On the plane to LA I remembered that the last time I'd visited LA -- in 2018 -- I'd watched Better Things on the plane and really liked it. Pamela Adlon's semi-autobio semi-sitcom about being a working actor and single mom of three girls in the Valley had seemed, then, like a perfect show to get me into the LA mood, and I didn't remember much else about it. Once that trip was over and I was back in my NYC life I didn't think about the show again. Lazily, I'd associated it -- and its creator/writer/director Adlon -- with her former friend Louis C.K., who co-created the show and is still credited for that at the beginning of every episode, even though Adlon cut ties with him and started doing the show by herself three seasons ago (the current season is its fifth). I didn't want to put in the effort to think past that association, and I didn't want to think about C.K.'s career (ie, that he still has one) because I knew if I started thinking about that I'd spiral, filling with rage about all the ways that men who've been "metooed" have emerged unscathed. Unwittingly, I let this keep me from checking back in with this show that I had liked. BIG mistake! HUGE! And luckily, now rectified.
One of the things I miss most about pre-kid life, pathetic as this seems, is binge-watching TV. Sometimes I listen to my favorite podcast and hear the hosts talking about the many shows they watch and feel white-hot jealousy at the mere idea of sitting down and watching three episodes of a show on some random weekday night. We have been cursed with bad sleepers who not only go to bed late but also wake up most nights needing something or other circa the brain-ruining hour of 4am (too early to just get up, too late to full get back into the type of sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, like, at ALL.) So one of the best things about my solo trip to LA to visit Ruth, apart from seeing Ruth and eating at Gjusta three times, was getting to watch AS MUCH TV AS I WANTED every night and go to bed extremely late and still wake up at a sort of decent hour, West Coast time.
So I had this very intimate, vulnerable, joyous experience watching Season 4 of Better Things, sort of like what happened the last time I was able to wolf down a whole season of TV in one sitting. That being said, still -- guys, I have to say that I think this season of TV is a work of transcendent perfect genius art and everyone involved in making it should get a Nobel prize, probably? At the very least? It also maybe goes without saying that I had gone to the LA bespoke weed store, and so was much more high than I would ever be if kids were on the premises, which made the experience of watching the episode where Sam goes to the weed store and accidentally gets too high and her daughters have to take care of her truly immersive, 360, almost VR.
If you aren't familiar with the concept of this show I suggest reading Carrie Battan's profile of Adlon and Alexandra Schwartz's review of Season 4, though I would save the latter til after you've watched it because the description of Sam's fight with her eldest daughter Max minorly spoils one of the show's tensest, funniest, realest moments. Ok but if you haven't already clicked away I'll do a quickie gloss: Sam Fox, played by Adlon, has (like irl Adlon) made her living in Hollywood since childhood and comes from a showbiz family, and she lives with her three daughters in a big beautiful Spanish colonial style house for which I strain to find a better adjective than the abhorrent "funky" (but it IS, in the best way.) Most of the show's conflict is about the kids struggling out of and back into the nest, but there's also plenty of room for storylines about Sam's professional dramas, which give us a fascinating glimpse at what life is like for successful-but-not-famous actors. Sam always has a gig, but she still has to hustle, and her sets are never depicted as glamorous or even humane places to work. People recognize her every once in a while and she's kind, grateful and humble about it, except when they're dicks. Her life is full and rich. She has not had a romantic storyline (or, that we know of, sex) since season 3. Other characters fall in and out of love, flirt with waiters, reunite with exes, get accidentally knocked up, etc but Sam literally doesn't have time for any of that. She has transcended, or maybe repressed, that part of her personality. Asked to introspect by a therapist in season 3, she says "ew." It is interesting to think of a writer creating a character based on herself who has this relationship to exploring her own interiority. (I still haven't really puzzled out the implications there, but IT IS INTERESTING).