Better Things

The final gift this treasure of a series offers to us is a sequence that makes us feel like we’ve been part of Sam’s family the whole time.

Presenting each episode as a visit instead of a story makes the show feel more lifelike, accentuating the growth of Adlon's creative assuredness since she took the reins from the collaborator with whom she worked for the first two seasons. ... More than ever, though, it trusts the audience's intimacy with who these people are by enabling them to grow.

Few shows on TV have funneled as much complicated feeling through a camera lens as “Better Things.” And the terrific final season lets you have it at full blast. ... As this remarkable final season shows, it is anything but [small].

Whether you’re the kid going off to college or the unmoored mom weeping into her unfiltered sake about it, you’re doing something you’ve never done before. It has been such a pleasure to watch this family grow up, and so illuminating to witness, through their eyes, how that process never ends.

Better Things is the perfect mix of sweet and sour, finding unexpected moments of joy - Sam's fangirl gushing during a random encounter with children's TV legend Marty Krofft - and punctuating them with a flash of random terror and despair. [28 Feb - 13 Mar 2022, p.6]

What a sendoff it is. ... “Better Things” understands the agony and joy of these tiny chapters—the “ephemera” Phil so quickly wants to toss aside—and plays them for all their under-appreciated importance. Adlon remains one of TV’s most fascinating performers, and Sam one of its most compelling protagonists. ... But for all its ruminations, “Better Things” never forgets to be funny, suffusing even tearjerking moments with a sly, droll warmth that cuts through the waterworks.

For six years and 52 episodes, Adlon's series has centered on the stories of everyday women — moms, sisters, daughters, friends — and elevated the ephemera of their day-to-day lives into art.

Gets deep into memories in its fifth and final season. Scenes can come out of order and without context or explanation, like you’ve always just had access to someone’s own naturally non-linear thought processes.

The fifth season of Better Things is the best TV show of the year thus far, and it’s sure to find a place high on whatever lists I’m making in nine months.

Her authorial voice has grown stronger. Better Things, always distinctive, has become even more its own beast. It’s not for everyone but when you fall for Better Things, you fall hard. Give it a go before it bows out forever.

The throughline for all these characters remains truthful, but the show’s pacing this season is uneven. Granted, Better Things has never adhered strictly to linear narratives or the traditional arc of a 30-minute episodic. There’s more of an emphasis on moments and feelings over plot.

[Sam] remains a work in progress, but the series mercifully leaves us with the comfort that her heart is settled.