What I’m Watching: Better Things

Better Things: Season 3, Episode 5 “No Limit” (B+)

This show has been great this season about featuring a fantastic scene early on in each episode and then having Sam decompress in a serene way after that. In this case, allowing Frankie and Duke one minute to yell and curse at each other in the parking lot was an interesting gamble, and it produced quite a foul rant from Duke that managed to defuse the situation thanks to the humor in it. While Duke is indeed becoming a troublesome, rebellious child, and Max continues to be relatively useless and aimless, Frankie has maintained her status as the number one mom tormentor, taunting Sam when she was throwing up in the toilet and refusing to let up. I enjoyed her visit to the doctor played by Usman Ally from “Veep” who was more than happy to use rather course language in every recommendation he made to her, and her other doctor appointment wasn’t much more reassuring. I was also happy to recognize Judy Reyes of “Scrubs” fame as one of her friends who was more than happy to commiserate about what being old and pretending to be younger is all about. Surrounded by her friends, Sam was indeed able to let go of some of her daily irritations, but that only lasted so long, and it came with the unfortunate aftereffects of having to rid her system of the large volume of alcohol that she had consumed, an event that interacted all too closely with one of her main sources of annoyance.