S04.E06: Crank Dat Killer

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Quote

Ay, Ya'll remember how we used to hit the club and do the Pool Palace and Crank Dat and nobody got shot? Yeah me neither. 

Original air date 2022.10.13

[Irlandesa]

This was probably my favorite episode of the season.  Of the past two seasons actually.  There was just something so patently absurd about all the events.  A serial killer who kills people who made a Crank Dat video. A shoe salesman who wants payment in kisses.  And the mall shootout which wasn't fun. 

I really thought Doug was going to be the killer. 

[AngieBee1]

I thought Some Guy Named Doug would turn out to be in cahoots with the killer; glad he's an actual good guy with trash beats.

-I'm assuming Timothee Chalamet exists in "Atlanta"s universe. If so, he would have been a potential victim of the Crank Dat Killer as there's a video of he and his friends doing it.

-Paper Boi was guilty by association because that wasn't even a great Crank Dat. 

If you look at the YouTube sidebar when they're watching Al's Crank That Jimmy Neutron video, one of the suggested videos is "Montague" from the episode B.A.N.

- Loved the twist at the end. Paper Boi was really living that life. It was established in S1 that he had been shot before, now he has a former friend gunning for him. What was he getting up to?

-I'm glad they got Soulja Boy to cameo. That was cute.

-I lol-ed at the shoot out. Everyone thinks a good person with a gun can help out and maybe it could, but it could also turn into the Gunfight at the OK Corral as we saw.

-Shoeman wanted to see Darius and Earn French kiss for those shoes, me, too, Shoeman. Me,too.

I know some guys who will more than kiss each other to get a guaranteed drop from the SNKRS app.

[Irlandesa]

23 hours ago, AngieBee1 said:

I know some guys who will more than kiss each other to get a guaranteed drop from the SNKRS app.

Ha.  I also like after their kiss and they realize their driver is dead, Earn says "we're already implicated" and they grab the sneakers.

[cmfran]

Was the Shoe Guy the Crank Dat Killer? The pic sure looked a lot like him, but it was hard to tell.

[JenE4]

This show gave me some big genuine laughs. Al going on about what does he look like a guy who “picks boysenberries” and destroying the sound mixer to avoid recording a track with Some Guy Named Doug. (Though, in retrospect, I can see why he did!) When the aspiring rapper pushed his tray at his friend and said cover for me, and she was all, “I work at Sbarro!” And best of all, the actual rap song—with Al just muttering you don’t have to say my name, etc. I’m assuming with the foreshadowing of a rapper doing anything to be in the right place at the right time and making a situation to have their big break, that Some Guy Named Doug used the Crank Dat Killer scare to set up the scenario to rescue Al so then he would owe him his life and have to record. I think the fact that they showed a different guy arrested for the murders, implies that’s what happened, but since everyone was kind of dropping what happened at the mall and pretending their day didn’t happen, they didn’t exactly wrap that up in a bow. Or, was Al telling the truth about running into someone who was still mad at him since high school, and it was serendipitous for Doug after all? Okay, we have our third episode of the season serving as a public service announcement to stay the hell out of Atlanta malls! The opportunity for a fly-ass hat, a new cell phone, a digital display belt buckle or a free sample of bourbon chicken is not worth entering what is apparently one of the circles of hell. The social commentary of the episode was squeezed into Earn considering why Black men put an outsized value on sneakers…but only 3 seconds? That’s value-saved right there.

ETA: Upon further reflection, I think Al’s old arch-nemesis running into him at the mall was a coincidence (and not a nefarious plot on the part of Some Guy Named Doug). The commentary being that sometimes your big break is just being at the right place at the right time (like the C plot guy was telling his girlfriend), and it has nothing to do with actual talent. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by JenE4

[JenE4]

4 minutes ago, cmfran said:

Was the Shoe Guy the Crank Dat Killer? The pic sure looked a lot like him, but it was hard to tell.

No, the killer had a big beard, and the Shoe Guy did not. I paused the article  (which, Al, look at that—you can get news on your phone). They “detained” the killer after someone called in a suspicious person at their home. And presumably Shoe Guy did not survive the mall shooting. (At least he died doing what he loved?) Somehow there was an entire mall shootout with at least one fatality and that  didn’t make the news?! I guess they need someone to make some type of true crime analysis video before the actual news picks it up. 

[meep.meep]

Safe Farm is there

That rap with Some Guy Named Doug was god awful - no wonder Paperboi did anything he could to stay away.

I'll never understand people's obsession with sneakers.

[aghst]

There were definitely more funny moments than other Atlanta episodes.

But it got serious real quick.

Hard to believe no one other than the shoe guy got shot in the mall shooting spree.  And nobody making a big deal out of it?  Not only Al but Earn and Darius could have been shot like the shoe guy.

Is this suppose to be normal for Atlanta, shootouts in the mall?

No PTSD, just them talking about the bad track Paper Boi had to lay down?

They set up the aspiring rapper plot just so Al could push him through some plate glass?  I thought I saw him get bloodied.  BTW, he's Hispanic but his black co-workers were all calling him n---a?

There was some social commentary with Earn talking about black men making too big a deal out of sneakers.  Seemed like he was going to draw a line but he went through with it anyways, because they negotiated down from 2 minutes to 3 seconds.  The shoe guy wanting two strangers to kiss a real thing or just some Atlanta strangeness?

Also satire with Earn questioning why Alfred was watching the news when he just needed to watch TMZ or look at some Twitter.

Al telling Darius he isn't going to cut the cord or go off the grid because he's rich.

[xaxat]

On 10/13/2022 at 11:13 PM, Irlandesa said:

This was probably my favorite episode of the season.  Of the past two seasons actually. 

I totally agree. One of the strengths of the first seasons was the interaction between Al, Earn and Darius. In part because Brian, Donald and LaKeith have such great chemistry.

I've missed that.