Better Things Season 5 Discussion

[CarpeFelis]

It was really nice to have no teenage hostility in the final episode. Though I really could have done without the bathroom scenes…

Since when is the Aurora Borealis visible in SoCal?

[Suzn]

5 hours ago, CarpeFelis said:

It was really nice to have no teenage hostility in the final episode. Though I really could have done without the bathroom scenes…

Since when is the Aurora Borealis visible in SoCal?

This episode went into pure fantasy.  The time line was screwy too.  She left the dinner to go driving, next putting up the for sale sign in broad daylight and the next scene it's dark again and she called her mother, then went driving again or was in back to the first drive???

[aghst]

6 hours ago, CarpeFelis said:

It was really nice to have no teenage hostility in the final episode. Though I really could have done without the bathroom scenes…

Since when is the Aurora Borealis visible in SoCal?

 

46 minutes ago, Suzn said:

This episode went into pure fantasy.  The time line was screwy too.  She left the dinner to go driving, next putting up the for sale sign in broad daylight and the next scene it's dark again and she called her mother, then went driving again or was in back to the first drive???

They threw all kinds of astronomical phenomenon, a total lunar eclipse, which made all these comets or star showers visible, Aurora Borealis, etc.

Guess they have a healthy budget compared to a typical drama or comedy or dramedy.  They get to shoot outside a lot, went to London, etc.

Louis CK was reportedly very anal about the cinematography for his show.  He was specific about the types of shots, angles, etc. he wanted for his show.  I think Aziz Ansari was similar about Master of None.  They hired cinematographers who seemed to put up more shots you'd see in movies than on TV shows.

So maybe Adlon got into that as well.  Maybe these standups and voice actors study cinema a bit before they get their chance to have their own show and become auteur wannabes.  I like the things Louis CK and Aziz did on their shows.  Adlon, they had a real polished look but not sure it served these "mundane" stories necessarily well.

More budget is not necessarily better.

[peeayebee]

I understand the fantasy aspect of the end won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it. It was showing the enormity and awesomeness of the universe, making our problems seems insignificant. It left me hopeful and upbeat.

[aghst]

32 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

I understand the fantasy aspect of the end won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it. It was showing the enormity and awesomeness of the universe, making our problems seems insignificant. It left me hopeful and upbeat.

But is that Sam's outlook on life?

Not saying it couldn't be but they kind of sprang it in the last part of the series finale.

They could have ended with it being a snow globe in the eyes of an autistic child for instance.

Maybe this is one of these "life-affirming" works that is suppose to be inspirtional and show how good life could be, with all these friends and family.

You could certainly spin her situation negatively, two daughters, one leaves college and one doesn't even go, even though she's suppose to be a whiz kid.  A mother who's forgetful and maybe a growing concern for Sam and her brother to worry about.

Some financial issues yet she owns two homes, a bitching car yet she can get plenty of work in an industry which pays very well.

But Sam sees life as this glorious gift, inspiring wonder.  Well they never quite signaled that kind of existential view.  Instead it was about her dealing with trying daughters, cooking a lot and getting to do some cool work.

Did Better Things always exude this zest for life all the time?  Certainly not in this zen kind of way.

Sam got aggravated at various times.  She put up with a lot from the daughters but had a short leash for her mother and her ex.  

[Suzn]

3 hours ago, aghst said:

But is that Sam's outlook on life?

Not saying it couldn't be but they kind of sprang it in the last part of the series finale.

They could have ended with it being a snow globe in the eyes of an autistic child for instance.

Maybe this is one of these "life-affirming" works that is suppose to be inspirtional and show how good life could be, with all these friends and family.

You could certainly spin her situation negatively, two daughters, one leaves college and one doesn't even go, even though she's suppose to be a whiz kid.  A mother who's forgetful and maybe a growing concern for Sam and her brother to worry about.

Some financial issues yet she owns two homes, a bitching car yet she can get plenty of work in an industry which pays very well.

But Sam sees life as this glorious gift, inspiring wonder.  Well they never quite signaled that kind of existential view.  Instead it was about her dealing with trying daughters, cooking a lot and getting to do some cool work.

Did Better Things always exude this zest for life all the time?  Certainly not in this zen kind of way.

Sam got aggravated at various times.  She put up with a lot from the daughters but had a short leash for her mother and her ex.  

I think it is an abrupt change of tone.  For one thing she tells her mother that she is happy and nowhere in the show has she seemed really happy.  Maybe I don't know what happy looks like, but she didn't look happy to me - not necessarily unhappy but stressed and harried a lot of the time.  Duke proclaiming how wonderful Sam is came out of the blue and sounded over the top - I could have believed Duke saying something positive but not nearly as expansively florid.  Then we have Caroline expressing another great review for the how wonderful Sam is - I didn't buy that either.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Suzn

[possibilities]

I think it's really interesting that some people find the show inspirational and others find it totally horrifying. Clearly we're not all living the same lives or aspiring to the same things. 

[sistermagpie]

14 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I think it's really interesting that some people find the show inspirational and others find it totally horrifying. Clearly we're not all living the same lives or aspiring to the same things. 

It is really fascinating! I'm I guess in the middle. There's things in Sam's life that are really nice-that wedding party looked really fun. I didn't think it was strange that she said she was happy. Her kids are growing up and she's moving into a whole new phase of the career she loves as much as she often complains about it.

At the same time, it seems like the show itself hints at its own critiques of how she lives/parents. Maybe because she's based this on her real life, things seem logical, like the current lives of Max and Frankie. I feel like those two raise questions about some of the downsides. 

[CarpeFelis]

4 hours ago, Suzn said:

Duke proclaiming how wonderful Sam is came out of the blue and sounded over the top - I could have believed Duke saying something positive but not nearly as expansively florid.  Then we have Caroline expressing another great review for the how wonderful Sam is - I didn't buy that either.

Duke’s comment was sweet, but it does kind of make me wonder if she was vaping again!

I didn’t buy Carolyn suddenly being nice to Sam, either. (But I did enjoy her correcting Sam’s pronunciation of her name. Sam always seemed to get it wrong but at least it didn’t seem hostile like it did whenever Phyllis did it.) And her comment about how Sam and Phyllis really liked each other? I never saw anything in the show to indicate that. Phyllis came across as a narcissistic pain in the ass, so she was usually driving Sam up the wall.

6 hours ago, Suzn said:

This episode went into pure fantasy.  The time line was screwy too.  She left the dinner to go driving, next putting up the for sale sign in broad daylight and the next scene it's dark again and she called her mother, then went driving again or was in back to the first drive???

They showed her crossing the street to Phyllis’ house earlier in the afternoon, and then later flashed back to that to show her putting up the For Sale sign.

[Suzn]

19 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

 

19 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

And her comment about how Sam and Phyllis really liked each other? I never saw anything in the show to indicate that. Phyllis came across as a narcissistic pain in the ass, so she was usually driving Sam up the wall.

They showed her crossing the street to Phyllis’ house earlier in the afternoon, and then later flashed back to that to show her putting up the For Sale sign.

I certainly didn't see anything to indicate that Sam and Phyllis liked each other either.  Phyllis seemed to always take delight in upsetting Sam and Sam never seemed to enjoy Phyllis but just but martyred herself to do things for her.

You're probably right about the sequence of events but it just didn't make sense to me.

 

[heatherchandler]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

I think it's really interesting that some people find the show inspirational and others find it totally horrifying. Clearly we're not all living the same lives or aspiring to the same things. 

 

I find it horrifying, her house makes me itchy for some reason..

 

22 minutes ago, Suzn said:

 

I certainly didn't see anything to indicate that Sam and Phyllis liked each other either.  Phyllis seemed to always take delight in upsetting Sam and Sam never seemed to enjoy Phyllis but just but martyred herself to do things for her.

 

 

Remember a few seasons ago when she invited Phil on a trip and then minutes in turned around and took her home?  That was really mean.

[Suzn]

4 minutes ago, heatherchandler said:

 

I find it horrifying, her house makes me itchy for some reason..

 

Remember a few seasons ago when she invited Phil on a trip and then minutes in turned around and took her home?  That was really mean.

I'm on the horrified end of the spectrum.  There's nothing about her life that I would care for and I say that even though my life is no picnic.  I don't admire the way she lives, parents, dresses, treats her mother or brother,  I guess I don't get her.

[bilgistic]

22 hours ago, MJS said:

This show hits me in all the tender places.  I want the life and relationships she has. The relationships with her kids, and mom, and brother is so beautiful. I don’t care about nitpicky stuff- this is purely aspirational and it makes me weep with its beauty. 

 

7 hours ago, possibilities said:

I think it's really interesting that some people find the show inspirational and others find it totally horrifying. Clearly we're not all living the same lives or aspiring to the same things. 

I've mentioned here before that I am the oldest of three daughters raised by a single mother, and this show resonates with me so much. My mother was a paralegal and not an actor/director, and we didn't have friends over all the time, but the "mundane" things that happen on this show are what endeared it to me. Life isn't a melodrama like This Is Us (though I like that show); it happens during the fights and tears and rides in the new car and shared meals. Pamela Adlon perfectly captured life as a single mother with daughters.

My sister happened to text me while I was watching the finale tonight. She was watching the episode in which they all were flying to England and said how much she laughed, and it was something I laughed at, too. I didn't know until tonight that she watched it. We talked about how much we love the show. She's a single mother of two daughters in their early 20s, and she said she really relates to the show.

[SunnyBeBe]

I need to watch this again to really appreciate it.  I also need to watch some older episodes, as I didn’t recognize a lot of the characters in the finale.  My initial reaction is that this could have been a dream as it seemed mixed up in time and locations. It also seemed like a fantasy to me. Like what she would like to see, not necessarily reality.  For example, the man who lives in her old home is the park officer? Really?  

 I laughed during the scene she put up the For Sale by owner sign.  She has no idea how much detail there is in selling real property.  She needs a realtor.  
 

The compliment scene with Duke was nice, but seemed like a  gratuitous and desperate move to redeem her ungrateful kids, before the series ends. Maybe, it was a bone tossed to the viewers who have complained about those little smarties and find them intolerable. 
 

Ref, the bathroom scene where she suddenly needs a tampon.  I have a theory on this. It’s based on tv fiction and real life observations from people I know.  I’ve noticed that for some reason women of a certain age seem eager to point out that they STILL get a period, even after menopause.  For various reasons, I often doubt their stories.  I suspect they make these claims for personal reasons related to their need to retain their youth. Apparently, this is very important to some women, including Adlon. And, again, this seems like a fantasy to me.  But, I’m ok with a fantasy ending. 
 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[Lone Wolf]

On 4/25/2022 at 8:34 PM, sistermagpie said:

Loved Sam's, "It's all for you, Damien!"

Adlon was 10 years old when that movie came out.  I guess it's a horror classic, but I wouldn't have guessed that was the takeaway line. Nice call back, though.

On 4/26/2022 at 11:39 PM, possibilities said:

Was Marion implying that he and this week's groom had been lovers in the past? "I miss smoking bones with you."

I took that to mean getting high. Bones = doobies/joints

On 4/27/2022 at 2:59 PM, possibilities said:

I was upset that they didn't care that they'd dumped the fish into water where it was probably going to die. I get that they didn't know beforehand, but I did expect something other than a reaction to the fine, once they found out.

That bothered me more than anything. Even a flaky group like them should have been at least responsible enough to know whether it was a salt water or fresh water fish, if nothing else.  Releasing into a public lake though; that was one step above flushing it down the toilet.  Their hearts were in the right place.  I guess.

I liked all the curtain calls during the last song. During the celestial light show zoom out I was half expecting to see the El Camino taking off into the sky like Danny and Sandy's car at the end of Grease, to reference another movie from the 70's (God, I'm old).

 Otherwise, I thought the rest of the ep was pretty standard for this show. Adios and Many Future Viewers, Better Things - it was a fun watch but I'm not gonna miss it.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Lone Wolf

[pasdetrois]

On 3/8/2022 at 7:27 PM, heatherchandler said:

Yes way too many cooking montages.  Chopping, cutting, shredding, the sizzling... enough!  Show me some entertainment!

I always think that too much cooking, smoking and drinking is just lazy script writing and acting. These days, relatively few people smoke and drink constantly.

[aghst]

Seemed like the episodes were longer, closer to an hour than 30 minutes in many cases, than in the early seasons.

Maybe FX asked them to produce longer episodes so they can sell more ad time.

And their response was to add these filler scenes of cooking and drinking.

[sistermagpie]

53 minutes ago, pasdetrois said:

I always think that too much cooking, smoking and drinking is just lazy script writing and acting. These days, relatively few people smoke and drink constantly.

 

40 minutes ago, aghst said:

Seemed like the episodes were longer, closer to an hour than 30 minutes in many cases, than in the early seasons.

Maybe FX asked them to produce longer episodes so they can sell more ad time.

And their response was to add these filler scenes of cooking and drinking.

I think they're in there because she really loves to cook and feels like the long preparation is part of it. The scenes really do play differently when you've seen her doing all the cooking instead of just having her present the dish--especially when it's one of the scenes when they just ignore it all. You see her putting a lot of love and care into the food so when it's rejected it's different than her just presenting food like she's proud of it.

[heatherchandler]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

 

I think they're in there because she really loves to cook and feels like the long preparation is part of it. The scenes really do play differently when you've seen her doing all the cooking instead of just having her present the dish--especially when it's one of the scenes when they just ignore it all. You see her putting a lot of love and care into the food so when it's rejected it's different than her just presenting food like she's proud of it.

I love to crochet, but I would never show 20 minutes of that on a tv show.  It's boring. 

And I do actually like to watch cooking, I love Top Chef, but it is because I am wondering what they are making and how, will they have time? etc.  On this show... she makes a broth.    

[QQQQ]

Plus her daughters reject in her so many ways, not just in what she cooks. No need to be hit over the head with a skillet... we get it.

[aghst]

Have not heard it yet but Adlon is interviewed on Fresh Air.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/06/1097086503/pamela-adlon-says-better-things-has-been-an-exaggerated-version-of-her-life

 

hmm, it’s actually from 2019.  I don’t remember it.

[sistermagpie]

On 5/5/2022 at 3:39 PM, heatherchandler said:

I love to crochet, but I would never show 20 minutes of that on a tv show.  It's boring. 

And I do actually like to watch cooking, I love Top Chef, but it is because I am wondering what they are making and how, will they have time? etc.  On this show... she makes a broth.    

 

5 hours ago, QQQQ said:

Plus her daughters reject in her so many ways, not just in what she cooks. No need to be hit over the head with a skillet... we get it.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think it's the best idea, I just don't think Adlon considers the scenes filler. I think to her they're important to the eps.

[aghst]

OK, but why insert them into almost every episode?

She could have made her point, if there's a point to be made, in a couple of episodes.

She could have done a montage, to show how long it takes for her to cook these meals that her daughters won't sit down for.

Instead they're a few minutes long, in several episodes.

Should they have said all along that she's a mother, actress and a chef or someone whose big passion or hobby is cooking?

If that is the case, it's not coming across.  It's more like "ANOTHER cooking scene?!?" befuddlement.

[Suzn]

15 minutes ago, aghst said:

OK, but why insert them into almost every episode?

She could have made her point, if there's a point to be made, in a couple of episodes.

She could have done a montage, to show how long it takes for her to cook these meals that her daughters won't sit down for.

Instead they're a few minutes long, in several episodes.

Should they have said all along that she's a mother, actress and a chef or someone whose big passion or hobby is cooking?

If that is the case, it's not coming across.  It's more like "ANOTHER cooking scene?!?" befuddlement.

The point was made in the borscht episode and that should have been enough.  I just saw the endless cooking as another ego display for her.

[Thumper]

Just finished the last two episodes.  Sam is always clomping around in her boots; I would not want those worn-out things!

Happy that her mom got a new lease on life in England.  Nice twist which also frees up Sam.  Also happy for Max but didn’t realize she can’t work there!  Hmmmm

I also feared that Sam had some kind of cancer when she started bleeding.

The last episode was quirky but upbeat, which was nice (and unusual) for this show!  I liked seeing all the cast/characters in it.

[SunnyBeBe]

Maybe, Sam, I mean Pam….whichever, feels that her girls are awesome and just have a funny way of showing their contempt, I mean love for their mom.  That level of disrespect and lack of boundaries translates to A hole adults and most people don’t like that. I’ve known some like that and they were miserable people, who made those around them even more miserable.  Imo, her tolerance of their antics did them no favors and I struggled to find charm or humor in it.  I hate it too, because I like Pam as an actress.  

[Cheezwiz]

On 5/16/2022 at 7:24 PM, SunnyBeBe said:

Imo, her tolerance of their antics did them no favors and I struggled to find charm or humor in it.  I hate it too, because I like Pam as an actress.  

This was the main thing that hindered my enjoyment of the show. Of course all teenagers can be obnoxious and self-involved, but Adlon's character never called them out or read them the riot act, and it was hard to watch. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Cheezwiz
subbing in the right word!

[SunnyBeBe]

24 minutes ago, Cheezwiz said:

This was the main thing that hindered my enjoyment of the show. Of course all teenagers can be obnoxious and self-involved, but Adlon's character never called them out or gave them the riot act, and it was hard to watch. 

Yeah, it’s like she was an abused person, who didn’t have the strength or will to stand up for herself.  How would she feel if her kids married someone who treated them the way they treated her?  It’s like she didn’t respect herself.  And, I guess the parting message was that if you suffer long enough you will gain undying love from the abuser….like how they were giving her glowing praise and hysterically saying how much they loved her.  Please.  That’s actually how abusers behave.  

Edited May 18, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Yeah, it’s like she was an abused person, who didn’t have the strength or will to stand up for herself.  How would she feel if her kids married someone who treated them the way they treated her?  It’s like she didn’t respect herself.  And, I guess the parting message was that if you suffer long enough you will gain undying love from the abuser….like how they were giving her glowing praise and hysterically saying how much they loved her.  Please.  That’s actually how abusers behave.  

That's probably why the one scene that always stands out to me is when she tells Max that she's a cunt and her sister is an asshole and her other sister is great and there's no confusion which is which. And Max looks completely stunned and as if Sam has broken a rule by pointing this out.

Iirc, Max was getting ready for work in that scene, which makes me realize she must not be working anymore by this ep if she can just stay in London with no mention of quitting a job.

[For Cereals]

On 4/6/2022 at 9:10 AM, sistermagpie said:

I just listened to a podcast where all the people adored the show and what surprised me wasn't that, but that they wanted Sam's life (and not just that house).

I just want the house…