Van gets pulled into show business in a biting Atlanta
The omnipotent Mr. Chocolate wants Lottie for six seasons and a movie
TV Reviews Van
I never expected to parse out the ethics of Tyler Perry in an Atlanta review during my writing career, but that’s because I didn’t know I would get the chance to recap this show. (Like really, I get paid for this? Life’s wild.) An examination of Supporting All Black Art is right in Atlanta’s wheelhouse as a show that points out the intricacies and eccentricities of being Black in America (and being a Black American touring Europe). With “Work Ethic!” Donald Glover produced another self-contained psychological horror starring Van as she enters the world of the mysterious Mr. Chocolate.
First off, let’s set the record straight for non-Black people reading this: Kirkwood Chocolate is a spoof of Tyler Perry. There could be arguments that the character is more based in fiction or takes inspiration from many other reclusive geniuses, but once you have the connected office reams of scripts and Glover’s imitation of Madea’s “Hell-er,” it’s clear to see who forms the center of this parable. You also can’t deny that Perry is a major player in Atlanta and Black Hollywood—a resident can confirm this, but I’m pretty sure he does own “most of College Park”—and that his enterprise brings up a lot of conflicting meanings for anyone who grew up on his plays and movies and whose parents are still regular watchers of at least one of his shows. A Tyler Perry episode of Atlanta could have come much earlier in the show’s tenure, and I’m so glad the writers’ room took their time with it.
Director Glover deftly builds up Chocolate Land as a domain ruled by an omnipresent force, from Van and Lottie arriving at dawn and walking through the lot in the morning light to the switch from multi-camera sitcom to a single-camera realism when the god speaks through the machine. (The lighting also gets dimmer outside of sitcom world like in Kevin Can F**k Himself.) I also appreciated the crew becoming more pro-Chocolate the more involved they are in the production, leaving Van feeling more out of sync with everyone around her the longer she was there. Beyond the growing cultish feeling, it’s also a great show of how power functions: the more someone puts you on, the more you support them. (The “Even O.J.” was perfectly a bit too much, as was the guard getting shot while holding a fake M16.)
Another very solid narrative choice made in “Work Ethic!” is presenting Van as the actor before Mr. Chocolate chooses Lottie. There’s a quick psych-out with the other child actors in the waiting room, but Van was never the stage mom type. Her determination to protect Lottie is very sweet, with writer Janine Nabers’ dialogue showing the strength of their relationship. Van also has a very cynical distance from the other workers and visitors on the set since she’s very much presented as there for a bag rather than any deferred acting dreams (which would have been a very weird addition to her character). This is the first time we’re seeing her as Lottie’s mom since her solo adventures last season, and no matter her fears back then, she’s a very dedicated and good mom to Lottie this episode.
Also, I must note, mostly because I recently read Jennette McCurdy’s excellent memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died: Van is the type of mom I would have wanted as a potential child star. She let Lottie explore that world and have her fun up until it was clear that Mr. Chocolate wanted complete control (and in case it wasn’t clear, that “tell me how to raise my child” line was wild.) That type of environment was rife with exploration; Van wasn’t about to let her daughter be pulled around without supervision, and I appreciated it. Besides, there were too many Security Guards/Interns for Chocolate Land to be in compliance with labor laws.
At first I was hoping that they wouldn’t show Mr. Chocolate at all, but it was worth it for the final exchange where Van’s presented as a Kirkwood Chocolate woman. Even before the reveal, Glover’s performance and the reams of scripts coming out of the piano-typewriter were hilarious. (If the music coming out was trash, imagine the quality of the scripts.) There’s also an excellent conversation to have on whether Van just fell into the role that the magnate was setting up for her, or if she is just a few degrees removed from the typical Chocolate character. I can’t deny that Tyler Perry writes (someone’s) real life, just like I can’t deny his cultural impact or the fact that he gives Black people the opportunities (and checks) they deserve. In that same spirit, I can also argue that his representations of Black life can enforce some of the very stereotypes and tropes that have plagued Hollywood for years. “Work Ethic!” uses comedy to illuminate all the contradictions and the massive gray areas of a cultural phenomenon, setting up a conversation for fans and recappers to mull over.
The main reservation I have with this episode is that so much of Van’s standalone is dedicated to the extended Mr. Chocolate metaphor. Over the past four seasons, Van has gotten the least screen time of the main quartet, and though Zazie Beetz has had some excellent moments, I can’t help but want an entire show with her as the lead. This whole episode can be heavily compared to “Teddy Perkins,” with the pseudo-horror scenario in a contained and Glover-in-disguise playing a menacing figure. But looking at Van’s other standalone episodes, this one didn’t leave me feeling as if I’ve fully caught up with the character, especially when you consider the close to her storyline in “Tarrare.” The lovely scene with Candice by the river showed why Van was off playing cannibal-Amélie in one anecdote that explained both the size of her depression and how it affected Lottie. The mother and daughter have since reunited and have a deep connection, which is great, but I would love to see how it got to that point. Atlanta has some great episodes where a cultural conversation and character growth are balanced (see “Value”), but this one was firmly in Mr. Chocolate’s world. I hope the rest of season four can spare Van more of the spotlight.
Stray observations
- Lottie got so big. 🥹
- For anyone who wasn’t paid to go through the episode with a fine-tooth comb, here’s all of the Chocolate Land productions: Nobody Can Tell Me What To Do 2, Broken Home, One Small Happy Family, Unmoved, The Family That Stays, Jealouseuque (I think this is supposed to be pronounced “Jealous-esque,” which ha), Ain’t Crazy, The Shook, Single Father, Year Of God, Captain Kerrnel, Still Ain’t Crazy, Draymond & Keith, and Love After Diagnosis
- Also a tally of all the Perry references where I screamed: Van telling Lottie “That’s the [movie] you saw with Grandma,” that stiff-ass conrow wig, the fine maintenance worker, the crack sandwich, 14 more scenes(!), the John Witherspoon stage, the woman directing two pilots and starring in another, Lottie getting a BET Award, the mean husband being credited as “dark skinned man” in the credits, the grits.
- The other stages were named after Tommy Lister and Mario Van Peebles.
- I’m surprised my eyes didn’t roll to the back of my sockets during the husband and wife’s conversation from the first Chocolate Land show.
- “The post department has been begging us to fix it in pre.” A reminder to check in with the VFX workers and editors you know (and maybe buy them dinner).
- Mr. Chocolate’s private offices make for a Chekhov’s gun of a set, and I love the bit with the guard getting shot in the foot.
- Continuing my obsession with Earn, Al, Darius, and Van’s living situations, the place where Van and Lottie live now is very cute.
- For anyone (especially my family members) who think the episode was too hard on Perry, I raise a question: Y’all saw Acrimony, right? How did she get on the boat?
24 Comments
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHIIII’m fine. Grits don’t work on me. I’ve developed a tolerance over the years”Give this show all of the awards.
Was I alone in thinking it was quite obvious Van was jealous of the attention Lottie was initially getting? Like, Van was supposed to be doing the scene, and then suddenly Lottie is put in. She kept trying to reassure Lottie she could quit at any time, but I’m not convinced it was entirely out of motherly concern. I was actually expecting Mr. Chocolate to confront Van over her true intentions.
You can think that all you like, but I think you’re wrong. Van wasn’t there for any acting accolades. She was there for a paycheck because she’s a single mother with a clearly absent father to her child. Jealousy of her daughter wasn’t the issue I was concerned about. Her safety was much more what I had in mind, and I think Van felt the same way.She was completely fine with letting Lottie do the show (“if you’re not having fun, give me a thumbs down”) until it got creepy and all she wanted was to get her (and herself) the hell out of there..
Earn is not an absent father and no one has ever said he isn’t supporting Lottie now that he’s making more money. Van wants to be able to support herself and Lottie and has been struggling with that for a while now.
I’d say she’s clearly the type to not give a shit about this kind of stuff
She was only concerned about her daughter’s welfare.
You might not be alone, but you’d be wrong.
Two things first Kirkwood Chocolate is a play on Costco’s branding Kirkland Signature(means quality and value) chocolate, cheese, cereal, trash bags and etc……what a cute trick played on us as a metaphor for what the studio is doing to/for the masses in providing content (product) in mass volume from the studio (Costco)…..just think about it. Second I don’t think Van was jealous over Lottie attention getting in as much if she remaining true to hear character from last season of being aloof in her dealings where she controls the situation (Tarrare) to being someone being not in control of the situation over someone she truly cares for and seeing her daughter become something she doesnt truly want her to be……thats just my take on it….but the Costco angle is clever.
Kirkwood is also a neighborhood in Atlanta that is becoming gentrified very quickly.
Yeah, I don’t think has anything to do with Costco version of Kirkwood. It’s Tyler Perry all the way.
We’ll fix it in post.
You keep saying that, but we never fix anything in post.
I love how they weren’t even filming at one point, but they would still fix it in post.
I felt like Mr. Chocolate was a mashup of Tyler Perry & Prince, but that could just be me. This whole season seems to be dialing in on how pop culture hero worship (Blueblood, D’Angelo, the white TikTok rappers, Mr. Chocolate so far) can make us distort the truth of ourselves to follow what seems to be a more promising path, only to blow up the path at the end and make us face what we really are. And they make us laugh while doing this heavy stuff! This show, man, it is a brilliant star in the drab TV universe.
It’s clearly Tyler Perry. There are so many classic Tyler Perry movie tropes being played out in this episode that it’s not even funny. ‘The Boondocks’ did the same thing a while back, and Tyler himself threw a hissy fit about it and threatened to leave TBS. Hell, Donald Glover as Kirkwood Chocolate even said ‘Hell-errrr’ when Van walked in his office..
The post team has been begging us to fix it in pre.I have a new favourite line from this show.
The writer mentioning in almost every review how lucky and wonderful it is getting paid to cover this show-especially being a black American to boot- is distracting. We get it. On another note, am i the only one to feel that this was the laziest and most toss away episode in a while? There were no big swings, a chuckle here or there (the grits remark, the fake guns on the guards) for some people and the “tyler perry episode” was bound to happen sooner or later. Yes, we get the more Van that people were craving, but it all feels a bit bleh for an obvious but still rich topic With only few episodes left of one of the best shows the good lord has blessed us with, this one could have punched harder easy. Maybe Atlanta just set the bar that high. Now it really is time for some Darius.
I need to watch this and the Boondocks episode about Tyler Perry back to back one day.
He called the studio “my child”. So when referring to “tell me how to raise my child” he is referring to the studio.
The piano that wrote scripts was genius. Wish Steve Jobs had made me one of those! I could be banging out a treatment for “Madea’s Haunted House 3: Madea’s Haunted Thanksgiving” and learning Chopsticks at the same time.
The post team has been begging us to fix it in pre is a fun line, but doesn’t actually make any sense. Pre-production is casting and scripting and costumes and sets and locations and all that. Post-production is editing. It’s just production when they shoot things.
Mr Chocolate basically rewrote the whole scene and then the movie on a whim, in a way the production wasn’t set up for. So I figured the request is basically: Please make all these changes at the scripting stage so that we don’t have to try and “fix” footage where the costuming and sets no longer fit the concept because it was completely reworked during production.
I loved this. Now that I think about it, there was no way complete this series without some sort of take on Perry and his empire. I’d also recommend the Newcomers podcast season where Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus watch Tyler Perry. Not only is it funny but they do get to hear (at least a little) from some folks who worked with him.
IDK if this is common knowledge or not but I believe the title comes from an old Tyler Perry IG video where he’s bragging about all the scripts he wrote by himself that year and then at the end he shouts “Work Ethic!”. It’s pretty funny to watch that video after this episode.