and works as co-showrunner, writer, director, and star.
They are her life, and she is all they have.
They might be enough for each other, but they all deserve better.
Credit: Colleen Hayes/FX
This is the source of the shows bittersweet hilarity and heartbreak.
Sams love life consists of quickies and dinner dates with emotionally unavailable men.
The caller ID she assigns the guy she sleeps with most: NOBODY.
(The Fox women seem to have a thing for masculine sounding names.)
But there are lightning strikes of thrilling joy.
Spying on Max as she loses herself in dance.
A attack hug from Frankie.
The rare parenting call that goes absolutely and wonderfully right.
Weve all been there, probably, but it means something unique to the overwhelmed, relationally-starved single parent.
I should also say that theres a profound difference between being a single father and a single mother.
I havent always recognized the difference, and the work of Adlon and CK have helped me see it.
Louie and Pamela, both single parents, are at a PTA meeting.
When Louie mentions its his first time, he gets a smattering of approving atta-boys.
When Pamela says its her first time, she gets only cold stares and silence.
Louies effort is extra credit work that gets gold stars.
Pamelas effort is an expected gender norm, and the only grades for her PASS and FAIL.
It finds Sam sitting on a bench in a mall as Duke wails crocodile tears about… something.
The cause of her trauma is not immediately clear.
You might be inclined to share her disapproval.Get off your phone!
Attend your kids pain!
Shut her up, already, youre disturbing people!
She sighs, finally engages Duke, and then takes her for some hot dog on a stick.
But CKs choice of angle, framing and deep focus makes a layered image that captures so much more.
It makes you realize that her entire ensemble is way too large on her.
Shes a mirror twin to her mom, suggesting ideas of parental influence but also parent-child equivalency.
But she could represents her sisters, too.
There are children play-fighting and tackling each other.
Parts of it are actually rather conventional, at least in plot.
Theres even a parent-comes-home-early-from-out-of-town-and-discovers-the-kids-threw-a-rager plot.
She actually yearns for menopause.
Have I shut down there yet?
Am I a man yet?
The sequence stands for the wayBetter Thingswants to be seen, a very entertaining real-talk cultural conversation.
As such, it echoes the call of screen diversity and affirms the importance of it.
Some episodes like Period are meaningful meanders.
Others have clear arcs of story.
While episodes are well-crafted wholes, I experienced most of them as a collection of deeply considered thematic riffs.
Its a beautiful little vignette of walk-the-like parenting.
When youre a single parent, there are rarely divisions between professional life and domestic life.
Youre always multitasking and managing multiple fronts of people and work, even if just in your head.
Sams family is a dysfunctional unit whose individual dysfunctions impact each other.
Better Thingspremieres Thursday on FX.
