Better Things

Created by Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K., and starring Adlon as a single mother and actress raising three kids in Los Angeles, Better Things is both searingly funny and beautiful. Adlon’s Sam Fox struggles, with judgmental kids, random judgmental parents, a married boyfriend, mansplainers on blind dates next to her in the coffee shop, and fire detectors that need new batteries. Her children—played by Mikey Madison, Hannah Alligood, and Olivia Edward, and her mother, played by Celia Imrie—create both a maelstrom of expectation, guilt, and volume and the grounds for multiple honest moments of connection with each other and with Sam. The result is an at-times raw examination of the vicissitudes of working motherhood, crackling with feminist verve and energy, paced beautifully, and able constantly to cut new ground in the otherwise well-worn genre of family sitcom. Adlon offers a smart, deeply funny performance as someone who has learned to embrace the impossibility of living up to expectations as a mother, and to parent in spite of it. For this, it wins a Peabody Award.