Zach Galifianakis’s FX show Baskets premieres its third season tonight, continuing to be one of the most interesting shows on television. Baskets is a strange hybrid of incredibly dark, yet hilarious comedy that at one moment can be so heartbreaking it brings tears to your eyes, and the next turn on a dime and make you laugh until you cry. There’s a humanity, as well as a desperation for acceptance interwoven in all of the performances and storylines. These characters aren’t just around to be made fun of, and sure, they are the butt of repeated jokes, but it’s the cosmic joke of a life that hasn’t turned out how you planned that’s at the heart of nearly every character on Baskets.

Christine Baskets, played so marvelously against gender and with such incredible range by Louie Anderson that it garnered him an Emmy, has always yearned for a normal, loving family. But the Basket family is anything but normal, even though Christine repeatedly attempts to bring both sets of her twin children together as a family. The untimely death, or possible suicide, of Christine’s husband left a hole in the family that she desperately tries to fill. Her adopted sons, Cody and Logan, are successful DJ’s who are too busy to find time to spend with their mother, and even if they do, they’re so distracted by their careers that it’s like they aren’t even there. Christine’s biological sons Chip and Dale (both played by Galifianakis) are both down on their luck. So much so, that they both end up moving in with her. Chip, who went to a French clown school, and Dale, who started his own continuing education college before being fired by the board of trustees, are so different that they’re constantly butting heads. One of the greatest episodes of last season featured one of Chip and Dale’s arguments escalating to the point of physical violence, leaving Christine’s house completely destroyed. It’s important to Christine to heal her family. She has no idea how to do it, which is why her repeated attempts to normalize her family’s relationship constantly backfires.

The familial ideal Christine holds up on a pedestal is that of her boyfriend Ken. He and his daughters run a family carpet business in Denver. Seeing how close he and his daughters are touches Christine’s heart and gives her hope. Her biggest desire is for her family to be happy, and she feels the best way to attain this is to find a way to work to all of their strengths, within a family business. The fear she won’t be good at, or enjoy, whatever line of business the Baskets family goes into weighs on her. For Ken it wasn’t important what his business was. He didn’t care about carpets before they started, he just wanted a family business and eventually learned to love what they were selling. The seed of desire for something similar in Christine’s life was planted in the middle of the second season. Purchasing the Rodeo was an attempt to allow Chip to live out his creative ambitions, while at the same time allowing Dale to help run the business. She cares more about their happiness than she does her own, which is why she decides to buy and run the Baskets Family Rodeo instead of taking Ken’s offer to move to Denver so he can take care of her.

Though her hearts in the right place, there’s still the mystery of whether or not the family rodeo will amount to anything. At the beginning of the third season, Christine is enthusiastically all in, but everything isn’t smooth sailing. Chip and Dale working so closely together is a recipe for disaster, and the possibility of self-destructive violence. Chip knows the ins and outs of the rodeo, as well as the difficulty in running a business like this, but Dale is so headstrong he believes he knows best, even when he knows nothing at all. Dale’s need to be taken seriously and be the boss, even when unwilling to learn, backfires with the cowhands. His hubris leads him to make a horrible purchase that threatens to send the rodeo into immediate jeopardy. Though Chip is wary of his mother’s motives for buying the rodeo, he loves her and knows how important this is to her. It’s why he tracks down Eddie to help get the Basket Family Rodeo up and running on solid footing.

Whether or not the rodeo is a success or a colossal failure is up in the air, and will be the focus of the third season. The growing pains of a new business is bound to be the source of a lot of amusement and humor, which Baskets will surely mine to its advantage. This season continues to take the sit-com genre to new emotional heights, both able to break your heart, and tickle your funny bone.

Baskets airs Tuesday nights at 10pm on FX.