The Children On ‘Better Things’ Have Gone From Amiably Scrappy to Worrisomely Hostile

Since its premiere in 2016, I have treasured Better Things, FX’s shaggy dramedy about divorced working actor Sam Fox (creator/star Pamela Adlon); her obstinate mother Phyl (Celia Imrie); and her three children Max (Mikey Madison); Frankie (Hannah Alligood); and Duke (Olivia Edward). But in the show’s third season, it has grown increasingly difficult to watch Sam with those very children, and I must ask: why are they so nasty to their mother?

This is not to say I wish Better Things conformed more closely to the conventions of sitcom kids. In the early years, the Fox siblings stood out for not being adorable moppets in the Full House mold, spitting sassy one-liners at each other but ultimately learning to love each other even more deeply by the end of an episode. Anyone who wasn’t an only child knows how vicious spats between siblings can be, and I appreciate that Better Things has always portrayed these relationships realistically.

Similarly, the show has never idealized the kids’ relationships with Sam, but in Season 3, it feels like their scenes have gone from amiably scrappy to worrisomely hostile. Even if you grant that they have some cause for aggression — they’re children of divorce; their father (Matthew Glave’s Xander) is, to put it kindly, unreliable; selfishness is pretty inextricable from the teen and tween experience — these kids are jerks.

…Okay, Duke is still pretty sweet; in fact, considering that throughout this season she, like her mother, keeps seeing visions of Sam’s dead father, Murray (Adam Kulbersh), and is keeping the secret that Phyl recently ran Duke over with her car, Duke would be justified in being a lot saltier. The older kids have no excuse.

First, let’s look back at some Season 3 lowlights for Max, who kicked things off back in the season premiere, “Chicago,” with a journey to the titular city so that Sam could get the freshman settled in her college dorm. A full 90 seconds is spent in a drugstore shopping spree montage, Max giggling as Sam fills a cart with tampons, ramen, and Plan B.

Max seems to have a momentary epiphany about how lucky she is when she crosses paths with a disheveled shopper who may be experiencing homelessness, but it passes quickly; Max pops up in the next episode to whine at Sam about her sudden-onset vinyl allergy and demand that Sam set her up in an apartment off-campus. Sam refuses, and by “Monsters in the Moonlight,” the season’s fourth episode, Max has unceremoniously dropped out of school and returned to Sam’s house. Shocked, Sam points out that she’s already paid for seven more weeks’ worth of tuition, which Max doesn’t even acknowledge: “Do you want me to, like, waste my life?…I am an adult now. I can make my own decisions.” Sam tries again to get Max to appreciate the “many, many dollars” (of Sam’s) that went into Max’s college enrollment, at which Max threatens, “I’ll just go live with Paisley. I’ll live out of her van. I’ll get raped and become a meth head.” “Good!” snaps Sam. “That’s not living at home!” But she can’t keep it up, immediately asking, “Are you hungry?” Max moves back into the house and falls into her bratty old habits.

Frankie is even worse! (Note: the first-season finale ended with Max telling Sam, “Frankie is a boy”; Frankie’s gender identity hasn’t really been a topic of conversation since, but since it seems in Season 3 like the characters avoid using any pronouns for Frankie, I’ll go with “them/their.”) “Chicago” finds Frankie loafing in their room on their phone. An exhausted Sam, just back from her trip to Chicago, is immediately set upon to help Frankie with their homework — specifically, to spare Frankie reading the first act of A Raisin in the Sun by READING IT ALOUD, TO FRANKIE. We know Frankie is too young to drive legally, because in “Monsters in the Moonlight” Sam lets them “illegal secret drive” in a parking lot until Frankie gets incensed at Sam’s instructions, stops the vehicle, and stomps into the back seat to seethe at Sam’s impertinence; but Frankie seems old enough to handle an assignment as taxing as reading Act I of a three-act play on their own. Yet down Sam sits, and starts to read.

In “Toilet,” the season’s seventh episode, Sam warmly reminds Frankie about an ELO show Frankie had asked to attend, but Frankie snaps, “Mom, I’m in the middle of something.” Sam asks which night Frankie would like to go. “What are you talking about?” Frankie sputters, before exiting to take a phone call. Frankie then emerges to scream “MOM” from the second-floor landing until Sam appears, so that Frankie can announce a shopping trip and demand money for lunch. For once, Sam addresses her child’s ingratitude directly: “This is where you say, ‘Mom. I’m sorry for being a little dick. And I really appreciate you getting me the tickets and taking the time. Also, may I please have some spending money?'” Much as Max did when Sam tried to make her see her side of the wasted tuition, Frankie responds, instantly, with emotional manipulation: “Fine. Don’t give me the money. I’ll get some weirdo to buy me lunch, and maybe he’ll traffic me, and you can live with that for the rest of your life.” Frankie then stomps into their bedroom and slams the door so hard that it sticks, requiring Sam to call the fire department to break Frankie out.

Maybe…what Frankie really needs is to be removed from polite society long enough to figure out how to act right? As much as I love Sam, she’s certainly complicit in letting Max and Frankie continue behaving atrociously. Despite Sam’s bravado when Max comes home from college, no one really believes Sam’s going to let her go live in a van. But maybe Sam could have required that Max pay Sam back the tuition she won’t be using, or say that a consequence of her quitting school is that Max get a job and support herself. When Frankie is blowing off A Raisin in the Sun and trying to guilt her mommy into reading it to her, she has no idea that Sam’s return flight had to make an emergency landing, because when Sam is about to tell her, Frankie interrupts to beg her to do Frankie’s homework for them, basically. In this week’s episode, “Easter,” Max is fine letting Sam rent her a seedy hotel room in which Max plans to stage a photo shoot, but then gives her the bum’s rush as soon as the models show up. If Max is so eager to be alone, perhaps Max should just pay for the motel room herself? Afterward, Ollivier (Shak Ghacha), one of the participants, sends Sam roses and a thank-you card, something it would never occur to Max to do even if she did have her own money. “Hashtag he fucked her,” says Sam ruefully. Maybe, but at least he’s considerate! When Frankie later descends on Easter morning to find the baskets Sam has thoughtfully assembled for each of the kids, Frankie sniffs, “Not that you asked, but I think this whole holiday is offensive.” JUST EAT YOUR FREE CHOCOLATE, JACKASS.

Sam seems shocked when her two elder children treat her with the bare minimum of respect, as when Frankie perfunctorily asks her how Chicago was, or when Max rewards Sam for the loan of her boots by suggesting that they go get tacos (which, one presumes, Sam will be paying for). It’s like Sam is so eager to scoop up these crumbs of regard that she’s scared to call out even their worst instances of entitlement. Why are her kids so awful? Because Sam lets them get away with it!

Frankie and Max aren’t the only teens — on TV or in real life — to be rude to their parents; it’s a long, embarrassing lineage that encompasses Angela Chase, Dawson Leery, Zoey Johnson, Logan Echolls, Alex Alvarez, me, probably you, and certainly every little snotnose on Beverly Hills, 90210. The difference is that, on our way to becoming decent adults, most of our parents told us to quit being such little shits and shamed us out of our worst offenses; the Fox kids virtually never are — and given how autobiographical the show is (see here, here, and here), it’s hard not to wonder if Sam is performing events inspired by real life in order to shame Adlon’s real-life children into giving her less material.

In this season’s sixth episode, “What Is Jeopardy?,” Sam visits therapist David Miller (guest star Matthew Broderick); to explain the sources of her stress, she pulls out a credit card statement: “Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Lyft, Lyft, Postmates, Venmo, Spotify, Instafollow, Lyft, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Postmates, Editing Bunny….When I see it in this big pile of turd money bullshit, I need someone to weigh in. Like, is this okay?” After an interlude in which he lets her know he remembers her from summer camp, Dr. Miller shrugs that it just sounds like she has a teenager at home. Maybe if he looked at Sam’s probably astronomical Visa balance or heard even one story about any of her kids smarting off to her, he’d suggest that all four of them come in for therapy together. Failing that, maybe anyone in the Fox kids’ orbit could tell them to be nicer to their mother.

Writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano is the co-founder of TelevisionWithoutPity.com and Fametracker.com (R.I.P.), as well as Previously.tv. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great and Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210), and has contributed to New York, the New York Times magazine, Vulture, The Awl, and Slate, among many others. She lives in Austin.

Where to stream Better Things