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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
The “Cancer Attack” episode of Donald Glover’s FX surreal comedy-drama series, Atlanta Season 3, was released this week and viewers might be perplexed about the reveal of the mystery. If you’re reading this article, then you are aware in some way or another that Socks (Hugh Coles) is the culprit who stole Alfred “Al/ Paper Boi” Miles’s (Brian Tyree Henry) phone. I gave several out-of-context hints in my non-spoiler review; now, allow me to elaborate. Feel free to revisit (or visit) the episode as you read along.
You will need to have seen the episode — or be aware of its plot — in order to properly understand the context. Otherwise, reader’s discretion is advised.
Detective Evidence in Gothic/ Crime
The episode plays like a part-Gothic, part-crime narrative. I studied American Crime Literature during my undergraduate days as an English Literature major, and this past fall, I took a semester studying Gothic Literature during my journey in graduate school; so I’ve had my fair share of both American crime and Gothic narrative storytelling in the past few years. This week’s Atlanta is not that different from many other episodes. I mean, Donald Glover does not call it “the Twin Peaks with rappers” for nothing. In fact, this is what makes the series not just a comedy-drama, but a surreal comedy-drama at that.
Darius Epps (LaKeith Stanfield) somehow finds a blueprint of the venue where Paper Boi holds a concert and suggests to Al and Earnest “Earn” Marks (Glover) that they use this as a map to embark on a little quest. However, this journey is avoided due to Alfred and Earn’s rejection of it; thus, they do not get to uncover the deeper secrets of the building.
If you look at Stephen Murphy’s cinematography, Jonathan Paul Green’s production design, and Sophie Coombes’s set decoration throughout the episode — notably the backstage breakroom and Folks’s (Sean Gilder) office — you will see a clock on the wall, exhibiting the different times to the viewer as the course of events progresses.
Clocks are Crucial
Here, I recap the events of the episode with the times presented as follows.
- INT. Breakroom — 8:05 pm — We find Alfred, Darius, and Socks talking about European strip clubs. Earn walks in and tells Paper Boi that a young fan with cancer (Toby Dixon) is visiting with his parents (Eddie Toll and Beatrice Engel) from the Meet and Greet Dream Foundation. Alfred puts his phone down on the table (flanked by two doors), while Earn and Darius exit through the second one and close it behind them. Earn types out a message (visible on-screen) to Van — to check up on her.
- 8:40 — Earn returns into the room and the second door is still closed; and the first door at the opposite end of the couch and table is left open. He escorts the family out of the room; as this happens, in the background, there is a Nintendo Switch on the table… but Alfred’s phone is missing. The two men exit the room and head to the stage so that Paper Boi can perform. He, Earn, and Darius see a teenage-looking adult on stage.
After the Concert
- 11:40 — Alfred, Darius, and Socks are searching for the phone, now known to be missing. Socks suggests it is the cancer kid; Earn goes out of the room to check on the child.
- 11:50 — Earn returns and they mark the child off as a culprit. They then suggest it might be the young adult.
- INT. Folk’s Office — 11:55 — Earn asks Folk about the adult who was on stage; Folk reveals him to be his nephew, Wiley (Samuel Blenkin), who had come to apply for a job at the venue. Earn finds Wiley’s application, which includes his personal information, on the table.
- 12: 35 am — Wiley has returned to the venue and is sitting at the table in Folk’s office. An apparently angered Socks is not allowed in the room and is kept outside, but he walks out through the halls.
- 12:45 — In one shot, there is a lamp on the table that separates Wiley from Earn, Darius, and Alfred. Wiley claims he does not possess a phone of his own but is subtly shown minutes later to remove one out from his pocket. When Alfred threatens him, Folk tells them not to harm a teenager, but Wiley says he is 32 [years old], not 19.
- EXT. Folk’s Office — Out in the hall, Earn tells Folk this is “strange behavior” and Folk says he had last seen his nephew 15 years ago in juvenile detention. Socks returns to the hall outside the office returns; when he learns they still have not found the whereabouts of the phone, he is put into a fit of rage and nearly says the N-word.
- The time on the clock is hard to determine at this point, and Alfred is eventually left alone in the room with Wiley. The suspect is handed a guitar by Folk and performs a song with interesting lyrics… then leaves the room.
Case Closed?
- EXT. Venue — The guys and their groupie, Socks, exit the building. We see Earn receive a “thumbs up” emoji from Van; on his phone, we see the time: 12:13 am on the corner of his iPhone’s screen, and 00:11 in a recent message between Earn and Van on the messaging application.
- Alfred, Darius, and Earn enter the tour bus; and before Socks enters as well, he is revealed to have Alfred’s phone. He walks over to a nearby garbage area and tosses the phone into the trash.
Just beneath the surface, this seems very simple to follow. However, without knowledge of the set-up in mind, an explanation will be easy to brush off. Then, what does this mean for the episode and the current season of Atlanta?
What Then?
In my review for “Cancer Attack”, I point out Darius’s Gothic role in previous episodes of the series. He’s had encounters with Teddy Perkins (a pale-skinned Black man), and later, a dying European man who is suffocated to death while being watched by friends and family.
In Atlanta Season 3 Episode 3, titled “The Old Man and the Tree”, Socks is introduced as a white balding man who accuses a female party guest/ an Asian woman named MK (Jasmine Leung) of racism towards Darius. He then spends the rest of their time getting to know Darius and vice versa then leaves the party with Alfred, Darius, and Earn. During that same episode, a billionaire named Fernando (Daniel Fathers) invites Paper Boi to gamble with him and his buddies. At the table, Fernando talks about a “pale-skinned Black man … a ghost” whom he made love with; and the billionaire woke up covered in ectoplasm. Are you still reading? Strange right?
Well, later in that scene, Alfred says he doesn’t believe in ghosts but rather in God. Fernando replies with this:
…and if you believe in God, [then] you have to believe in the Devil. There’s good and bad spirits everywhere, Alfred. Why do you think there’s so much killing in the world? Why do you think I have so much money? The Devil is just as powerful as God. Everything is just looking for balance.
Fernando (Daniel Fathers), via ‘Atlanta’ Season 3 Episode 3 — “The Old Man and the Tree”
Ghosts and Gadgets, the Internet and the Inhuman, etc.
Atlanta Season 1 is a test run for what Donald, his younger brother Stephen Glover, and their team could achieve. Meanwhile, Season 2 is titled, “Robbin’ Season”, where nearly every character is “robbed” of an object or quality. Furthermore, I would like to assert that Season 3 is undoubtedly focusing on phantasms and ghostly appearances.
The series pilot, “The Big Bang”, teases this with the stranger (Emmett Hunter III) offering Earn a sandwich; his name is later revealed in Episode 7, “B.A.N.”, as Ahmad White. In Robbin’ Season Episode 8, “Woods”, Alfred encounters an apparently homeless man in the woods of Atlanta; although, this could very much be another phantasm. In the Season 3 premiere opening scene, we have an unnamed white man (Tobias Segal) fishing with a Black man on a lake under the dark night sky and a shining pale moon; and last week, he returns with the revelation of his name: “E”.
Therefore, with all the evidence provided above, I can theorize that Socks is a ghost; not just any ghost, but most possibly the “pale-skinned Black man” with whom Fernando had sexual experiences. (And what better way to convey that information than an episode four years past the anniversary of the “Teddy Perkins” air date?) This would make sense since Socks was so close to saying the N-word in front of Earn, Alfred, and Darius in this week’s episode. If all of this is true, why the take phone and toss it into a pile of rubbish?
The Final Analysis
Fans of Donald Glover should know his lowkey overall purpose; FX’s Atlanta is (and still is) a critique of the Internet. From Childish Gambino’s albums, “Because the Internet” to “3.15.20”, we could already tell.
Fernando said spirits such as God and the Devil exist to establish a balance in the world. Ever since arriving in Europe the first time around, fame has gotten to Alfred’s head. Everything that comprises his identity — including his rapper persona — lies in his phone and only inside of his phone via memory storage. The balding white man has been sent by some force of nature to maintain that balance; to keep Alfred in check.
However, does this render Socks a good spirit or a bad one? He has only been in two episodes thus far, and he does seem to mean well. We really cannot tell for sure… All we know is that Wiley is a pawn — at least in this episode — and Socks has manipulated Paper Boi and his little crew into believing an untruth… And that itself is such a gaslight. Perhaps it could be that the larger “cancer attack” is the illusion that grows in their heads, much in the same way last week’s episode has a poster in Marshall Johnson’s (Justin Bartha) Superior Shrimp workplace breakroom that discusses eye infections and acanthamoeba. What, then, is the cause: Socks’s lie or the Internet’s harsh impact? I guess this episode only goes deeper…
Donald Glover’s Atlanta Season 3 is now on FX and streaming via Hulu!
Have you seen Glover’s series? If so, then what are your thoughts on it so far? Let us know! For more comedy and drama-related news and reviews visit and follow The Cinema Spot on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
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