It can illuminate Paper Boi/Alfred’s (Brian Tyree Henry) creative instincts by sharing his early musical experiments, spotlighting his current heroes, and finding where those overlap in his increasingly popular work. It’s a recurring situation for Van given that Atlanta has been abandoning this character for more than a season now.Ītlanta has shown it can transcend genre by dabbling in horror with “ Teddy Perkins” and “ Three Slaps.” It can create elaborate parables, as in “ Trini 2 De Bone” and “ Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga.” It can harden the once timid and reckless Earn into a more calculating, resourceful manager equally at ease with setting up rivals and securing paydays. Van and Earn get separated, and she’s left to fend for herself. People they once dated keep tracking them down with vacantly casual greetings of “Long time, no see!” The garage grows darker and darker. After an eerie run-in with a seeming parade of their past romantic partners, the two return to the parking garage - but in a Seinfeld-esque twist, they can’t find their car.

Some undetermined amount of time after the European antics in the show’s uneven third season, Van visits the Atlantic Station shopping district with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Earn (series creator and star Donald Glover), where Deborah Cox’s thematically appropriate “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” plays on a loop on the outdoor speakers. In Atlanta’s fourth-season premiere, Zazie Beetz’s Van gets lost.

Spoilers follow for “The Most Atlanta,” the fourth-season premiere of Atlanta.

Phantom of the opera mask charm