Pamela Adlon's new FX show, Better Things, tells a mother-daughter story you haven't really seen on television before. The series follows a single mom, Sam Fox (Adlon), who is raising three daughters—and the very real struggle that comes when you're trying to juggle it all: complicated mother-daughter relationships, being a single parent, trying to have a romantic life, and trying to provide for your family.
We've seen shows about divorce and we've seen shows about families, but we haven't really seen a story that's quite as real and complicated as Sam's.
"I think my show is not really about being divorced. My show is about this mom raising these girls and we really don't talk about that aspect. We touch on it here and there, but the important thing is that story," she told E! News when discussing Better Things at FX's Television Critics Association summer press day.
The female-centric point of view is even obvious in the hashtags she chose to describe the series: #singlemommies, #daughters, and #alltheladies. Just don't ask her to describe Better Things with emojis. "I don't know what an emoji even is! What is it? It's the annoying things in my phone that people send? …I wouldn't use any emojis."
Watch the video above for more on Better Things, plus Adlon's thoughts on working with frequent collaborator Louis C.K. ("The best part about working with him is that creatively, we are each other's muses and sounding boards and we always have been since we did Lucky Louie together.").
Better Things premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on FX.