‘Better Things’ Is About the Messy Things – That’s What Makes It So Great

Remember how in Pleasantville, Reese Witherspoon walked into a ladies’ room stall, only to find the toilet missing? The scene was satirizing how film and television characters never seemed to go to the bathroom – or display anything of the gnarly, private variety.  

Twenty-one years later, Pamela Adlon is keeping Pleasantville‘s sharp commentary alive through her critical darling of a TV show, Better Things. Those uncomfortable, indecorous moments that we prefer to keep hidden behind closed doors are a regular presence, with Adlon, who directed every episode of Better Things‘ current third season, not only thrusting them into the open, but bringing in a camera crew to record them for posterity.

There are a lot of reasons to love Better Things, which was recently renewed for a fourth outing: Its unflinching portrayal of what it means to be a single, working parent raising three demanding daughters and caring for a dementia-stricken mother, for starters. The show has also emerged triumphant following co-creator Louis C.K.’s 2017 dismissal in the aftermath of the comedian’s sexual misconduct. Season 3 proves once and for all that Better Things is superb —if not, well, better— without C.K.’s input.

But I think Adlon – who also wrote or co-wrote several of Season 3’s episodes – never gets enough credit for how she embraces life’s unsavory elements.

My favorite parts of Better Things aren’t the cozy, friends-and-family-filled dinners where Adlon’s onscreen alter ego, Sam Fox, cooks up bowls of lemon risotto, or even last season’s unexpectedly uplifting dance number. The best scenes are of Sam, and by extension, Adlon, showing the audience the messy things.

From the moment Season 3 premiered, Adlon’s ever-relatable Sam was in our faces and holding up a mirror not only to herself, but to everyone else: The opening scene of “Chicago” had Adlon focusing the camera squarely on her perimenopausal body – turning her closet upside-down in a futile effort to find an outfit that both fit and flattered. Episode 2, “Holding,” featured an ingenious homage to An American Werewolf in London, in which Sam’s daily and nightly sweats from hot flashes are juxtaposed with David Kessler’s nocturnal transformation, emphasizing how terrifying and uncontrollable the encroaching reality of menopause can be.

While it seems like every TV show from Mad Men to, heh, Better Things (congrats, Duke!) has dealt with a girl’s first period, perimenopause remains on the taboo side of the spectrum because, as Adlon demonstrates, it’s not a terribly appealing look. Which is all the more reason why there should be no shortage of praise for the Better Things star and co-creator, who uses her TV platform to say, “Hey, guess what? Women’s bodies do start turning on us at a certain age (and sometimes earlier), so let’s not hide them away – and better yet, let’s actually show what’s happening to us!”

Adlon also refuses to hide away the chaos residing in Sam’s brain, and it’s a chaos that anyone can empathize with, even if you’re not a parent, a woman or experiencing perimenopause. In the episode titled “No Limit,” Sam unloads to her physician about her intricate levels of stress – ranging from rape nightmares to her exhausting children (Frankie, be nicer to your mom, please?) to growing a beard – that the M.D. is all, “Get thee to a psychiatrist, one preferably played by Matthew Broderick.” It’s not that Sam has worse stress than the rest of us – though it’s pretty bad – it’s that she conveys a feeling of hopelessness far too familiar than we’d care to admit publicly. How many of us feel like Sam in the sense that some mornings we lie in bed and say, “I just can’t do it anymore”?

But stress and mental health are much more common topics on TV today than the subject matter of Better Things‘ most recent episode, “Toilet.” I mean, the folks in Pleasantville would be aghast (or would just turn bright colors) if they knew much of the episode involved the graphic unpleasantness that is prepping for a colonoscopy, let alone showcased a porcelain throne.

The first act follows Sam as she mixes a laxative cocktail (which she awesomely spikes with vodka) that leads to a montage in which nothing is left to the imagination: Sam experiencing the sudden need to evacuate her bowels. Sam racing to the bathroom. Sam sitting on the toilet. Sam’s youngest daughter, Duke (Olivia Edward), sweetly offering extra toilet paper and reminders for Mom to lubricate her tender areas with Vaseline. Sam plunging the toilet. Sam impatiently waiting for the commode to finish flushing so she can go again. More plunging. Watching TV on her laptop while on the toilet (oh, you know you do it too, so stop cringing).

It’s weird – for years, I was like the residents of Pleasantville: I didn’t talk about bodily functions because I was conditioned to think they were inappropriate for public discourse. But now that Adlon is putting things like bowel movements, hot flashes and loud farts (adding just the right touch to the episode’s post-colonoscopy scene, in which Sam’s doctor, played by Jane the Virgin‘s Ivonne Coll, discusses the possibility of a malignant polyp; it was negative, phew!) into the context of a comedy series that has already touched my heart, it’s as if I’ve been given license to embrace life’s messy moments.

Sam Fox is one of the few females on television who is saying, “We sweat. We poop. We gain weight out of nowhere. We have a lot of stress and getting a handle on it is really hard.”

And she’s telling us that it’s more than okay. Thanks, Sam.

Sarene Leeds is a television and pop culture journalist who has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Vulture and EW.com. A British drama enthusiast, she is always up for a good binge-watch of Call the Midwife or Outlander. She lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband and daughter. Follow her on Twitter @SareneLeeds.

Where to stream Better Things