucked up way to live and it ignores that you're still inconveniencing everyone around you because they have to smell that. So everyone loses because you just didn't want to make a fuss. That's been Earn.

He still has a lot to learn though and I fucking loved his talk with Darius. I loved him breaking things down for Darius and actually admitting that he was worried about his status. Darius' response was great as well. And I say that Earn has a lot to learn because he had a golden opportunity fall into his lap talking to the jewish kid about jewish lawyers. Right then Earn could have networked some kind of connection with the kid's uncle. He didn't, but at least the door is open.

I never expected this much closure from Atlanta. It's been such a strange, but fantastic season. That it all paid off like it did was surprising and it was nice to see things work out for Earn, Al, and I guess Darius.

And I'm not going to lie. I got a little teary eyed when Earn said goodbye to Lottie and when Van told him she was going to move in with her mom. It was an opportunity Earn missed because he could have thrown out the offer to live together with Van. He didn't though, so now the family structure is going to be Van and her mom instead of Van and Earn. I can't imagine saying goodbye to my daughter for two months. I don't even want to imagine being further pushed out of the picture with my daughter.

Great finale. I hope we don't have to wait as long for season 3 as we did for season 2.

 

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22 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Loved, loved, loved the finale. Spoilering some thoughts to not ruin anything for peterien or anyone else.

  Reveal hidden contents

Earn FINALLY did it. He finally looked out for #1 and pulled off one hell of a baller ass move by planting the gun in Clark County's bag. Holy shit. When they were in the TSA line Earn sets down his bag I though, "oh no, he didn't get rid of the gun, he's fucked, this sucks, he's fired for sure now." Instead of doing what Earn always does and just eats shit, he quickly moves the gun or switches bags, I forget which. Not only did he look out to save his own ass, he protected Al, and tried to fuck over Clark County so that Al would be the headliner.

I wondered if any of that would go noticed by Al and then Al is like, "I saw what you did in the TSA line." Again, my heart drops because he's going to fuck over Earn and instead it pays off something that's played out over years between these two guys where not only did Earn protect his client, he protected his family and Al recognized it. You just saw how Al looked out for Earn and threw Earn a bone when they were kids and that's pretty much how they've always been. You've never seen Earn come through and he finally did it.

The downside to all of this is that Clark County still made the flight, but you can't fault Earn for the result given the effort he put in.

For so long Earn has reminded me of Dante from Clerks. There's this line Dante has where he would rather shit his pants rather than inconvenience anyone else. That's a fucked up way to live and it ignores that you're still inconveniencing everyone around you because they have to smell that. So everyone loses because you just didn't want to make a fuss. That's been Earn.

He still has a lot to learn though and I fucking loved his talk with Darius. I loved him breaking things down for Darius and actually admitting that he was worried about his status. Darius' response was great as well. And I say that Earn has a lot to learn because he had a golden opportunity fall into his lap talking to the jewish kid about jewish lawyers. Right then Earn could have networked some kind of connection with the kid's uncle. He didn't, but at least the door is open.

I never expected this much closure from Atlanta. It's been such a strange, but fantastic season. That it all paid off like it did was surprising and it was nice to see things work out for Earn, Al, and I guess Darius.

And I'm not going to lie. I got a little teary eyed when Earn said goodbye to Lottie and when Van told him she was going to move in with her mom. It was an opportunity Earn missed because he could have thrown out the offer to live together with Van. He didn't though, so now the family structure is going to be Van and her mom instead of Van and Earn. I can't imagine saying goodbye to my daughter for two months. I don't even want to imagine being further pushed out of the picture with my daughter.

Great finale. I hope we don't have to wait as long for season 3 as we did for season 2.

 

Thanks man.

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I thought season 2 was unique.  I understand why people wouldn't be into the structure of it.  It seem every other episode was in the style of "A Day in the Life" of one the main characters and it less overall plot and more stand-alone.  Yet, I was onboard with most of it.  I enjoy shows that are willing to challenge what a sitcom or drama is and has to be on television.  I was a fan of Community and it tried a lot of experimental episode.  Community probably went overboard with it and alienated a lot of their general casual audience (all the behind the scenes shit didn't help either), but I still like that they were willing to do them.  Same with Atlanta.  Invisible car punch line?  Funny payoff.  Michael Vick foot race with a freeze frame moment?  I'm glad Earn got smoked even thought I was rooting for him there.  Whatever the hell the Teddy Perkins episode was and meant to be? Still watching.

 

But yeah...it's going to be long wait for season 3, I assume.

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I’ve 2 episodes to go but just wanted to pop in to say (again) how much I love this series. The last 2 episodes (Woods and North of the Border) turned this series on its head for me. 

Woods was all about Al being broken down mentally and having a condensed spiritual journey of sorts.

It could’ve ended up being a bottle episode but it turns out to be a good thing, and in my mind a game-changer because at the end of the episode and all through the following episode Paperboi has ‘leveled up’ he knows what he has to do now to succeed and being “real” isn’t gonna cut it if he wants money. 

I actually found the following episode a bit boring at times but the last 12 or so minutes are among my favorite things Atlanta has done.

Al finally having enough with Earn was a great scene and would’ve been a great ending but the episodes actual ending was way more satisfying.

Is it wrong that I found myself siding with Tracy?? Were those last 5 minutes designed to make us question do we as viewers even like Earn?? Because Earn deserved that beating, those few minutes where Tracy is beating him is where I stopped and said “hey, earn deserves this because of all the fuck ups he’s had, the way he’s treated Van and basically being a douche all season leave him have it” and then we get a shot of Al watching on and I assume thinking the exact same thing.

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I've known a couple people that were just like Tracy and they were both assholes. At the same time, there was something about them that another friend liked. I was at least smart enough to stay in my lane and not stir anything up. I just tried not to interact with those people and eventually they just faded out of our lives or they managed to grow up. 

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