There’s one where there’s no sound but the dragging of a heavy cooler across concrete and grass as Sam goes to her daughter’s soccer practice (without her sick daughter) because she has snack duty.
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“I’m not comparing my show to ‘Girls, ‘ ” she’s quick to clarify over the phone recently.
Sam’s girls, meanwhile, make messes to clean up, test her patience and whine to her about situations that barely matter in the larger scheme of things.
But for anyone who’s well-versed in this kind of slice-of-life entertainment, which ditches air-tight plotting for and-then-this-happened honesty, Better Things will be a welcome addition to the roster of uncomfortably truthful comedies. I feel like it’s not just single moms, it’s parents, and it’s daughters, and it’s kids, and it’s families, and it’s sisters and it’s brothers. If it’s bravery you want, look no further than the image of Adlon with her trousers around her ankles googling the phrase “mature lady sex”. We’re not going to live up to other people’s expectations and we just have to take every day with the disasters, tragedy, and obstacles that are put in our path with some sort of grace, love, and compassion. It’s less free-form and fanciful than Louie, but it’s got just as much to say: about female bodies, single parenthood, sex (or the lack thereof) in one’s 40s, and mid-tier showbiz. Last weekend added another vexation: the billboards for Better Things, the outstanding new FX comedy that premieres Thursday night, showing star and co-creator Pamela Adlon (or a model meant to represent her) face down and ass up on a bed.
It’s taking a little getting used to. But she’d also like some male companionship, not that she’d allow herself to be vulnerable enough to admit it to most people. So far, the reviews have been exceedingly complimentary.
But at its core, Better Things is about the aspect of Adlon’s life that forced her to take a small step back from her career for many years: motherhood.
But the show’s wiliest and most rewarding relationship, at least in the first half of the 10-episode season, turns out to be the one between Sam and her own mother Phyllis (Celia Imrie), who lives across the street. But although Sam keeps an eye out for more prestigious projects, she’s also prepared to do take on less glamorous work, i.e., side-effects disclaimers and some treacly cartoons. In the briefest of pauses before and after Adlon says her line, it is impossible not to feel how deeply such a sense of unfairness is felt. “Better Things” is somewhat autobiographical, to the point where things are starting to get confusing for the real actress. And I was cracking up this dad and his daughter, they were dying, and when I told Louis [CK] that story, he wrote that period speech based on what I had done in real life. “And I thought, oh my God, I’m just like that lady on that show”.
I really wanted to focus on these girls, and this woman, and this life … that’s what our lives are.
The series is loose and pleasantly unruly. I mean, jeez – can’t two shows created by and starring amusing women merit their own separate reviews? There’s a scene where one of Sam’s daughters is talking to Sam about her relationship with the grandmother and it’s just priceless. But the prevailing mystery of existence – who am I, and what in the hell am I doing here? – doesn’t become any easier to fathom once you grow up.
FX Sam and Max (Mikey Madison) go shopping, hate everything except each other, sometimes.
Notaro plays a version of herself named Tig Bavaro, a KCRW radio host (one SoCal hipster reference too many) who is still recovering from her mastectomy and must fly to her coastal MS home town to sit by the hospital bed of her mother (Rya Kihlstedt), who collapsed and hit her head at home and is being kept alive by a ventilator long enough for Tig to crawl into bed with her and say goodbye.
Notaro has yet to deliver much that isn’t partly or entirely autobiographical. When things quiet down, however, Adlon gets a lot of mileage out of her expressive, humorously beleaguered facial expressions, which can’t help but advertise almost every disgusted, tired-of-it-all emotion boiling beneath the surface. She’s amusing. She’s just really, really amusing. Hard to say, but the fact that a scene like that pops up in a TV comedy says something about the inclusivity of television and the breadth of stories that are being told. I didn’t set out to make a feminist show, but I think it very much is.
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Of course, there are positives and negatives to all the options, and Adlon is as helpless against peak TV as the rest of us. The seriesis ostensibly a comedy about a single mother, Sam (Adlon), who is a working actor with just enough success to make life easy for her ex, but not highly paid enough or gainfully employed enough to make raising her three daughters a breeze.
