Atlanta season 1, episode 3 recap: ‘Go For Broke’

Money talks in this week’s Atlanta. The only problem is, Earn never seems to have any. 

Atlanta is very clearly a show about something. It’s about two cousins trying to hit it big by breaking down the barriers of the titular city’s saturated rap game. At the same time, it’s a show about nothing – kind of like Seinfeld, but with hot wings as the food of choice over soup.

“Nothing” meaning that some of the plot-lines are focused on the everyday things that we all experience in life, rather than the more outlandish stories that other 30-minute TV shows are known for weaving.

Tuesday’s new episode, “Go For Broke,” is inherently an episode about nothing. It’s also about something. That effortless ability to switch from micro to macro is what makes the writing behind Atlanta so great.

The big picture of “Go For Broke” ultimately revolves around money. The smaller one is about how the main characters get it and how they use it. Earn (Donald Glover) has all but given up on his low-paying job as a credit card salesman to manage Alfred’s (Bryan Tyree Henry) fledgling rap career, which also isn’t paying the bills. Alfred’s side hustle is drug dealing – which does pay the bills, but as you know, is neither a legal nor safe way to make a living.

Earn wants to take his hot-and-cold girlfriend Van (Zazie Beets) on a lavish, expensive date, but his bank account is zero. He couldn’t even afford to buy a full-fledged value meal from a fast-food restaurant, and was forced to ask for a kid’s meal. A request that was frustrating, yet hilariously denied by the employee taking his order.

“Only a kid can order a kid’s meal,” she says. “That’s not true,” Earn flatly responds. He’s right, it isn’t. However, as the episode progresses, we learn that exchange is the least of his money problems.

Meanwhile, Alfred and Darius (Keith Stanfield) head to a wooded area to carry out a major deal. Despite all of the signs pointing to the obvious, Earn had learned of his cousin’s drug dealing for the first time earlier in the day. Ever the concerned relative, Earn offers Alfred a simple, yet key piece of advice: “Just try not to die.” Key advice because Alfred and Darius witness the group of dealers they were supposed to meet with gundown a nearly naked man as he tried to escape from them.

Alfred and Darius could have been next if it weren’t for Earn calling Alfred and asking for $20 to put toward taking Van out. They slip away, and Alfred subtly begins to have second thoughts about his line of work. He knows that it’s lucrative, but considering that he’s starting to gain notoriety as Paper Boi throughout the community, is it worth continually risking his life for? It’s an interesting question that will hopefully be addressed more as the season continues.

Back to Earn. He and Van go to dinner at an extremely posh restaurant, despite Earn only having $69 to his name. Like Dave Chappelle in Half-Baked, he tries to nickel-and-dime his funds throughout the evening but finds out that it’s hard to do so at a place that charges $20 for seaweed soup. While eating, he and Van discuss Earn’s dedication to his sky-high aspirations of managing Alfred’s career.

“I just think we need a chance as humans to fail in order to discover what actually works,” he tells her. “People don’t think there’s a process to being happy.” Van responds with the utmost seriousness: “I get the whole ‘follow your dreams’ thing, but our daughter needs all the tools to survive, and that includes you.”

The reality check intensifies once they leave, as Earn shuts down the prospect of working as a security officer at the office that Van works. He said he would “become someone that he hates” working there. She points out that he’s doing that already. They argue more about the idea of following a far-away dream despite having urgent issues at the forefront, which ends with Van kicking Earn out after he stubbornly decides not to give up on Alfred.

Earn knows that his daughter and her mother deserve better, and he wants to give them that. He just, in his own words, wants to do it his way – a notion that Van thinks is “dumb-ass shit.”

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This is where the heart and soul of Atlanta lies. It’s a show about big things and ideas, like becoming rich or the experience of gaining celebrity status for the first time. It’s also a show about life – black life, in particular – in a world that always seems to be against you, no matter how hard you try to roll with the punches. It’s a show about something, but at the same time, it’s a show about nothing.