Pamela Adlon Returns With More Humor & Heart in ‘Better Things’ Season 4
Review
When it rains, it pours — in Los Angeles? — in an exceptionally wet fourth season of Better Things, star and director Pamela Adlon‘s brilliant, bittersweet slice-of-life comedy about Sam Fox, a resilient single mom and struggling character actress trying to survive a midlife crisis.
Landing acting gigs at 50 is no joke, and yet there are plenty of laughs as Sam wrangles three headstrong daughters able to whipsaw from tender affection to bristling hostility in a blink.
Her own mercurial mother (Celia Imrie), who is also her neighbor, is coping with a heart condition — a shock, because the woman often seems utterly heartless.
(Credit: Suzanne Tenner/FX)
Hanging with friends is nearly as stressful, since they all seem to be in varying states of relationship crisis. Somehow, with her sardonic wit and deep reserves of pained empathy, Sam is both rock and security blanket to those in her intimate circle.
Will better things ever come her way? We’ll never lose hope in this inspiring heroine.
Better Things, Season 4 Premiere, Thursday, March 5, 10/9c, FX
