Better Things review: Pamela Adlon’s eulogy to the invisible labour and logistics of motherhood

Language: English 

Half-way into the final season of Better Things, working actor and single mom Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon) takes up her first directing gig for a network comedy in San Francisco. With mom gone, it’s up to the deputised eldest daughter Max (Mikey Madison) to hold down the fort, and take care of her two younger sisters, Frankie (Hannah Riley) and Duke (Olivia Edward). The audition for adulthood/motherhood proves anything but easy. Max comes home after a grocery run to dog poop in the doorway. A bag in each hand and two hanging over her shoulder, she calls out for “anyone” to come help her. No one does. Worse is the no response, which invokes a defeated sigh, before she walks off, tilted to one side by the load she lugs by herself to the kitchen.

The scene echoes the oh-so many times in earlier seasons Sam comes home to no help and no response — as if she were invisible. Max taking over even if only for a moment, cleaning up after everyone, and sitting Duke down for a heart-to-heart, while realising all that her mother did for them thanklessly — is what makes the fifth season a fitting conclusion to the Fox family saga. At the end of a tiring day, Sam calls to check in on Max, who is quick to confess “This mom shit is not for pussies.” But there is no “I told you so” from Sam, only concern over having asked “too much” from her daughter. By switching the lens from mother to daughter, Better Things helps Max see her mother and come to terms with the invisible labour of women.

Pamela Adlon as Sam

Across five seasons, Adlon pulled quadruple duty as writer, director, producer and star to put a fresh face on TV’s depiction of working motherhood. Purposefully unglamorous as befits the roles Sam often took on to pay the bills and the day-to-day life of a single mother, the series encapsulated the often-unacknowledged truths of having what has to be the single most all-inclusive, exhausting and thankless job. These truths ran the gamut from the challenges of menopause to the challenges of raising children who continually scorn, embarrass, discount, resent and smother their mother. Mining the endless anxieties and unappreciated realities of her own experiences with motherhood, Adlon used the show as a form of self-therapy, confronting her own feelings about it.

A tense moment of passive-aggressiveness or outright hostility was counteracted by a tender or a funny one, where they are all giggling like inseparable friends. Like any parent overwhelmed by the gnarly everyday logistics of motherhood, just as supportive Sam could be, she also knew when to put her foot down.

Mikey Madison as Max

The writing on Better Things has such a loose improvisational feel. Mood, rather than plot, dictates the structure and direction. Humour is drawn from daily mother-daughter interactions, favouring moments of brutal honesty over slapstick gags and catchphrases. Even in an introspective moment or an emotional crisis, the tension isn’t allowed to soak for too long, offset by a throaty tee-hee or a prolonged fit of laughter. Not once does Adlon overplay her hand with an inorganic accelerant. As an exercise in empathy, not once does the show veer into a morass of schmaltz with strings exposed.

The final season has Sam grappling with ageing, family legacy, transition and the encroaching dread of an empty nest. The daughters are grappling with crises of their own. Max, who has dropped out of college, is still figuring herself out. The more self-assured middle-child Frankie is figuring out their gender identity. The youngest, Duke, whom we met as a grade-schooler, is now a moody teenager who is vaping through her self-esteem crisis. While raising her daughters, Sam also cares for her next-door neighbour and ailing mother Phil (Celia Imrie). The older she’s gotten, the more obstinate she’s gotten too. This season, Sam and her brother Marion (Kevin Pollak), are eager to trace their family history through the services of a genealogist. Phil however doesn’t see the point in dredging up the past and finds nostalgia wasteful. The old memories and belongings Sam seems to treasure are nothing but “ephemera,” according to Phil, who wants to give them all away.

Olivia Edward as Duke

A family trip to England and a sequel wedding set the stage for goodbyes and new beginnings. When Max decides to stay back in London, Sam is a little heartbroken. But she is wise enough to not let a mother’s anxiety over an empty nest clash with a daughter’s wish for self-determination. She recognises the pressure that children feel over the weight of the future as they venture into becoming fully-formed people. Though she knows Frankie has so much promise and can get into any Ivy League school if she desired, she still supports her decision to work at a grocery store and take her time to find her way. One thing Sam isn’t afraid to admit is she doesn’t have all the answers for her daughters. Some things they need to figure out by themselves.

When she enters Duke’s room and wonders if what she is smelling is incense, it feels like she knows her youngest has started vaping, but doesn’t want a confrontation yet to hold onto the image of Duke as her baby girl for just a little longer. Maintaining a balance between freedom and supervision, pushing them to be their best but not so much they pull away, is an everyday struggle for a parent. Beyond the personal, Sam has also got a professional crisis brewing. Getting into a corset for a role in a period drama has her questioning if she still enjoys acting. A chance to direct a sitcom comes as a welcome opportunity. On set, she must navigate around a child actor who has trouble saying his lines. Emotionally, she feels right at home trying to solve another crisis — like it were just another domestic crisis only transposed to a professional setting.

But Sam’s biggest crisis this season is over her identity as a mother. She is so used to being Max, Frankie and Duke’s emotional cushion, their centre of gravity, their constant source of strength and their problem-solver, she struggles to solve her own. She is so used to bringing order into the chaotic lives of her daughters, she worries internally how a life without them would look like. When Frankie educates her on gender identity and pronouns, Sam seems less confused over the usage, more concerned over her own identity separate from being a mother. “I have always been the mom of three daughters. Who would I be then?” she wonders. It takes a while for Sam to accept it, and with acceptance, she realises she may be single, her kids may be leaving one by one, she may have put the house they grew up in for sale — but she is happy with where she is.

Celia Imrie as Phil

Given her deadbeat husband remains in the side-lines and every potential love interest ends up disappointing her in some way or the other, the show gained its strength from keeping women at the centre of focus. Indeed, it still takes a village to raise a child. Sam gets support less from family, more from friends: artists and peers from LA’s bohemian circles. Diedrich Bader makes for such a likeable presence with a knowability to match as Rich, the gay uncle who attends the kids’ recitals and shows up for Planned Parenthood emergencies. The bond between Sam and Rich has to be one of the most comforting friendships portrayed on TV.

One of the show’s most powerful motifs for the thankless job of motherhood is the preparation of food. This season, a montage of Sam cooking borscht, spending hours peeling potatoes, grating beetroots, chopping carrots and slicing garlic, and carrying it next door for family dinner — ends with  Phil upstaging it with good ol’ fried chicken. Not the first time in the series Sam labours over an elaborately prepared dish for her kids, only for them to go out for dinner or prefer a sandwich over it. Duke, ever her mother’s champion, chides her sisters and Phil for their insensitivity.

All Sam wants from her daughters is to be seen. While watching TV together in a Season 2 episode, she appears in a commercial only for Max to switch the channel. Sam is understandably hurt that her kids don’t appreciate her for all she does for them at home and show no pride in what she does for a living. “They’ll love you when you’re dead,” Rich comforts her. But Sam insists on a mock eulogy, asking her kids to pretend she is dead if it helps. And the kids do, eulogising how she was their rock, taught them how to be a woman and a person, and was always loved - even if they didn’t show it. These performative gestures and proclamations are few and far between, as the three daughters cycle between embarrassment, anger and love for their mother. It takes Max to leave home and navigate an overwhelmingly unfamiliar world by herself to realise the anchor her mother provided. Max, drunk to the point of spilling dramatic truths, admits she would kill herself if her mother died.

Diedrich Bader (R) as Rich

In the finale, Duke gets to eulogise too. “You’re nice. You’re a really good person. You have a way of bringing people together and making people feel good. And, I don’t know, I like it. I like you. I like the way you live your life.” Then comes the clincher which best sums up the appeal of Better Things. “I’ve got to take a shit.” It is a harsh truth but mothers tend to be disregarded in real life, while celebrated in movies, shows and articles (like this one). For six years, while Sam, Max, Frankie, Duke and Phil grew up, we grew up a little too. Watching the show has often been the equivalent of a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and a reminder to appreciate our own mothers every once in a while.

Just as being a mother is a role of a lifetime, so was being Sam for Adlon. And just as denial eventually makes way for acceptance, directing all ten episodes allowed Adlon to bid goodbye on her own terms. If the success of a final season is measured by the emotional denouement it provides its characters, Better Things leaves us with something far more meaningful, reminding us that just because things end doesn’t diminish their value.

All five seasons of Better Things are now streaming on Disney+ Hostar.

Prahlad Srihari is a film and music writer based in Bengaluru.

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