Atlanta: Season 4/ Episode 8 – Recap/ Review (with Spoilers)

Donald Glover takes advantage of Disney owning FX to present to you the story behind one of the Blackest movies of all time, “The Goofy Movie.”

Aired (FX)	10/27/2022
Episode Title	The Goof Who Sat By The Door
Director(s)	Donald Glover
Writer(s)	Francesca Sloane, Karen Joseph Adcock
Introduced This Episode
Tom Washington	Eric Berryman

This content contains pertinent spoilers. Also, images and text in this post may contain affiliate links which, if a purchase is made from those sites, we may earn money or products from the company.

Recap

Do you know the history of how the Goofy movie was made? How a young man from a two-parent household, inspired by the Los Angeles riots, decided to take Goofy, see him as a Black man, and make sure he got a movie? This is the story of Tom Washington’s rise, peak, and fall.

Things To Note

Question(s) Left Unanswered

1. Tom didn’t really die did he? He just became a stereotype and abandoned his child when things got hard. For, from what it seems, he got extra Black as he got more powerful, and the more he identified with the Goofy he made, the more he became the original Goofy he was trying to change the perception of.

What Could Happen Next

1. This seems to be the last random, out-of-nowhere episode we’ll get.
2. Alfred coming to terms with Darius being a bum and maybe outgrowing him

Review

Highlights

If You Didn’t Know Better, You’d Think It Was True

I know “Atlanta” is an offbeat comedy; however, following Season 3, Episode 1’s “Three Slaps” focusing on Davonte Hart, there is always the need to question if we’re being presented with an embellishment or restructuring of the truth. So when Sinbad, Brian McKnight, and others popped up, I will admit I Googled some names and was tempted to take myself on a deep dive because where the line between fact and fiction could be was questionable.

To me, that says a lot about “Atlanta” as a show. It exists in that grey area where you know the comedy is rooted in something real, but the places it goes to make you question reality. Not because it veers towards fantasy or the impossible but because it gets so specific that you aren’t sure if it is one person’s rather peculiar life or a type of refined madness.

And honestly, it isn’t until Tom’s downfall do you realize that there is probably little to no basis, even in terms of potentially being a play on Floyd Norman’s story, an actual Black Disney animator who has a documentary, “Floyd Norman: An Animated Life” you can watch on the Criterion Channel.

[ninja_tables id=”65257″]