In less than a week, Atlanta will air its first new episode in nearly four years.
The trailers for Season 3 have actively given fans little information to work with regarding what to expect, but creator and star Donald Glover summarized the approach in the writers' room as wanting to “make a black fairytale.” According to Variety, the first episode of Season 3, titled “Three Slaps,” will not feature any of the show's main characters and instead follow a young boy named Loquareeous.
In the video, there will be references to viral videos of the past, such as the children dancing in the classroom after finding out they were going to see Black Panther or the kid that was punished by being forced to do Fortnite dances. “I like to describe Atlanta as a group thread in real life. We’re just shitting a group text thread,” writer and producer Stefani Robinson said of the humor in “Three Slaps.” “We’re just cobbling together internet videos that make us laugh.”
“We just wanted to make a black fairytale,” Glover added. “I remember sitting in the writers’ room and being like, ‘What do we write about?’ We just wanted to do short stories. Something I would want to watch.” The first episode is a reimagining of the story of Devonte Hart, a 15-year-old Black boy who was tragically killed in a murder-suicide in 2018.
Devonte first came to the public's attention after a photo of him crying while hugging a white cop during a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Oregon, following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson. During a car accident, Devonte Hart and five of his adopted siblings were killed when his parents drove off a cliff in California, killing them and him.
Season 3 of Atlanta premieres on March 24 on FX.