FX has dropped the official trailer for Season 4 of Baskets. The opener shows Chip (Zach Galifianakis) struggling to marry his career dream of being a clown with the reality that in today’s world, clowns are demonized a bit.
“The kids are not laughing at clowns anymore, they’re scared of them,” he says in the season trailer.
One of the best TV mothers on the small screen is played by a man — Louie Anderson is cast as Christine Baskets, mom to Zach’s twin characters Chip and Dale…and the busy bees, the adopted DJ twins too.
In a weird way, she is Martha’s (Martha Kelly) ersatz mother in the advice-giving department.
The on-paper premise of Baskets is daft. But in the hands of all these creative geniuses, it soars as a warm story about family and love, and acceptance.
The hub of this wheel is Anderson, whose Christine Baskets has become one of his life’s most beloved and memorable roles. We all love her, and the series soars with his emotionally accessible and familiar performance.
Minnesota-native Anderson naturally is a plain-spoken, warm and funny person, and completely in touch with his emotional life, making for an incredible turn as the matriarch of a family in various levels of crises.
Baskets producers Zach Galifianakis and Jonathan Krisel were wise to cast Louie in this role, as he has channeled his own beloved mother, taking a chance on this comic whose career and published memoirs are rich with stories about his relatives, especially the women in his large Scandinavian-American family from the Midwest.
Louie’s character Christine is masterful at the subtle and not-so-subtle tells and moments that define a mother who just loves her kids too much at times and forgets she needs to care for herself too. This award-winning role of Christine in one of FX Network’s greatest TV achievements and weekly gifts to viewers.
In the preview, you can see Christine is back in action trying to get her sons on the right path and preserve her own relationship with Ken and continue to advise Martha on life. Chip is moving on out from Christine’s maternal embrace and adopting a life coach, much to Christine’s chagrin.
“Are you in a cult?” she asks in the clip.
The great lines keep coming as Christine tosses off a hoot of a line explaining their ethnic heritage to her granddaughter, who is making notes for a school project.
She says: “[We are] Scotch-Irish, honey. It’s heavy on the scotch. That’s a drinking joke. Don’t put that in there.”
Make sure to check out TV’s best mother ever coming soon:
Baskets returns Thursday, June 13, at 10/9c on FX.