It Was All a Dream (Atlanta)

In February 2022, FX confirmed that the series would end with the fourth season.[2] Glover considered ending the series with the second season, but he chose to end the series with the fourth season as "Death is natural. I feel like when the conditions are right for something, they happen, and when the conditions aren't right, they don't happen. I don't feel any longevity. Because then things start to get weird. The story was always supposed to be what it was. And the story, it really was us. Everybody in that writers' room, everybody on set. It really was what we were going through and what we talked about."[3] He further added, "It was great, all of that came out this season and it ends perfectly."[4]

In October 2022, FX announced that the series finale would be titled "It Was All a Dream" and that it would be written by series creator and main actor Donald Glover, and directed by executive producer Hiro Murai. This was Glover's ninth writing credit, and Murai's 26th directing credit.[1] Murai indicated that originally, the episode wasn't going to be the series finale, but the crew settled on it as Glover wrote the episode.[5] He recalled that a writer said that the episode should serve as the finale, as it was "emotional and poignant but also ridiculous as the last episode of this four-season show."[6]

Stephen Glover described the process of writing the finale as being intentionally unorthodox, referring to it as being like King of the Hill; instead of viewing the episode as the series finale, the writers viewed it as a regular episode.[7] Hiro Murai explained that they based the decision after feeling that they gave closure to the characters in the previous episodes, saying "There's obviously an existential dread undercurrent through it, like the whole series, but beat-by-beat, it feels like the kind of hijinks you'd see in any episode of the show."[5] He further added, "It felt very important to us to do something that’s simultaneously a very silly, ridiculous idea, and something that actually meant something to us at the same time."[8]

Putting Darius as the center of the episode felt fitting for the writers, as they viewed him as "our perspective character for the whole world that we've created for the last four seasons."[5] The use of Judge Judy as a vital plot point emerged from a meme of "thick Judge Judy", with the writers deciding that the device worked in the use of hallucinations.[7] The crew contacted Judy Sheindlin to ask for permission to use her image, which she granted.[6]

The episode was watched by 0.223 million viewers, earning a 0.07 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielson ratings scale. This means that 0.07 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode.[13] This was a 90% increase from the previous episode, which was watched by 0.126 million viewers with a 0.05 in the 18-49 demographics.[14]

"It Was All a Dream" received universal acclaim from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating, based on six reviews, with an average rating of 9.30 out of 10.[15]

Quinci LeGardye of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A" and writing, "I'm really glad that this is how the show left us. I assume there will be naysayers about the ending, because you can find a naysayer about literally anything. I'm focusing on the craft of storytelling, the way the episode tricked us along with Darius multiple times, fit another social-commentary monologue into the B-plot, and did it all pretty much flawlessly. Tomorrow I'll be sad that such a show has ended, but tonight I'm leaning back with a smile on my face, happy that Glover and the Atlanta team got to make their weird, indescribable, creative, excellent show."[10]

Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone wrote, "But if it is all meant to be 'real'? Then life is, for that moment, pretty great for Darius. And it's been great for those of us lucky enough to watch this special, special show, and this all-time classic final season. Now let's all fire up a new episode of Judy Justice and see how our favorite courtroom personality looks."[11]

Ile-Ife Okantah of Vulture gave the episode a perfect 5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "It's the end of an era. Donald and Stephen Glover's acclaimed series has reached its conclusion, and I'm truly satisfied with the journey. This series will live on in a lot of people's hearts, and this finale, 'It Was All a Dream', solidifies its permanent place in Black culture. The trio of men we met as they were muddling through day-to-day life in Atlanta with vague dreams of the future have gone from sitting on a discarded couch in an abandoned field to sitting on quality furniture in Al's modern apartment."[16]