Atlanta Is Almost Back & More Surreal Than Ever

Atlanta's second season is finally almost here, and judging from the trailer, it promises to be even darker and more mesmerising than ever before.

The trailer for the season, titled Atlanta Robbin' Season, depicts the main crew — Earn (Donald Glover), Van (Zazie Beetz), Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), and Darius (Keith Stanfield) — in various scenarios throughout The ATL. In one, they toss copious numbers of dollar bills into the air at a strip club, and in another they hang out over plates of steaming hot food at a local diner.

Every shot is dark and beautiful, and the transitions are as seamless as anyone might expect from Donald, the series creator and star.

In one scene, you can hear glass shatter. That's likely a nod to the season's title, Robbin' Season, which Nerdist reports writer Stephen Glover explained at the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association press tour.

"'Robbin' season,' for most people who don't know, is a time in Atlanta before Christmastime and New Year's where a bunch of crime happens...because people have to get Christmas gifts and people need money," Stephen said, according to Nerdist. "So, it's a time when robberies go up all the time...It's a very tense and desperate time, so we wanted to make that a backdrop to our season and our characters are going through that same type of transition their whole lives to where they're headed now. Robbin' Season is kind of like a metaphor for all of our characters."

The season will also have moments of levity. During the same panel, Donald opened up about one of the shows from which he and the other writers drew their inspiration: Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Summer Vacation.

"It's a really good show...It was our favourite as kids," Donald said.

Stephen chimed in and added that they particularly liked that the show "was broken up into a bunch of little episodes, but if you watched them all together they were a movie." The brothers thought that instead of just trying to jump off of Atlanta's first season, they'd try to format the Robbin' Season much like Tiny Toons and create 11 independent episodes that mesh perfectly when consumed together.

But perhaps the most exciting part of Atlanta Robbin' Season is that it will give the predominantly Black writers another chance to let their words and experiences shine on the small screen.

Last year, one of the series' writers, Stefani Robinson, told Refinery29 just how amazing it felt to work on something where "Blackness just exists."

"I don't want to get soapbox-y, but I've always wanted to work on a show like this. Atlanta just validates what Black people go through all the time," Robinson said. "I like that it's been such a critical success, sure. But the coolest thing is that there's a bunch of 15- and 16-year-old kids watching this show who have something to look at other than Friends or Big Bang Theory."

Atlanta Robbin' Season will premiere on 1st March on FX with a UK release date to follow.