The entire exchange feels stunningly realistic, since the comedy doesn't fill the tense conversation with jokes. Instead, it's the actual child-parent shady aggression we've all seen in our living rooms during high school. This is why the scene when Sam returns to her home is one of the most moving moments on TV in 2017. When Sam gets back to the Fox abode, her friends Phyllis (Celia Imrie) and Rich (American Housewife’s Diedrich Bader) have turned the space into Sam’s dream funeral. Then, a tearful Max and Frankie read their honest eulogies to their mother. The tears weren’t fake, Madison confirmed to Refinery29 on a recent phone call. “Pamela, Hannah, and I, we were completely inconsolable the entire time,” the actress explains, adding the process made her think about her own mother. “I was crying the whole time. So, there were takes where I’m sobbing and takes where it’s more stoic. They used one where [it] was a more gradual descent into the tears.”