Growing up motherless and under the cruel eye of his alcoholic, emotionally distant father, Tiller Loomis seems destined for a hardscrabble life. The one ray of light is his older brother, Smith, who salvages what otherwise might have been a brutal childhood. But when Smith is drafted into the Vietnam War, Tiller’s world collapses. He stumbles into a children’s puppet show at his church and ultimately finds purpose and joy through puppetry. Chasing his dream of puppeteering full time, Tiller lands in the bohemian hothouse of 1977 New York City, where experimental artists and misfit idealists are using puppets to try to reach teens with a message of hope on a PBS show called “Imagine Nation.” In the cast, Tiller finds a chosen family of dreamers and creators who will change his life forever.

Colton Gentry’s first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly. Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter at his town’s new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at life: a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention.