This is not a trick: Donald Glover gave “Atlanta” fans a real Halloween treat Sunday when he released the cryptic first teaser for the third season of his FX series. Yes, this marks the first actual footage from the long-awaited “Atlanta” Season 3, and it’s just as wonderfully surreal as you imagined it would be.
In the video, which you can view here, Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) is shown in an opulent dining room, following some rather bizarre images of European settings — including an empty theater, a trashed apartment and a restaurant with a peacock in it.
These brief scenes are hauntingly accompanied by the lyrics to Sun Ra’s “It’s After the End of the World”: “It’s after the end of the world, don’t you know that yet?” When we finally see Paper Boi — who is the only “Atlanta” character to show up in the teaser — he’s sitting alone at a giant, gorgeous table, while two servants stand behind him facing towards the wall.
Paper Boi, who is wearing a shirt that reads “FAKE,” looks pretty unhappy — and we’re betting that attitude has something to do with the depressing-looking rise to fame and fortune Glover is teasing for the character on “Atlanta” Season 3, which was filmed in Europe.
The video ends with the “Atlanta” title card, followed by “2022” popping up on screen.
While 2022 certainly isn’t a specific premiere date, it is on track with FX chief John Landgraf saying in August — four months after production began in Europe on Seasons 3 and 4 of “Atlanta” — that the new season will debut in the “first half of 2022.” No date was given by Landgraf for the third season’s start beyond the “first half” of next year, though Landgraf did say at that time that filming on Season 3 had recently been completed.
“Atlanta” Season 3 has been a long time coming, as the second season of “Atlanta” aired its finale on FX in May 2018. Over the course of the show’s first two seasons, “Atlanta” was nominated for 22 Emmy Awards and won five, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Glover.
“Atlanta” stars Glover, Henry, Lakeith Stanfield and Zazie Beetz and was created by Glover, who executive produces with Paul Simms, Dianne McGunigle, Stephen Glover and Hiro Murai. The show hails from FX Productions.
Glover dropped the “Atlanta” Season 3 teaser trailer at 8:05 p.m. ET on Sunday by tweeting a link to the website Gilga.com, which houses the video. Right, it’s pretty much the most Gloveresque way of doing anything, which makes it the perfect way to give us our first taste of “Atlanta” Season 3. You can watch it, again, here.