Season four of Atlanta continued with “The Homeliest Little Horse,” – an episode about spite. The audience was finally given a look into the past of the show’s protagonist, Earn, played by the show’s creator Donald Glover (Solo: A Star Wars Story, Community).
Before focusing on Earn, the second episode opens with a new character, a white woman named Lisa Mahn, played by Brooke Bloom (Marriage Story, He’s Just Not That Into You). She fails to flirt with a black neighbor of hers and ogles him through her blinds as he changes clothes. She is shocked and delighted to receive an email that indicates interest in her children’s book from a publisher.
Earn is on his way to therapy, and when Alfred (“Al”), played by Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, If Beale Street Could Talk), finds this out, he makes fun of Earn and brags about how rich he has made him. In therapy, Earn speaks to his therapist, Everette Tillman, played by Sullivan Jones (The Gilded Age, Harlem), and remains distracted by his phone until he is forced to put it away. He complains of physical pain in his body, which doctors believe he is faking. Tillman thinks it might have a mental source. Earn disagrees and brags about his job, work, and financial situation. However, when Tillman mentions that Earn’s home life might be disrupted by his job offer in LA, and his contemplation of being separated from his daughter Lottie, Earn returns to massaging the pain in his chest and admits his worries about it.
Lisa goes to meet the literary agent whose assistant is Tracy, played by Khris Davis (Detroit, Judas and the Black Messiah), a familiar mischievous character from season two. It all happens very quickly, and before she knows it, Lisa is represented by a literary agent. The agent instructs her to read it to a group of children during an upcoming reading at a local library where a publisher will be watching.
Back with his therapist, Earn talks about his decision not to go back to Princeton to serve on a panel for them. Tillman digs deeper into why Earn has made this decision, and the protagonist finally reveals what happened to him at Princeton. Simply put, Earn used his master key to go into another RA’s dorm to collect a suit for an interview he was excited about. She reported him to the dean and broke his trust. Tillman then connects this to Earn’s abuse by a family member as a child, which is more new information about the character we have been following for years. The therapist encourages Earn not to act out of spite. Glover’s performance here is outstanding.
Lisa tells her best friend that she has quit her job based on her predicted success. Her friend is much more cautious in celebrations and has more doubts about this decision. She cannot tell Lisa that she likes her writing because it is untrue.
A few weeks later, Earn returns to his office, having failed to make it to Princeton. A white woman working at the airport prevented him from boarding the flight for extremely tenuous issues surrounding his slightly damaged passport. At the end of the ridiculous story in which he suffered racial abuse, he claims to have let it go and tells Tillman that he wants to try and tackle things on his own from now.
Lisa reads her book, the episode’s namesake: “The Homeliest Little Horse,” in front of a group of children and the publisher. Lisa struggles to finish reading it. She is interrupted constantly, and the children misbehave, causing everyone to leave the reading before she has completed the short book. All is then revealed. Earn is watching Lisa on television at a bar, who set the entire ordeal up. She was the racist TSA lady who ruined his trip and chance to spend time with Van and Lottie. He hired actors to fake the agency and book reading and ruined Lisa’s life out of spite. When Al and Darius, played by LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Knives Out), find this out, they leave him. After a few more chuckles, Earn watches the television and realizes how wrong his actions were before admitting to himself that he needs to return to therapy.
Atlanta rewarded its faithful audience members by sharing more about Earn than ever before, all while wrapping itself in a compelling dramatic episode. The simultaneous scenes of Lisa and Earn initially appear unrelated. Still, a few hints here and there, including the use of Tracy, mention of Lisa’s work at the airport, and the theme of spite, brilliantly hint at the connection between the two to the viewer. The satisfaction in making that connection and its reveal is just as rewarding as understanding Earn’s motivation to succeed because of a traumatizing and scarring past. Atlanta at its finest.
Rating: 9.5/10