From left, Brian Tyree Henry, Lakeith Stanfield and Donald Glover in “The Jacket” episode of “Atlanta.” (Quantrell Colbert/FX) (Quantrell D. Colbert/FX)
By Bethonie Butler
In the first season finale of Donald Glover’s critically acclaimed FX dramedy “Atlanta,” Glover’s character, Earn, witnesses a man get fatally shot by police. The brief but harrowing scene unfolds during a trip to retrieve a jacket he lost in an Uber following a night out. Earn, accompanied by his cousin and their friend, looks horrified as the Uber driver is shot repeatedly while attempting to run from a SWAT team.
The episode aired in 2016 in the wake of protests in Ferguson, Mo., over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and other black men and women killed disproportionately by police. Unlike the vast majority of shows that grappled with police violence that year, “Atlanta” didn’t make the shooting a focal point of the finale. “Did y’all really need all them bullets?” his cousin asks immediately after the shooting. Moments later, Earn approaches a detective to ask if they can check the pockets of his jacket, which the Uber driver had been wearing when he was killed.
Driving away, the men agree that what they observed was “crazy” and even “a little cool.” The incident is never mentioned again, but the message lingers: These young, black men are accustomed to the threat and proximity of police violence. “The truth is that many of us have become just as inured to the stark reality of police-involved shootings,” Joshua Alston wrote for Vulture. The episode “is so effective because it reenacts one in front of our eyes, then shows us what a blithe response to such a thing actually looks like.”
“Atlanta’s” subtle approach hasn’t been the norm for TV shows that have grappled with police violence over the past few decades, with efforts often reduced to “Very Special Episodes” or brief story arcs that gloss over long-standing disparities. But it’s an example of the nuance and creativity that can come out of diverse writers’ rooms that reflect a range of perspectives and experiences.
[TV shows shape how law enforcement is viewed. Where will they go from here?]
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