FX’s Atlanta continued its third season in Amsterdam with the title “Sinterklaas is Coming to Town”. Sinterklaas is the Dutch equivalent to Santa Claus. The racist traditions of Christmas in the Netherlands including, Zwarte Piet, which translates to ‘Black Pete’, who is his supposed friendly helper, are all brought to light in this highly amusing and shocking episode.
Earn, played by the show’s creator Donald Glover (Solo: A Star Wars Story, Community), wakes up late in Copenhagen just as he did in episode one: “Three Slaps”. His phone, that is out of battery when he wakes up, immediately buzzes out of control as soon as it turns on. Alfred (“Al”), played by Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, If Beale Street Could Talk), needs twenty-thousand dollars, Vanessa (“Van”), played by Zazie Beetz (Joker, Deadpool 2), needs to be picked up at the airport in Amsterdam, and Earn is going to be late for his own flight to the same city. On his way to the airport, he calls Darius, played by LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Knives Out), who has been high all day, and instructs him to go pick up Vanessa.
Earn lands in Amsterdam and meets with the show manager, who agrees to give him the twenty thousand in cash. He already discovers some odd social conventions as everyone in the room shouts “gesundheit” after he sneezes. The show manager brags about the weed in Amsterdam as well as the accepting culture that is supposedly completely unlike the US. Al is having a great time in his prison cell that is more like a luxury hotel room – so much so that after he’s bailed, he decides to stay for a nap and lunch. Earn picks him up and Al takes the cash to throw some of it to the fans waiting outside of the prison. They are about to run into the taxi when they see a man dressed as Sinterklaas and a boy wearing blackface to imitate Zwarte Piet. The taxi driver explains how Zwarte Piet’s face is black from when he fell down a chimney and was covered in coal, they both find this highly incredulous and Earn points out that this is an obvious spin on the narrative to hide its true origin.
Darius picks up Van at the airport with the driver that Earn arranged and they make awkward small talk. Darius reveals rather casually that he is impotent from an accident in Nigeria when he was a boy. They go thrift shopping to get Van a coat. When she finds one it comes with a piece of paper in the pocket that simply lists an address. Darius attributes this to destiny and they agree to go to it. Once out of the car, Van speaks to a lady on her way out of the building who assumes she is there for some work purpose. Van plays along and says that Darius is the photographer.
At the event where people are wearing all white, they find themselves next to a dying man. Darius, still high, claims that it is Tupac Shakur who is dying in the bed. He then relays to Van the conspiracy that Tupac is not dead, but instead fled to the Caribbean, and is now here. He goes to take photos on his phone while Van opens up to the death doula, who is in charge of helping the man transition to death. Van speaks about her decision to be in Amsterdam to figure things out after not getting the job she wanted in Atlanta.
Al and Earn return to the hotel where they are greeted by a worker wearing blackface. His room is a mess and eventually Al reveals how he was about to have a threesome with a white woman and a black woman, before Sinterklaas was brought up and they got into an argument around racism and racist words before a fight broke out, which included a chair being thrown out the window. Al was arrested for this. Earn is on the phone when the maid comes in wearing blackface.
Van says some final words to the bed-ridden man. In a shocking sequence, the death doula presses a button that causes an alarm to blare before the top of the bed falls to suffocate the dying man, who during his asphyxiation, resembles Tupac. All others around stand crying and are not in any state of shock, after all, euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands.
Al refuses to go onstage and perform and Earn sees why as he peels back the curtain to reveal a crowd entirely filled with people wearing blackface. Earn lies to the show manager that Al is sick and can’t perform. The show manager is enraged and chases after Earn before losing him and choosing to beat up a confused fan wearing blackface instead. This reveals his true character and solidifies the point being made about the damage done by this practice.
Atlanta is at its best in “Sinterklaas Is Coming to Town”. The show and the points being made have reached an international level. Sinterklaas is a tradition that only came into question over the past few years, and it is remarkable how well this episode raises the ridiculousness of that. The combination of humor and surprise in each scene allows there to be an entirely unique feel to this show that is unparalleled in so many aspects. The realism and absurdism play on each other to keep the viewer guessing and laughing with a jaw that is entirely agape.
Rating: 9.5/10