'Atlanta' Recap and Review: 'Champagne Papi' Does Not Pop

“Champagne Papi” returns to “Atlanta”’s all-Van episode format. Director Amy Seimetz, who also directed the previous Van-focused episode, seems to have gained a good enough understanding of who Van is to warrant another turn behind the camera. Unfortunately, Van can’t say the same for herself. Now that she and Earn are over—again—after Episode Four’s disastrous date night, Van is in need of a pick-me-up. She can’t stop glaring at her phone—to e-stalk Earn, only to see him in another woman’s arms already—that she dropped in the tub while bathing Lottie. “Uh-uh, no. We not talking about Lottie, we not talking about children, we talking about liquor,” her friend interrupts. It’s the distraction Van needs, but it’s not the “Atlanta” we came for.

Donald Glover continues to draw on recent films as inspiration for Season Two. What he has yet to learn, unfortunately, is that he cannot rely on his idiosyncrasies to make the narratives he borrows from any more original. Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” to which “Helen” made some facetious references that worked, albeit barely, also serves as the template for Glover’s twisted reimagining of the film in “Teddy Perkins.” This time, it’s Malcolm D. Lee’s turn with “Girls Trip.” Van decides to ring in the new year with her girlfriends at a party—Drake’s party, allegedly.

The episode starts out as a surprisingly normal pregame to a fun night. “I got an IUD to block the K-I-Ds,” one friend says, before everyone chimes in about the merits of using birth control, from the copper IUD to tried and true condoms. “How old are you? You’re still using condoms? Are you in high school?” Van berates Nadine (Gail Bean), who defends the form of contraception: “You know what, I don’t have kids, and I also don’t have HPV, trick.” The conversation reads like any other group of girls’, but for a show that brands itself on its unconventionality, it feels too normal—out of place in a season featuring an alligator as police diversion and Donald Glover in whiteface. It confuses this season’s tone: Must Van fall back into the stereotype of the newly-single girl looking for a rebound? Why should Nadine defend her choice of contraception? Where, exactly, does “Robbin’ Season” begin and end?

The show throws in some twists to keep things interesting, but they land with a dud: Cue Nadine taking an edible and having a bad trip. Cue Van losing sight of her intoxicated friend in favor of a creep she finally eludes in the basement. Cue Nadine and Darius—where did he even come from?—having the most aggressively stereotypical high conversation known to man: “You’re a simulation,” Darius insists. “Can you help me stop thinking?” Nadine pleads. “Perhaps,” Darius whispers. The twists become tropes the show undoes lazily. There is nothing fresh about Nadine and Darius’ conversation. There is no anticipation in Van’s exploration of Drake’s mansion. The episode goes nowhere—and that might have been the point. But in a season that has felt aimless from the start, the point gets lost in the show’s lack of general direction.

“It’s all fake. There’s no Drake. So don’t ruin your high and enjoy yourself,” Van sighs after a disappointing night at the party. Her disenchantment with the fakeness she witnesses at the party is a theme already so thoroughly explored this season, it becomes redundant. She has become disillusioned, and at this point, so have I.

High Takes:

1. If this is a simulation, can someone please wake me up?

2. If all Nadine concludes at the end of the night is that “we’re all nothing,” she must have taken a gummy from a disappointing batch.

3. Before you complain that Tammi plays the Angry Black Woman, it’s time for another Google search of the week: “Beautiful Woman.” I’m sure you can guess what you’ll find.

—Staff writer Mila Gauvin can be reached at mila.gauvin@thecrimson.com.