Tim Bagley had no idea what St. Louis sushi was before he joined “Somebody Somewhere.” The oddball appetizer — pickle slathered in cream cheese and wrapped in ham — is his character Brad Schraeder’s signature dish and one of the first ways the show’s star duo Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller) get to know him. The other comes before they taste it, at a voice recital where Brad inelegantly blasts through a recitation of Francesco Durante’s solfeggio “Danza danza fanciulla gentile."

As for Brad’s culinary coup, “The day that we shot that scene, I googled it and saw that it was a real thing, and it looked horrible to me, and it is,” he said.

But he also understands why something like that would make sense on a post-recital reception table in Manhattan, KS. “A lot of times in the Midwest they'll have food like that that’s just gross. And I grew up on that food, so I say that lovingly.”

“Anyway,” Bagley added, “I've never had it before or since. And that was really fun the way that they introduced my character: I'm responsible for giving them both explosive diarrhea. And how could that possibly work out in any way for anybody to be friends with me?”

If you love TV, especially comforting TV, Bagley is anything but a stranger. Long before he joined “Somebody Somewhere,” he appeared in classics such as “Coach,” “Wings” and “Seinfeld,” and had a recurring part in “Will & Grace” before stealing the show out from under Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda whenever he appeared on “Grace and Frankie.”

“Somebody Somewhere” and Brad are closer in temperament to who he truly is than the many gigantic personas he’s played in other shows. Brad is a gentle, prayerful man who wins Joel’s heart and ours by extension.

"The things that people love usually are just horrible people behaving badly, and this is a very sweet, gentle, kind show that's all about possibilities and hope."

In the tender comedy’s third and final season, which premiered Sunday night, Joel and Brad have joined their lives and homes, creating some of the sweeter season premiere scenes in which they have barely-there conflicts over how to arrange their kitchen items. Elsewhere, Sam’s sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison) relaunches her life as a divorced, successful entrepreneur whose curse word throw pillows are an Etsy hit.

This inadvertently leaves Sam, who’s still grieving their sister’s death, alone to figure out how to move forward in life, and the first glimpse of her navigating this unexpected bout of loneliness is heartbreaking.

But “Somebody Somewhere” frames this grief as part of being alive, something Bagley appreciates. “This show is very hopeful about humanity and people, and it deals a lot with kindness.” This makes it unusual........

© Salon