WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In this third season, Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon) has taken daughter Max (Mikey Madison) to college out East while other daughters, Frankie (Hannah Alligood) and Duke (Olivia Edward), are home in Los Angeles. After returning, Sam gets back to work as an actress in a bit part in big-budget slasher/monster flick. As usual, she's balancing her duties as a mom _ increasingly complicated as Frankie (and soon Duke) enters puberty _ with her work life. And yes, it's complicated.
MY SAY: Adlon could have won an Emmy for best actress last September, or perhaps should have won an Emmy, but the "Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" express had left the station, and there was no stopping it. There was also the awkward issue of that co-creator name on the credits. This was, and most emphatically is, an Adlon creation, but the Louis CK creative participation, however tangential, didn't help her cause. She lost the Emmy while most casual TV viewers likely wondered, "what's 'Better Things' anyway?"
For a quick refresher, "Better Things" is about a single mom in L.A. raising three daughters, the youngest on the cusp of adolescence, the other entering college. Her mother, Phyllis, or "Phil" _ played by the veteran British actress Celia Imrie _ lives across the street, and is about as unobtrusive as Ray Barone's parents were.
