Better Things

Its ability to take a more wrenching look at womanhood made it one of the best and most distinctive shows of 2016. The second season, which debuts on FX Thursday, is somehow even better.

This is a huge leap forward for a show that was already quite strong. ... Adlon comes as close to a pure auteur as TV gets. That her story is one imbued with both sadness and light makes Better Things one of television's very best shows—in any genre.

The masterstroke of Better Things is that it ignores 98% of what mainstream television has told us about how families operate and how grown women relate to the world. It is simply truthful about the ambiguous burdens of adulthood, about feeling love, exhaustion and sometimes volcanic anger for the people you can’t live without. By eschewing false sentiment and embracing uncertainty and moments of unexpected empathy, it ends up being deeply affecting.

In Better Things, he [Louis C.K] and Adlon are able to transcend such concerns and tell fresh stories from a fresh angle for an audaciously intelligent take on responsibility, independence, and uncensored love.

With an exclamation point so readily evident in season two, Better Things has become one of TV's most exceptional series.

Better Things makes its own leap by getting smaller, more intimate, and more focused. ... This was a great show in that first year. It’s even greater now.

I didn't think Better Things could get any better. It's thrilling to be wrong. [15 Sep 2017, p.66]

Better Things gets better--truer and deeper--when Sam is taken by surprise (as when her ex-husband shows up unexpectedly for dinner, or when a pet dies) or when she’s jolted out of her self-absorption by a parental obligation that yields a small revelation for her. Adlon is very good at depicting Sam in mid-mixed-emotions.

Behold the fantastic second season of the Pamela Adlon’s Better Things, which looks and feels nothing like a typical family sitcom but captures the rhythm of family in a way that members of families, so almost all of us, will find deeply satisfying.

Season 2 is a tremendous leap forward. The show has additional texture this season, with a stronger curiosity about its characters and its frankness and intimacy feel fully earned.

Adlon’s insistence on focusing on the nuances of work, dating, parenting, and socializing gives the show a unique level of intimacy.