FX’s Better Things is a frank and open-hearted depiction of weathering life’s ups and downs. As such, it’s only fitting that the series, which debuted in 2016, has only gotten better with age. Over the course of its five seasons, Pamela Adlon’s poignant, semi-autobiographical dramedy—about a woman learning to face the challenges of parenthood, womanhood, and aging with her sense of humor and sanity intact—has shaken loose from co-creator Louis C.K.’s influence, thus allowing Adlon’s unabashed emotionality and full-throated femininity to fully infuse themselves into the show’s narrative and stylistic strategies.
In the show’s final season, Sam Fox (Adlon) continues to face the various hardships that arise when you’re struggling to define your sense of self in a world where everyone expects you to have all the answers. But she’s also more comfortable than ever with letting it all hang out and reveling in the bitter, bruising pains that result from being a woman and mother.
As Sam’s three children, Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Riley), and Duke (Olivia Edward), continue to forge their own paths in life, she’s left increasingly adrift. Each one is tangled in their own emotional turmoil, from Max reeling from a difficult decision that she’s kept from her mother to Duke feeling insecure about her appearance. As a result, Sam has a lot more time to focus on herself, which only forces her to confront that she’s never been the best at navigating her own troubles and that she finds purpose in being there for others.
Indeed, as each family member continues their own personal journey, Better Things explores all the messy and meaningful ways that women reevaluate and rediscover themselves. This season, the series is also more attuned to how hard it can be for women to emerge from the shadow of men. Xander (Matthew Glave) is making a more concentrated effort to connect with his daughters, and it reminds Sam of how haunted she is her late father. Xander’s insistence on never having his foot either firmly in or out of his daughters’ lives demonstrates the cyclical ways in which the Fox women work to foster their own independence.
Perversely, as Sam increasingly finds herself with free time and an increasingly empty nest, work becomes harder to secure and navigate. While the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t explicitly referenced by the series, it quite subtly connects the disruptions spawned by the pandemic to the themes that it grapples with throughout the season—none bigger than the struggle to strike a balance between connectedness and isolation in the digital age.
Throughout, conversations with friends, family, and managers often take place via phone or FaceTime, and there’s a tinge of melancholy to all this that makes the moment of communal togetherness in the final episode feel all the more euphoric. Better Things’s final season looks inward at how Sam, on a micro level, is affected by the world. It’s in everything from her nervous body language to her incessant tee-hee-ing. She remains a work in progress, but the series mercifully leaves us with the comfort that her heart is settled. After all, she’s done right by her family and friends, and their gift to her, and us, is to tell her as much.
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