that’s because it’s underwritten. Van is barely in the series and we don’t know enough about their relationship, not even how they got together

I feel like the Earn/Van relationship is written specifically for people in similar situations to see themselves in. but if you don’t deeply relate to either one of them, their relationship lacks a lot of depth needed to fully understand

yea i do wish they explained how they met, like where they in love and s*** went bad or have they always been shaky?

Based on the timeline seems like they didnt even know each other that long before they had Lottie

they’re not great parents though. Earn only sees Lottie a handful of times a year and seemed quite comfortable continuing that pattern if he went to LA without her and Van. Van left Lottie behind to pursue a fantasy life in Europe.

it’s very telling to me Lottie seemed to want to be with her grandparents instead, probably bc the grandparents are the ones who consistently take care of her

It was Lottie’s birthday and Earn took her on a camping trip that she didn’t even seem all that excited about. It seemed like Earn and Van used the camping trip as a way to reconnect with each other instead of celebrating their daughter on her born day. Look at the way they kept sending her off to distract herself

As Earn said, Lottie is truly the embodiment of Earn and Van’s best qualities. However, we can also see how their worst qualities have affected her. Her moodiness and lack of enthusiasm about her birthday and the camping trip as a whole stood out to me. Same thing with the desire to be with the grandparents, who provide a sense of stability that Earn and Van have never given her. Lottie’s disconnection here is the result of her parents’ disconnection with each other and with themselves as individuals

I’m still not really sold on Earn and Van’s love for each other tbh (too much telling, not enough showing) but their getting back together and the ending with Lottie’s adorable smile actually gave me a really hopeful feeling. Like despite their failures as partners and parents, they will get it together eventually and be the family they want to be

All in all, a beautiful but flawed episode. I really don’t want this show to end

I already thought this episode was beautiful but this just elevated it. One of the greatest episodes of the show in my opinion

I agree and disagree. Van being a model living off rich dudes was something that I really enjoyed about the finale and it worked for me. same with the d*** dealing. I thought it was funny as hell and made perfect sense as a fantasy for the character

ever since the first season, Van was established as someone who craved to live a wild, carefree lifestyle. In season 1’s Value, we saw Van being envious of her instagram escort friend who traveled the world and hooked up with ballers. And in season 2, she was hella thirsty to get clout from meeting Drake

I don’t think it’s coincidental that all of Van’s friends who appear in the series are either scammers or IG thots who use their sexuality and intelligence to get ahead. I’m sure Van would be rather similar if she weren’t tied down to Earn and Lottie. her living that wild life in Europe made perfect sense and it was funny as hell to see her popping up in magazines and speaking with that accent

That stuff also felt like social commentary for the “catching flights not feelings” culture among young women. Apparently living their best lives in beautiful foreign countries but doing unusual things in the process and running from a deep feeling of emptiness within

Where the episode lost me is with the hands/cannibalism s***. It was established that all of the wild stuff Van was doing was in service of her being a hands dealer, which I just didn’t get, and they spent way too much time on it

I also didn’t understand why Candace mentioning Lottie caused Van to snap out of it when Earn and her parents were literally blowing up her phone for days on end, presumably mentioning Lottie in the process

Van’s speech at the end of the episode explaining her mental break only made me like the episode less because I found her struggle with dissociation to be extremely relatable but it’s like the showrunners didn’t really care about telling that story in full, so much as just using it as the catalyst for a wacky adventure episode. And the fact that Van’s mental health issues have not been addressed at all in season 4 only proves me right

Worst episode of the series hands down but pretentious niggas will probably tell me I’m hating lol

are you trying to imply that people are sexist for thinking the writing for Van is weak? bc if so, that’s such a lazy copout of a take

how is he a domestic terrorist?

it’s just for some reason more believable to get into this weird stuff with Al then it is with van…

That’s because the show keeps Van on the sidelines too much. We see Al and get a glimpse of his daily life in almost every ep. As a result, episodes like Woods and New Jazz are so powerful bc they are not only surreal and experimental but they capitalize on the struggles and traits of the character that are already on display the majority of the time

But with Van, because we see so little of her, episodes that focus on her inherently have a harder job to do bc they’re supposed to make up for the fact that she’s not around 60-70% of the time in addition to being wacky and experimental stories in their own right. But without seeing Van’s everyday life, the episodes where her world gets turned upside down don’t have the same impact as the ones with Al. It’s weird too because on paper, I would argue that Van is a really interesting character, as interesting as Al or anyone else on the series

Van is a college graduate with no idea what she wants to do what her life. Like Earn, she is intelligent but prone to being a f*** up. She’s half-German and speaks the language, having grown up in that culture. Her default type in men seems to be rich, white or “exotic” type dudes but the love of her life is ultimately Earn and she seems to have an all-Black circle of friends. Her interests include traveling, IG thotting, and cannibalism. There aren’t many black female characters on television like that

They created such a layered character in Van but it’s like they don’t even know it and seem content with just keeping her in the background most of the time. I wish we could have gotten to meet her parents

I always get the impression they were f*** buddies who ended up having a kid. naturally bc of this, they were forced to be around each other more, which made them fall in love over time even though neither of them had their s*** together. but that’s just my interpretation bc it’s very unclear

even though it wasn’t explicitly stated, i feel very confident that Earn went back to therapy

Ain’t even gon hold yaw, this was the most cute & adorable Atlanta episode.

Thats what I guessed too

I feel like they always implied Earn did well with women even before he had money and I always wondered like why? He was broke as hell and wasnt super likeable or fresh, like how did bro even pull Van or have all those other exes

I mean, how does any nigga pull women? lol the things you say about Earn could be applied to nearly any dude and it doesn’t stop them

Na I feel u but Earn was like dead homeless bro kinda off putting socially too especially early on but hey im not knocking it

Earn’s character growth and expression of his emotions is so bittersweet to me. Like bro has come such a long way and it’s beautiful to see but I can also see how it’s all the result of money and therapy. and I can’t help but think about all the people, particularly black men, who don’t have access to those things and are still stuck in toxic cycles

It just didn’t make any sense cus it literally came out of nowhere. It’s like Atlanta suddenly doing an episode where Darius is a famous actor while pimping out women on the side, it’s like wait when tf did this happen and how much time has passed by to make this possible?

Everyone uses the “Atlanta deals in surrealism” excuse but none of the main characters have ever done anything completely left field that leaves the audiences confused, all their actions have been true to how their character is developed.

You’re saying fantasy but they established this was reality for Van, so it becomes the question of how much time has passed by to even make all this s*** possible? You can’t just wake up and suddenly be a successful model all over magazines, that s*** takes years, if you’re LUCKY months, then factor in being a well known d*** dealer in another country and on top of that having access to the cannibalism world?

To me it was a very lazy way to showcase a “mental breakdown”…and like you said her finally snapping out of it due to being asked about Lottie and then giving a big exposition dump is just lazy writing and didn’t help.

And now you have S4 and the show is carrying on like nothing happened.

I just think some times (not much) the show tries too hard to be “creative” and “different” not realizing less is more and their episodes hit better when they’re more simple.

Bro stop this s***, you aren’t on Twitter. Niggas would have hated the finale just as much if it was Earn or any other MALE character suddenly being a famous model, selling meth and human body parts.

Hate when some of y’all do this “y’all hate her cus she’s a woman” take. Y’all deadass be sounding like hoes.

basically because she’s a woman were suppose to automatically love that she randomly started selling human body parts and meth.

But notice he wasn’t saying s*** when we’ve criticized other episodes that involve the males, suddenly it’s a “sexist” thing when you dislike an episode that stars Van.

the fact that Van’s modeling career made no real world sense is exactly why I liked it and thought it was funny. it was a fantasy of the character playing out for real.

it’s not hard for me to imagine Van being approached and told she could be a model while out in Europe. her having a full-on book and profile made about her was def ridiculous but to me, it’s not any different than the invisible car in The Club. one of those things where i know it’s ridiculous and could never happen in real-life but I get the meaning behind it and it’s hilarious so I embrace it

I agree with you about everything else though. There was very little to ground the second half of the episode so all of the fantastical s*** def felt like wackiness for the sake of it

I feel like all these points have already been said about Tarrare months ago lol

The thread vibes always change when season 3 debates start up

But that’s the thing, to me there’s a difference between having a random invisible car vs having a main character do some complete left field s***.

A random invisible car that has no connection to the main characters can be forgotten about. But s*** that involves the main characters is going to sit with you way more.

Maybe if she was just living out a modeling career I’d be cool with that, but when you factor in everything else. That’s when it becomes too ridiculous IMO.