#AtlantaFX fan comes up with theory about “Woods” episode, saying Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) never talked to a man in the woods, and it was all in his head (FULL STORY INCLUDED)

By Chox-Mak
Hip-HopVibe.com Staff Writer

A lot of people would probably get mad at this, but “Atlanta” is the best show on television. Childish Gambino came through and gave hip hop its own “Seinfeld.” This is a show about nothing, but it’s also a show about everything, at a time when the world’s confused.

Last week’s episode was another one dedicated to Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry). Once again, Paper Boi got robbed, and he ran into the woods to duck the fade. When he was in the woods, he encountered this weird man who knew way too much about him.

There was one fan, in the “Atlanta” Reddit, who broke down the whole dynamic. Using the TV’s closed captions, plus the other elements of the episode, they came up with the idea of the whole woods thing being a part of Paper Boi’s mind. It was him essentially battling with himself, dealing with how he shuts people out.

Read the entire theory below:

With the episode dedicated to Brian Tyree Henry’s late mother, I believe that the episode opens with Al dreaming about his mother on the anniversary of her death (both Earn and Darius specifically ask him “you doing okay today?”). He also has three missed calls — all from different people — when he wakes up, and receives a text saying “thinking about you today <3” from an unknown number while he’s sitting on the curb (before he gets robbed). Family is ABSOLUTELY on Al’s mind throughout the episode.

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My theory is that faced with imminent and literal death, Al ran deep into the woods afterwards to escape and possibly had a sort of mental breakdown triggered as a stress reaction… and the person he runs into wasn’t some random crazy dude, but a manifestation of his own mind — possibly in the form of what he imagines as his own absentee father — lost, homeless, and crazy living in the woods. Reasons:

1. “You know good and well I did not raise a son this lazy”. That’s what his mother says in the dream — the subtitles say: Lorraine humming gospel melody. Lazy Al wakes up to a call from Earn asking him if he’s gotten around to signing the paperwork yet. The house is littered with beer cans and garbage. The man in the woods hums the exact same gospel melody, as does Al in the gas station at the end of the episode. All of which are identified by subtitles as gospel humming.
2. The man knows too much. “You lookin for them boys? Them bad boys?” I doubt he had seen what happened, or that they spend much time that deep in the woods. In an episode where Al is already incredibly reflective, the first words the man says to him are echoes of his own, repeated back to him. That’s how the man manifests – as an echo of Al. Followed by: “You want some money? You can’t go to the dance without no money, boy”. This sounds like something his father might have said, but Al was too proud to accept help from others. Maybe this was the last thing his dad said to him? Immediately after, the man jumps to “I lost my baby”. This gets Al’s attention — he’s lost someone, too. Also, him not sharing chapstick and fearing germs perfectly echoes Al’s fear of connecting with fans, a girlfriend, and his friends (as he ignores their calls).
3. Al escaped into the woods, fearing being followed, only to immediately be followed by someone that won’t leave him alone? This is his mind subconsciously going from running and escaping to being followed but being ahead of it (while not being able to shake it off). The man says “don’t think you can out-slip me”.
4. “Boy, you is just like your momma”. This REALLY gets Al’s attention. And his hallucination points out that he’s “acting all crazy”. He then says, “why are you sitting”, echoes of his mom calling him lazy in the beginning.
5. Out of everywhere in the woods Al could have gone, he ends up in the man’s “house”? No way. More importantly, he reaches down and picks up the full, unopened red drink in the jar from in front of him on the ground, and not from his pockets. Where did it come from if it was real?? The chances of that drink being in that spot in the woods and them ending up there are slim to none. I’ve watched this scene over and over and it’s so deliberately there to demonstrate this point – the man isn’t real.
6. After Al calls him “so damn useless”, the man tells him the single most important thing he can hear right now — “You sit around in people’s houses insulting them. You better stand up and make a decision about how you’re getting out of here. Make the decision. Make the decision. Keep standing still, you’re gone, boy. You’re wasting time. And the only people who got time, are dead.“ The consequences for not making a decision? Continue to get robbed, starting with his shoes, wallet, and shirt. Al has already been robbed twice this season, once just minutes before, and now he recognizes that he’ll lose the shirt off of his back if he doesn’t engage with the real-world consequences, because his desire to “keep it real” are as much an act for everyone else as it is his resistance to change.
7. As the man counts to thirty (more or less), he continues to hold the blade up to Al’s neck — if Al were to still have been sitting in that same place on the log, not moving. Al stands for a few seconds (despite having faced mortal peril twice in less than half an hour), and continues to watch the man hold the blade up as if Al were still sitting there. The man never looks up, never recognizes that Al has moved, and continues to hold the blade where his beck was. This is the last time Al sees him.

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This episode literally opens with Al subconsciously recognizing that he’s being lazy and thinking about family, and then on the very nature of how he interacts with others as evidenced by the conversations with Sierra, and the guys that rob him (when he they ask where his car is and he says “what, I ain’t allowed to walk?”, they say “ah you’re keeping it real”). He’s been robbed twice, and spends a full episode getting dragged around by Bibby because he’s letting the world happen to him, and not the other way around. It’s not until he has this encounter with the man in the woods that he finally makes a conscious, real change. But with all the coincidences, all the too-crazy-to-be-real behavior of the man in the woods… I really think that entire sequence is Al reflecting on his family, his past, his career, his life, his friends, and his future. I don’t think he met a man in the woods at all. I think he was working through some shit, and it’s clear that he’s made a decision when he’s humming that same gospel song in the gas station and posing for a selfie with a fan.

• Tl;dr – this is an episode about self-reflection, and depression, and inaction. Al begins this episode daydreaming about his late mother. Whether or not the man in the woods was Al thinking about his father (or maybe what he’d be like) is definitely just a theory… but I do think there’s a strong possibility that there was no man at all. We’re just seeing a man under heavy stress who has just faced down death, literally, and is trying to decide what to do next. And as someone who has also been on death’s door, I can tell you that family is usually the first thing you think of.

Source: Atlanta FX Reddit

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