The Star of Donald Glover's New Atlanta Trailer Is the City Itself

As someone born and raised in New York, I’m skeptical of a city being called a “character,” but it seems apt in this case. The story follows Earnest “Earn” Marks after he returns to Atlanta as a failed artist. The show is supposed to be about Earn’s return to the local hip-hop scene, but the trailer follows the roads, the shifting color of the sky, the architecture, and all the quiet moments of intimacy filling out the real lives of Atlanta’s citizens. Less of a teaser and more of a short meditation on the simple beauty of ordinary life, it opens and closes with Earn in bed with his partner, bookending a long day out on the town.