When I made my list of the best TV of 2019, I cheated and included season three of Better Things
(MC-96, Hulu), even though I’d only seen a few minutes of it. I found the commercial-interrupted streaming
on FX intolerable, so I had to wait impatiently for the third season to finally
join the first two on Hulu. I’d timidly
rated it #2 on my list of half-hour comedies, but now I will boldly move it
into #1 (Brits had a separate list, but I’d put Better Things in a tie
with Fleabag for the very best comedy).
(This show by itself warrants
a trial subscription to Hulu – commercial-free option essential – but if you go
beyond their featured network programming, there’s a lot of good stuff hidden
in the margins, among foreign and indie films, and documentaries especially,
which I’ll be covering in my next post.)
I also confess that I am a
little in love with Pamela Adlon, squat and squawky-voiced as she may be, but
so original and authentic, brash and out-there, in this heavily
autobiographical series, as the fiftyish single working mom of three teen or
tween girls. In the third season, she
writes and directs as well as stars, brilliantly on all counts, leaving behind
the taint of association with Louis C.K.
The girls are great too, as is the whole ensemble of LA creative types.
There are gags galore, salty
language and toilet humor, with plenty of embarrassing situations, but in the
context of unflinching observations of real life – work and family and friends
– from a pointedly female perspective. As
an implicit feminist without portfolio, Adlon’s defining characteristic is
forthrightness. She’s going to open her
mouth, and only occasionally put her foot in it.
From a different generation
and the opposite coast (though Adlon was born in Albany
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