Critic Reviews
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88
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
78(94%)
mixed
4(5%)
negative
1(1%)
Showing 83 Critic Reviews
Sep 2, 2016
100
Atlanta and Better Things take C.K.’s refinements to a new level, merge them with worldviews that you rarely see represented on TV, and tell their stories with such economy and grace that you might feel as if a new language were being worked out before your eyes.
Sep 7, 2016
100
Better Things is one of the messiest portrayals of motherhood on television today--which pretty much makes it the most real.
Sep 8, 2016
100
Better Things is really about relationships between mothers and daughters, poignant and frustrating and human and hilarious. At telling that story, it's the best.
Sep 11, 2017
100
I didn't think Better Things could get any better. It's thrilling to be wrong. [15 Sep 2017, p.66]
Sep 12, 2017
100
Better Things makes its own leap by getting smaller, more intimate, and more focused. ... This was a great show in that first year. It’s even greater now.
Sep 12, 2017
100
With an exclamation point so readily evident in season two, Better Things has become one of TV's most exceptional series.
Sep 13, 2017
100
In Better Things, he [Louis C.K] and Adlon are able to transcend such concerns and tell fresh stories from a fresh angle for an audaciously intelligent take on responsibility, independence, and uncensored love.
Sep 13, 2017
100
The masterstroke of Better Things is that it ignores 98% of what mainstream television has told us about how families operate and how grown women relate to the world. It is simply truthful about the ambiguous burdens of adulthood, about feeling love, exhaustion and sometimes volcanic anger for the people you can’t live without. By eschewing false sentiment and embracing uncertainty and moments of unexpected empathy, it ends up being deeply affecting.
Sep 14, 2017
100
This is a huge leap forward for a show that was already quite strong. ... Adlon comes as close to a pure auteur as TV gets. That her story is one imbued with both sadness and light makes Better Things one of television's very best shows—in any genre.
Sep 14, 2017
100
Its ability to take a more wrenching look at womanhood made it one of the best and most distinctive shows of 2016. The second season, which debuts on FX Thursday, is somehow even better.
