A fun fact: the roommate I had at the film boarding school I just graduated from actually worked with the woman from the opening of this episode. She was in one of the student films that he was a part of while at the school. So, while I never actually met or even know this woman, I've been in contact with someone who has worked with her, which is super awesome. That was just a little fun story that doesn't really have anything to do with this episode, but anything that almost connects me to "Atlanta" is worth talking about here if you ask me. The episode in itself is apparently inspired by ASAP Rocky being detained in Stockholm and the nice time he had while in a Swedish jail. That's just a small part of the episode, which largely deals with the Dutch holiday tradition known as Sinterklaas, a tradition that has been called racist by many, including members of the Dutch population themselves. So, leave it to this show and its incredible writers to come up with a funny premise for an episode that deals with this heads-on. If you do that, you'll end up with something like this, which isn't a bad thing. This episode could have easily been the opener of the season and opened it all up to a big a bang as the premiere did, but for some reason, having this episode as No. 2 makes it so much more satisfying to spend some more time with these characters.
It's been difficult not to get some time with these characters that we've grown so connected to over the course of the first two seasons, but this episode brings them all back together in team-ups that I didn't know I really wanted. It feels like the writers never put them out of their mind as they find themselves in situations that they could have easily been caught up in had they been home in the same frames of Atlanta. However, now they're in Europe on a tour and they find out that stuff is just as weird here as home.
I was a little bit afraid that the show would lose its charm when it went away from its main setting. However, the writers are not afraid to mess with the outside world and add a lot of their usual charm to the boringness of our days in Europe. Wherever these characters go, weird things will follow. And Sinterklaas is the perfect opportunity for the writers to put the characters in those weird and uncomfortable situations, despite the episode actually spending less time with it than I thought they would. However, it does lead to a highly entertaining climatic scene.
The writers also decide to bring Darius and Van together in their own little adventure, which takes the audience to a very dark place. It felt like the classic darkness that "Atlanta" is so good at bringing up, mixed in with that dark humor that they love so much. In other words, it was a perfect scene for this show, but it also managed to surprise me. I thought I had the scene figured - which includes an awesome callback to the very first episode of the show - but they quickly proved me wrong, showing that they're much smarter than me.
All the characters go through important progressions in this episode. It feels like Van is being put more firmly into the weirdness through her interactions with Darius, giving her a clearer view of what this show actually is. At the same time, Earn and Alfred are feeling the success of their story at the moment, which gives them a lot of fun development. However, as happy as their time is right now, I'm sure that something will come along to rip that away from them. As long as the charming performances from the entire cast remains untouched as they are.
"Sinterklaas is Coming to Town" delivers a perfect premise for this show and ends up becoming another show high point. It deals with the racial themes that they've always touched on and it doesn't skip a beat in introducing us to the characters that we know and love from earlier.
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