Warning! SPOILERS for Atlanta season 4, episode 5Atlanta season 4 delivers a perfectly unnerving Halloween episode, taking aim at a hugely successful producer and itself in the process. In its fourth and final season, Atlanta has examined Earn (Donald Glover) and how Al (Brian Tyree Henry) feels about the fact that his rapper alter-ego, Paper Boi, is aging out of relevancy. However, in the season's fifth episode, Vanessa Keefer (Zazie Beetz) and her daughter Lottie (Austin Elle Fisher) take center stage. She has a minor role in a project that's filming at the massive Chocolate Studios, run by the strange and elusive Kirkwood Chocolate. The episode, titled "Work Ethic!," makes no secret of the fact that it's calling out Tyler Perry, the man behind the Madea character and franchise.
Chocolate Studios is similarly meant to evoke Tyler Perry Studios, the 300-acre production space where Red Notice and Black Panther were partly filmed. Vanessa plays the close friend of a Black woman who's in an abusive relationship. The trouble starts when Kirkwood, referred to only as Mr. Chocolate, and who speaks only through an intercom in a weird accent, takes a liking to Lottie. He decides to put Lottie in Vanessa's scene, charmed by the girl's ad-lib from the sidelines. Things quickly deteriorate from there, as Mr. Chocolate whisks Lottie away without her mother's knowledge. He wants to make the girl a star in his films and shows, not caring to wait for Vanessa's permission.
What transpires is a genuinely unnerving episode timed for Halloween month. Nearly everyone around Vanessa seems either enthralled by or afraid of Mr. Chocolate, making the distressed mother feel like she's surrounded by cultish devotees rather than crew members. She goes from stage to stage, with the camera highlighting various shots that would look right at home in a paranoid horror movie. In possibly the scariest moment of Atlanta season 4, Vanessa has the following exchange with Mr. Chocolate, her tone determined but her expression betraying fear: "Give me back my daughter," she demands of the omnipresent intercom that Mr. Chocolate speaks through. "No," Mr. Chocolate replies after a prolonged pause that's as distressing as the rejection itself.
Why Atlanta's Mr. Chocolate Is The Perfect Tyler Perry Parody
Vanessa eventually tracks down Lottie and Mr. Chocolate, who turns out to be portrayed by Donald Glover in an uncredited cameo. Glover also directed the Atlanta episode, which was written by Janine Nabers. It's here that "Work Ethic!" gets to the core of the conflict. Mr. Chocolate works on projects that traffic in negative stereotypes about Black people, which Perry has been criticized for. The posters that line the walls of Chocolate Studios preview movies that perpetuate caricatures about angry Black women, absentee Black fathers, and vague platitudes about working hard to overcome racism. In a sharper jab, Mr. Chocolate is revealed to favor light-skinned Black actors over ones with darker complexions.
Even so, what Atlanta asks is why Vanessa is so quick to dismiss the good that Mr. Chocolate does. He provides jobs for many Black people and highlights Black actors who most have forgotten about, which is true of Perry as well. Why, as one of Mr. Chocolate's crew points out, does Vanessa scoff at the fact that Mr. Chocolate has only won BET and NAACP awards? Is she so concerned with awards like the Emmys, which cater to whiter shows and a more general audience? Atlanta doesn't answer any of these, because it's rarely concerned with easy answers. Through Vanessa, who is perhaps painted as a snob for rejecting low-brow entertainment, it raises worthwhile questions. It demonstrates a degree of admiration and understanding for Perry, even as it parodies him.
Atlanta has also been criticized for its writing of women broadly and Vanessa specifically, struggling to demonstrate who she is outside of her relationship to Earn. "Work Ethic!" doesn't exactly fix this, though it does grapple with it. The show lampshades its own shortcomings, giving Vanessa a plot that's filled with Tyler Perry tropes and crutches. It's a difficult balance to pull off, but Atlanta manages and Beetz shines. The result is a half-hour that's funny, scary, and several layers of meta.
New episodes of Atlanta season 4 air every Thursday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX. It also streams on Hulu the next morning.