Season 5 Last Episode

[Jason]

Its extremely difficult for me to land on a favorite episode of FX's Better Things, co-creator and star Pamela Adlon's semi-autobiographical dramedy about Sam Fox, a single mom and working actress living in L.A. Over five seasons, it never failed to make me feel something, anything, during the course of an episode: mirth, empathy, embarrassment, sadness, introspection, catharsis, hope, a glass cage of emotion.

But one of the wonderful things about Better Things is that it's always been keenly interested in showing how life unfolds in cycles, and in confronting the ends of things even when they're scary or sad. And the episode I've kept coming back to while reveling in the excellent final season (and mourning its departure) is "Eulogy," from Season 2. The first half focuses on watching Sam at work in two different settings, as an acting coach, and then as a performer in a car commercial. In these environments, we understand how seriously she treats her craft, pushing her students with a blunt but encouraging sensibility, and gamely trying out various ways she can say her one line in that ad, in take after take.

These vignettes are setup for the meat of the episode, which takes place one evening when she's lounging in front of the TV with her three children, Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Riley), and Duke (Olivia Edward), and family friends Rich (Diedrich Bader) and Tressa (Rebecca Metz). While flipping channels, they catch a glimpse of one of the fruits of Sam's acting gigs, but Max and Frankie are completely disinterested in going back to watch it, much to the others' disappointment. "What, do you want me to go back so we can watch your thing?" Max, who's holding the remote, says dismissively. Frankie joins in on the sass, and Sam becomes upset.

When Sam returns sometime later, the living room has been turned into a memorial of sorts, with candles everywhere and a bed of pillows in the center of the room. They've surprised her with a "funeral," and she and Duke lay on the bed as everyone else takes turns eulogizing her. (The scenario they've concocted for their demise: a car accident, while en route to pick up Frankie.)

For a show awash with moving and heartfelt moments, this one is way up there. Max and Frankie's remembrances are loving yet honest and true to their personalities. "I was always proud of her and never told her," Frankie admits; "I never cared about what she did because she was mom ... I don't like that she's famous ... she's my mother!" Max indignantly pronounces. The whole thing is morbid yet warm, just one example of how the various identities and generations within the Fox family butt up against one another, but always manage to come together on their own terms, eventually.

"Eulogy" and other episodes from throughout the show's run reverberate intensely as transition and death become even more pronounced themes throughout Season 5: Sam and her brother Marion (Kevin Pollak) clash over finances and what to do about their aging mother Phil (Celia Imrie); Sam and Frankie tour the Hollywood Forever cemetery and discuss Frankie's nonbinary identity; the Foxes attend a Zoom funeral for a family member; Duke, now fully in that horrible phase of life known as tweendom, wrestles with not "feel[ing] connected to anything."

One scene in particular feels like a direct callback to "Eulogy." In "Family Meeting," Sam is bombarded by Max, who comes home extremely inebriated after a night hanging out with her friends. Max crawls onto Sam's bed rattling off nonsensical ramblings, and embraces her puzzled mom, rubbing her hands all over Sam's head. Suddenly, Max grabs Sam's face intensely, and blurts, "Mom! I love you SO MUCH! ... Listen to me, I would DIE if you died, mom, I would KILL MYSELF!"

This exchange says so much about the evolution of their relationship, which has at times been challenging and hostile; Max displays a knack for spewing cutting words at her mom when she's angry, especially with regards to her absentee, deadbeat dad. But the energy has shifted now. This season Max has had an abortion, and can't bring herself to tell Sam; she's asked Rich, who accompanied her to the procedure, to tell her instead, and it's in this episode that Sam finally learns the truth. When Max barges in on Sam, she doesn't know her mom knows yet, but it's clear the abortion has marked a change in her, and a newfound appreciation for everything she does. Max may be drunk, but she's speaking from her most unfiltered state.

Season 5 is lush with testimonials like this, of the people in Sam's orbit taking the time to tell her how much she's meant to them. In a lesser show, the pronouncements would be gooey and corny, but these bonds have been forged since day one. And the proximity to mortality and finality undercuts the sweetness beautifully.

In the very last episode, there's a montage that cross-cuts between Sam, putting up a for sale sign outside her mother's home, and Max, taking an art class where a short film is shown. In the film, directed by Kira Dane and Katelyn Rebelo, a woman's voice explains how in Japanese Buddhism, "life is described like water": "something that's poured in and out of our bodies, like moving from one container to the other." You start pouring into the world gradually at conception, and are fully poured in by seven years old. By the time a person reaches 60, "you've already started the slow process of pouring back out. So: there's no single moment, where you start or stop being alive."

That feels like the mission statement of Better Things: this idea of pouring one's self into the world, of being fully present, of feeling all the feels. It's been palpable from the very first episode and through to "Eulogy" and these last episodes. As much as the show invokes death, it's always in the service of promoting the small joys of just existing and living. For Sam, it's absolutely crucial to tell, and show, the important ones in your life how much they mean to you, whenever you can. Such things cannot wait until after it's too late and they've gone.

And so, though saying goodbye to this celebration of life and all its messiness makes me a little sad, there is a bright side. There have been five great seasons of this show filled with characters who laughed, danced, cursed, fought, gave each other advice, delivered harsh truths, and most of all, loved each other fiercely, in deeply relatable ways. During its run, there was no single moment when Better Things started or stopped being alive.

A season finale (British English: series finale; Australian English: season final) is the final episode of a season of a television program. This is often the final episode to be produced for a few months or longer, and, as such, will attempt to attract viewers to continue watching when the series begins again.

A season finale may contain a cliffhanger ending to be resolved in the next season. Alternatively, a season finale could bring storylines to a close, "going out on a high" and similarly maintaining interest in the series' eventual return.

In the 2000s, the terms "mid-season finale," "fall finale," or "winter finale" began being used by television broadcasters in the United States to denote the last episode before a mid-season hiatus, often for the holiday season. As with a season finale, a mid-season finale can include a major plot development, or a cliffhanger ending that will be resolved when the series returns. Winter/Fall finales are often used by networks to draw attention and encourage viewership of such episodes as event television, especially if they fall during the November sweeps period. The practice has faced criticism for affecting the structure and narrative of broadcast television programs, as writers may be coerced by broadcasters into placing cliffhangers and plot developments in midseason episodes, rather than allow a plot to build up to a traditional season finale.[1][2]

The final episode of a television series often concludes the entire premise of the show, wrapping up any loose ends and storylines. On occasion, the season finale has become the series finale due to cancellation of the series, sometimes unexpectedly so, leaving plot points unresolved.

In American English, the term has evolved to describe the final event of a sporting season, e.g. in soccer[3] or motocross,[4] perhaps partly because of the popularity of these with television viewers.

I think I would be more forgiving of this Gorn arc (and of the various character arcs in general) if this had been the end of a 20-episode season. As much as I like the slow serialisation in Strange New Worlds, would it kill them to finish a plot arc within one season?

As a Game of Thrones fan who does anything and everything in her power to avoid all book spoilers so the show can have the most dramatic impact, I somehow managed to make it to the season five finale, "Mother's Mercy," without getting spoiled on the big death. That's right, despite the fact that Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is left stabbed and bleeding to death in George R. R. Martin's last novel, A Dance With Dragons, and photos from the death scene in the finale leaked days before the episode aired, I remained in blissful ignorance.

If you had asked me before I sat down to watch the finale to pick one character who would be absolutely, 100 percent safe from death on this show, I would have said Jon Snow. I knew that Game of Thrones loves to kill off beloved characters (cough, Robb, Oberyn, Ygritte, Khal...) but if there was one person who was so central and important to the franchise, it was Jon. They'd never kill him. Not a chance in the world.

But Stannis presses on and marches his dwindling army towards Winterfell. His timing couldn't be better, as Sansa escapes from her room to finally light a candle in the tower to call for help. When Brienne and Pod see Stannis' army approaching Winterfell, Brienne leaves the spot she's been in for weeks a mere second before Sansa can light her candle, and that missed connection has to be one of the biggest teases this show has ever done.

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