The Season 3 premiere of “Better Things” is about nothing, and it’s about everything.

Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon), a mid-list actress who lives in Los Angeles, tries to squeeze into some old clothes she’s outgrown. She takes her oldest daughter, Max (Mikey Madison), off to start college in Chicago. She has a scary flight back. She arrives home at night, discovers that her mother, Phyllis (Celia Imrie), has had a fender-bender, and ends up, exhausted, helping her stressed-out daughter Frankie (Hannah Alligood), with her homework.

There is nothing like a traditional plot arc in the episode, nor is there in most episodes of “Better Things.” And yet, as the confident new season unfolds starting Thursday on FX, you see the number of themes the premiere has casually established: aging, growing up, freedom, dependence, mortality, responsibility, the flowering and wilting of life, all at the same time.

That’s all — just human existence, the labor of love. And there is nothing on TV today that represents it better or more gorgeously.

Sam’s college trip with Max, for instance, nails the tension of parenting between the desire to hover over your kids and to push them away. Sam takes Max to a bar and urges her to seize her new life, but when Max leaves her to go out with some friends, Sam calls her back: “Wait! I want my big, life, ‘This Is Us’ milestone-moment goodbye hug!”