After a Van-centric episode, Donald Glover’s comedy pushed further into the unknown with a post-credits scene.
Even in its final episode , Atlanta’slong - delayedthird seasonresisted easy rendering . After pivoting between provocativestand - alone episodesthat did n’t feature any of the original cast members and more fictitious character - focussed episode following Paper Boi ( Brian Tyree Henry ) on his European turn , the show separate the difference with " Tarrae , " a finale built around Zazie Beetz ’s Van that still managed to retain the same discombobulating energy of the time of year ’s one - off ’s . Unlike the finish to Season 2 , " Crabs in a Barrel , " this did not feel like an attempt to draw the time of year ’s disparate plot line together and lay up future plotlines . Instead , the show waitress until its windup moments to gesture towards what Season 4 , which is due later this year , could hold .
Before that hap , " Tarrae , " which was written by longtimeAtlantaproducer Stefani Robinson , feel like another opportunity to poke at the themes of race , class , and identity that the time of year has systematically addressed with droll witticism and an heart for the absurd . Opening with Adriyan Rae ’s Candice , a friend of Van ’s last assure in Season 2 ’s " Champagne Papi , " discussing her plans ( getting pay to pissing on a guy she met online ) for her clip in France , the episode quickly turned into a quasi - enigma about Van , who we meet with an Amelie bob and a baguet sticking out of her bag . In perhaps unsurprisingAtlantafashion , the baguette eventually became a weapon used to assault a man decline to turn over over an authoritative package Van wanted . The contents of the package ? Human hands , which were cook and machinate for a tabular array of wealthy dining car , admit the histrion Alexander Skarsgård , play himself in a ego - spoof fashion that ’s not too different from Liam Neeson ’s appearance sooner this season in the Paper Boi odyssey " New Jazz . "
Pitched somewhere between farce comedy and thriller , " Tarrae " at last gave Van a moment of self - reflection and uncloudedness . All time of year , she ’s drifted in and out of the secret plan in a direction that suggest at the character ’s reverence , anxiety , and uncertainty about her place in the human race . She flirted with Donald Glover ’s Earn and spent time with LaKeith Stanfield ’s Darius , but she always feel adrift , untethered from her liveliness back in Atlanta , where her and Earn ’s girl Lottie still subsist , and disconnected from her friends pushing up against the messy contradictions of the medicine industry . " Earn know who he is , " she told Candice towards the sequence ’s termination after finally dropping her false - Gallic accent and acknowledge her personal conflict . " Who the nookie am I ? I do n’t even make love . " Since the Season 1 stand - out " time value , " which was also co - written by Robinson and end with Van getting fired from her line of work as a teacher , Van has always been searching for meaning , reject to delimitate herself only as a mother to Lottie or a partner to Earn . Though she disappears for foresighted stint , Van remains all important to the show ’s thrifty exploration of alienation and its yearning tone .
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If the show had ended with Van ’s bewilderment , it would have felt like a fitting conclusion for what has been an often strange , occasionally maddening time of year . But in a post - credits scene , the type of move more typically reserved for Marvel shows , Lord Donald Glover could n’t resist throwing one more curveball . After the citation , we saw a piece of luggage with Earn ’s name on it get removed from the back of a van . Earn arrives downstairs at the hotel and receive the bag , which he claims he ’s never look before and does n’t belong to him . But his name is on it and the hombre delivering it does n’t want the bag either , so he takes it back up to his room . ( The writers used a alike gadget to end this season ’s " Trini 2 De Bone , " which terminate with a family portrayal arriving in an envelope at the door of a white family who take their nurse for granted . )
When Earn get in back in his elbow room , things get really interesting . He opens the bag and removes a Deftones t - shirt , a plastic bag fill with oral contraceptive bottles , and a framed kinsfolk portraiture . Though he ’s happy to get the shirt , he ’s mostly get by the contents of the travelling bag , which do n’t come along to have any great significance to him . ( deserving noting : The close of the second season also hinged on a man of luggage with Earn slip a gun into the bag of rapper Clark County and setting the stage for Paper Boi ’s ascendancy as an artist . ) But when Earn suffer up to pass on , the camera zooms in on the side of the guy in the kinsfolk portraiture , who should be familiar to heedful viewers of the series .
So , who exactly is that guy ? It ’s a photo of actor Tobias Segal , who diddle the white guy wire tell the story of the flood at the first of the Season Three opener " Three Slaps . " In that formidable chess opening scenery , he more or less turn into a ogre after redeem his soliloquy about sinlessness . ( " With enough blood and money anyone can be lily-white . It ’s always been that way , " he said , a line that reverberates across many of the one - off parables this time of year . ) The same actor also appeared in " The Big Payback " as a military personnel , also call Earn , who fritter away himself in the head after tell that instalment ’s white supporter ( Justin Bartha ’s Marshall ) that thrall stay " a savage , inescapable ghost that haunt in a way we ca n’t see . "
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Throughout the time of year , fans and critic have speculated that the stand - alone episode might be Earn ’s dreams , an interpretation likely inspired by the room he woke up at the end of " Three Slaps . " The post - credit fit refine that reading , suggesting that logical argument between reality and fantasy within the universe ofAtlantaaren’t exactly as cut - and - wry as some might expect . Again , that tracks with the casually surreal approach the show has taken since the first season , back when an invisible cable car was just part of a typical Nox out . You have to assume that time of year 4 , which will debut subsequently this yr and will likely witness the graphic symbol returning to their hometown , will answer some of these questions . At the same time , Glover and his team of writer might just introduce new ones . Like its principal part , Atlantais still figuring itself out , but there ’s not much sentence left on the clock : Glover has said the fourth time of year will be the last . Though it ’s easy to imagine these thespian reviving the serial publication year from now , like David Lynch did withTwin Peaks(an oft - cited influence onAtlanta ) , Glover probably loves symmetry and the pleasures of a good punchline too much to rent all the loose ribbon dangle .
