Searching for the essence of Van
AFTER a successful first season, Atlanta is back on South African small screens tomorrow. The Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning series will air on Fox, after Empire. Season two is also known as Atlanta: Robbin’ Season and as to who will be robbed and who will be doing the robbin’, that’s one of the things that makes Atlanta an interesting show.
Earn (played by show creator, Donald Glover) and his rapper-dealer cousin, Paper Boi (played by Brian Tyree Henry) and their friend, Darius (played by Get Out’s Lakeith Lee Stanfield) are still trying to make ends meet and make it to another day. But the most interesting character is likely to be the mother of Earn’s child, Van (played by Zazie Beetz).
In season one, Van was frustrated with her life, had just been fired from her teaching job for failing a drug test and was going through a teeny weeny bit of an existential crisis. In that season, Earn and Van had an on-andoff relationship and frankly, I believe she can and should do so much better.
But Beetz was mum on whether I would get my wish.
“Earn and Van are still exploring that (on-and-off relationship) but the question does come up about: are they continuing this relationship,” Beetz said. “What are they going to choose? Are they going to doubledown or not? At the top (of the season) I think we focus a lot more on how they get along and why they work together. But I think, in a way, it’s not enough for either of them to have this instability in their relationship. Particularly for Van, who wants to be a priority to him.”
Beetz, who was born in Germany, has lived in New York most of her life.
Did she have any apprehension auditioning for a show called Atlanta. “No one has ever asked me that before,” she said.
“My audition was quite normal and I walked out thinking I actually didn’t do a good job. Then I got a call for a screen test and initially, I didn’t react too much to it being in Atlanta. I didn’t know Atlanta at all and had never been there. But I did my research and had to acclimate.”
Van also has to do some adjusting as the somewhat responsible one in her and Earn’s relationship. Aside from the Juneteenth episode, one that revealed the many layers to Van in season one was entitled Value. Here, Van’s meeting with a frenemy sent her spiralling. But will she catch a break this season?
“Van wants to be known for who she is outside of the context of being a mother and having responsibilities,” Beetz says. “And in a way, losing her job in season one allows her to explore those other sides of herself.
“There’s an episode of her spending time with friends and I really wanted people to see that. I do think that we delve a lot deeper into who she is.”
Catch the Atlanta season 2 premiere on FOX (DStv 125) tomorrow at 10pm.