That being said, I also knew that I wanted to start with Mom—because we do leave her for a while. Once we crafted the whole season—this is a big Christine season and even though it is the “Chip Baskets Show,” it still heavily features the Baskets as a family. So we wanted to see where she was at. In her world, she controls everything, even her out of control family. On her wall are all the photos of her family, which don’t move around and are all perfectly in order. Christine can have control over her photo album, but in reality, everyone is falling apart. This season her goal is to bring her family to that happy, relaxed place that she can share with everybody. That’s why her relationship with Chip is so tough because he’s always screwing up.

Once Chip returns there is also plenty of new drama to unpack. There are decisions that Chip makes that have ramifications that are felt through the rest of the season. It causes him to realize that he’s made a mistake and that he needs to get his shit together. He gets involved with some people that are the furthest iteration of what he could become and it makes him realize what he doesn’t want to become his story.

It’s so interesting you say that because you definitely see Chip being so desperate for some sort of community and then when he gets it with those travelers, he realizes it’s actually the last thing that he wants. Did you think it was necessary to have Chip figure these things out with some makeshift family before returning home and working things out with his real one?

Yeah, exactly. When Chip finds this new family for himself, it of course has its own set of problems. Everything in life does. He clashes with this girl, Trinity, who is basically the Chip Baskets of the group before he comes along. She’s temperamental and not sure where she fits in as an artist. She has similar issues and she storms out of their group just like Chip storms out of his own family. It helps Chip gain perspective and put everything together. All families are difficult, so why set up shop with this one instead of his real one? It comes down to you in the end and how you can’t be hiding from yourself.

You mentioned Martha earlier and I think it’s kind of tragic that she’s the only one that’s worried about Chip during his disappearance at the start of the season. What do you think Chip’s grown to represent for her?