Pamela Adlon: "Better Things"

A favorite character of mine, right now, is the fictional actor Sam Fox, played by Pamela Adlon, on "Better Things."

Adlon almost won the Emmy--twice--for this role. The show itself recently ranked among the top comedies of this current century, according to the NYTimes.

Sam Fox has a crazy British mother--one of the lost souls from "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"--and she has three needy daughters. The father is basically not around. In one of the show's great scenes, the father pops up to say he will be taking a job in the neighborhood, for the summer, a very high-profile job. Fox reasonably believes the guy is making this announcement because he wants to request more time to spend with the kids.

The guy clears his throat. Actually, this request is *not* the purpose of the dinner. The guy doesn't want to spend *any* time with the kids, and he fears bumping into them while on the job, and he just wants his ex to invent a diplomatic way to tell the kids that "Daddy's mysterious presence doesn't indicate a large block of new Daddy/daughter time, though in his heart Daddy does want to see you, though there is no evidence to support this claim."

Once Sam has found a way to say all this to the daughters, then Sam is to deliver the message. The guy can't be bothered.

Sam draws our attention to the shittiness of men in other ways. She counsels her oldest daughter not to spend time with a "lying turdball," then directly intervenes with the turdball, then attempts the inevitable: Assist your daughter when the turdball breaks her heart. Sam loses her shot at an impressive script because--at the final moment--Rachel McAdams expresses interest. (We might struggle to see how Rachel McAdams's dramatic skills overlap with Sam's, but of course McAdams is a beautiful Hollywood star, and men are calling the shots.)

Despite many travails, Sam maintains generally high spirits. She has a protracted play-battle with one daughter, which involves an elderly woman playing dead. Sam attends a school function and speaks bluntly to a group of mortified tweens about her period. ("Raise your hands if you're here tonight and you've started bleeding! Raise your hands if you've *stopped* bleeding--permanently!") Sam also offers wise thoughts to a teen in crisis: "No one actually knows what she is doing--ever. Maybe you'll have a career, and maybe you'll just have a crappy day job. And even if you just have a crappy day job, you'll still find reasons to enjoy yourself, because this is life, and life is sort of consistently interesting....."

Quietly subversive, unusual for TV. Good stuff.

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Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic. She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...

Liars and Saints

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