Winds of change
Sam goes off the deep end as she loses control of her kids and her body in season 3 of comedy series Better Things.
Season 3 Fridays (from 18 March) SABC3 (*193) 20:30
Instead of over-glorifying motherhood and painting Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon) as a superwoman who saves everyone around her, autobiographical comedy series Better Things – which is based on Pamela’s life – draws humour from the challenges of being a working single parent. In season 3, Sam is on a verge of a breakdown. She’s stressed about her teen kids, she’s experiencing menopause, her career isn’t going in the direction she expected and her elderly mother Phil (Celia Imrie) is suffering from dementia.
“To sum it up, Sam is under immense pressure,” says Pam. “Better Things is an exaggeration of my life. I’m not trying to make Sam a perfect person. It’s far more interesting to see her fail and her learning from her trials,” explains Pamela, who is also the executive producer and creator of the comedy series. And as Sam gets closer to turning 50, she has a mid-life crisis. “I’ve noticed shocking things happening in my own life, which is why I put them in the show, so that we can all look at it and laugh together – it’s good therapy,” adds the lead star.
BEARING THE BRUNT
While in the previous seasons of Better Things, Sam felt unappreciated by her kids. In season 3 it gets worse as her daughters are meaner and the mom fears that she’s losing control of them. In the first episode, Sam drops off her eldest daughter Max (Mikey Madison) at varsity in Chicago. On the plane ride back home to Los Angeles, Sam feels a sense of grief from separating from her daughter. Oddly enough, Sam has a vision of her deceased father Murray (Adam Kulbersh) – which continues throughout the season in moments when Sam feels insecure.
When Sam arrives home, she has her hands full with her two youngest daughters: Angsty middle kid Frankie (Hannah Alligood) is drifting further from her, and the youngest Duke (Olivia Edward) is in the beginning stages of puberty. As the season develops, Max drops out of varsity and Frankie goes out of her way to hurt Sam. “In situations where parents have split, the parent who is present takes the hit,” says Pamela about her character’s conundrum. “The kids push all the buttons, and they test the strength of their bond with the present parent. That’s the case with being a single parent and that’s what I’m trying to portray with the show. That it’s actually okay to not be all that okay.”