It’s not often that Atlanta calls upon Earn and Al’s relatives, yet here all the pieces fall in place for the show to take its comedy to familiar territory that lacks the dreaminess or surrealism the series has tapped into as of late, instead relying on some good old-fashioned sitcom fundamentals. That’s because not only is its “Light-Skinned” title a bit misleading, Earn’s very real family adventure almost feels like it could belong in another decade.
The premise is simple, Earn is taking his mom, aunt Jeanie and grandpa to Sunday church, a task he’s probably less than excited to fulfill, though he is compliant nonetheless. However, his dad has clearly had it with these sorts of family affairs and prefers to enjoy some alone time on Sundays since Mr. Marks, as he reminds the audience throughout the whole episode, has officially gotten too old for this.
Earn appears happy to be a good son, even if he’s clearly not a huge fan of his aunt Jeanie (Michole Briana White) who comes off as the most conservative person in the family after deriding Earn for not being married to Van and fathering Lottie outside of wedlock, not that Mrs. Marks (Myra Lucretia Taylor) cares one bit about that. And just like many families, Earn’s isn’t perfect as we learn after his mom explains the slight rift that’s been forming ever since aunt Jeanie took in his grandpa to live with her.
This sets off a “kidnapping” from the Church parking lot as Mrs. Gloria Marks runs off with her father leaving aunt Jeanie completely dumbfounded. The entire setup plays out very much like a Seinfeld episode, where what happens can be completely absurd, but sits right at the edge of it being plausible without the need to resort to magical parking lots like Atlanta did in the season premiere.
If that’s the case, then Earn’s dad is this episode’s Kramer, as his solo pleasure now is enjoying the emptiness of the mall on Sunday morning before all the kids arrive, and also because he’s as gullible as Kramer to be charmed by a beautiful saleswoman. It might not be the funniest thing to see here, rather, the entire bit and getting made fun of by some insolent kids is how Atlanta makes sure he atones for his sins on Sunday.
The real gist of it all is aunt Jeanie’s uncontrollable rant on Gloria’s alleged kidnapping, which evolves into her following Earn all the way to the studio where Al is working to make sure he doesn’t get away from her and to guarantee further humor from Al. Luckily, fans get a family group call that sees the Alligator Man himself, uncle Willy (Katt Williams), return after his debut in one of Atlanta’s finest episodes to pay off the “Light-Skinned” title — rest assured, colorism isn’t aunt Jeanie’s biggest problem.
Earn and Al are symbols for what many children go through past a certain point: sometimes you people can only conjure up so much patience to deal with the bickering and arguing of the elderly, even if they are our own sitcom parents, there’s only so much they can take. Atlanta may be overtly ambitious at times with its themes, scripts, cinematography and composition, but here it goes back to basic relatable comedy.
In the end, that’s what Donald Glover and company have always set out to do, to depict as many facts of the Black experience as they can, this just happens to be his Black family’s life on any given Sunday. Whether it’s uncle Willy’s musing on the word kidnap, Jeanie’s non-stop paranoid rants, or just the sight of Al being completely fed up with the whole situation, Atlanta has no problems pulling off this type of relatable humor.
There’s still a lot of Atlanta’s DNA on this one, for example, Al and Earn exit the studio via a secret passage used by real hip-hop artist Bobby Shmurda, which works almost magically as long as they don’t look back. This is the only instance where Atlanta seems like it’s going to escape the shackles of reality except that it doesn’t, instead opting to switch over to a Sunday family dinner where Mr. Marks no longer has his dapper Prince hat.
Overall, this is one of Atlanta’s most grounded episodes in recent memory, and it’s ample proof of the many tones the series can adopt now that it’s fully matured in its final season. With only six episodes remaining, it hardly does anything for the show’s protagonist in terms story, rather it’s as if “Light-Skinned” came to remind viewers that Atlanta is a jack of all trades and a master of all in modern comedy.
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