Chloë Sevigny Is TV’s Best Bad Mom

Chloë Sevigny is a flawless actress. That’s an objective fact we can all agree on. She’s a master at humanizing characters who are typically seen as monsters. But there’s one villain in particular this indie queen has been embracing lately. As Russian Doll and The Act have proven, Sevigny can play the hell out of a bad mom.

Two of the most buzzed about new dramas of 2019 have revolved around complicated relationships with mothers, both played by Sevigny. Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler, and Leslye Headland’s Russian Doll is essentially one long hipster Groundhog Day nightmare that ends in a parent-focused therapy session. The eight-part series follows Nadia (Lyonne), a young woman who’s stuck in a time loop on her birthday that she can’t seem to break. At least she can’t in her repeating present. It’s only when she confronts her relationship with her late emotionally distant and mentally unstable mother Lenora (Sevigny) that she’s able to find peace.

The Act is even more pointedly about bad moms. In fact, that’s about all it’s about. Based on a true story, the Hulu original tells a fictionalized version of the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard (Patricia Arquette), a woman who was murdered by her daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard (Joey King) after abusing her for years. Dee Dee is undoubtably the manipulative villain in this horrifying tale of abuse, but she’s far from the only questionable parental figure. In the series Sevigny plays Mel, the Blanchards’ strict neighbor who has a daughter of her own and absolutely no patience for any nonsense.

The way Sevigny plays both Lenora and Mel is jagged. Lenora swoops through life, snapping at her young frizzy-haired daughter and taking everything in sight for herself. She’s an unapologetically selfish and disturbed woman, someone who smashes all of the pictures in her house in a fit of rage despite the hazard it poses to her young child. Mel is certainly less of a threat to her children, but she’s still not great. She snaps at her daughter Lacey (AnnaSophia Robb) for spending time with the seemingly ill Gypsy Rose and is openly hostile about Lacey’s life choices. Mel is never someone who would have child services called on her, but she’s definitely worth a few therapy sessions.

The mentally ill caretaker, the too-severe mom — these are characters who have be portrayed as unredeemable antagonists in less capable hands. Yet Sevigny never takes that direction. Thanks to her Lenora isn’t just a woman who traumatized her daughter to the point that a family friend felt compelled to intervene. She’s a struggling wreck. As Nadia slowly comes to understand, her mother loved her and wanted to be better but her inner demons wouldn’t allow it. She’s another victim of this story in her own complicated way.

Likewise Mel’s hostility isn’t born out of malice. It stems from exhaustion and the callouses that come from self-preservation. Mel is a single working mom who spends what little free time she has trying to rest. She’s not harsh to Lacey or even the Blanchards because she’s cruel. That’s proven by her claims that she helped build the family’s Habitat for Humanity house. She just has little time for niceties and she wants to make sure her daughter doesn’t make the same mistakes that she did. Her aggression may be misplaced,  but it’s always understandable.

Both Russian Doll and The Act are crazy shows in their own right, one of which takes its viewers on roller coaster of resets and another that paints a campy tale of one elaborate scam. But in the midst of these complicated stories it’s Sevigny and her unrelenting humanity and shines through. Truly, she’s the bad mom we deserve.

Watch The Act on Hulu

Watch Russian Doll on Netflix