Better Things | Final Season
How 50-something women are represented on television
There’s so much scorched earth from our generation growing up during the Cold War and being obsessed with Russia pointing nukes at us. All these things seemed really, really scary when I was in middle school. They left this crazy feeling inside.
A few years ago, when things started to get really bad in the way they are now, I thought, Are we going to stop living? Are we going to be apologizing to our kids? We’re all still living our lives, and we have to. It’s a very existential feeling I put into the show: We’re here. We have our chosen family and our village and our friends, and we have work. Things can get really fucking bleak, and you’re allowed to laugh. You have to laugh. The kids need reasons to keep moving forward.
On Not bringing the pandemic into this season
It’s in the fabric of the stories of the show this season. Baseball cards: I put that in the show because I was sitting at home in lockdown, de-hoarding the way Phil is this season. I laid them out on my dining table for a week, then I wrapped them up in hair bands by position and team. It was one of those things I never would have been able to get to if we were continuing to go as quickly as we were. I was hoping the pandemic would show us we were going too fast: This is a reset. Let’s not go back to normal. We need to change and be better.
The themes for me were back to basics: Everybody was making fucking sourdough starter, we were going on walks and reconnecting, and there were birthday parades — these little moments. We did a birthday parade for one of my daughters, then one of my friend’s daughters. Those moments where you came up on the line and handed a present to somebody through the window and were able to see them — the connection was so profoundly moving. That’s always been a part of the show. I guess I just doubled down on it.
On capturing the organic nature of people relating to each other
The guy on the Mattachine Steps [in episode five] is a perfect example. Sam’s tackling the steps, and she sees this man crying. She doesn’t know what to do, so she just sits with him. Then, after Sam says, “This is a monument to gayness. It’s like the Stonewall of L.A.,” an entitled woman walks through like, “Excuse me.” And they just burst into laughter
That, for me, is addressing the pandemic. Lennon Parham plays the receptionist at my doctor’s office: She’s entitled, and she’s got all this power and makes people feel shitty. When you go to a doctor, you’re at your most vulnerable. There’s usually one person at the desk who’s got all the power, and they make you feel really bad. Those are my little gestures to the time we’ve been living in: People being really poorly behaved and so narcissistic that they don’t care about the consequences of their actions. Through Sam’s eyes, we’re seeing how this ugliness lives in the world. If you can laugh at it, it makes it less awful.
