The second season of the Freeform series Single Drunk Female sees Samantha Fink (Sofia Black-D’Elia) maintaining her sobriety, a year and a half into her journey and more clear-headed than ever. While learning to live with the awkwardness of her discomfort instead of trying to drink it away, Sam is starting to prioritize healthy choices, even if that means angering her mother (Ally Sheedy) who is struggling to give her the benefit of the doubt.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Black-D’Elia talked about turning an unlikeable character into someone she’s now proud of, being excited by the idea of exploring Sam’s success, how we each have our own defense mechanisms for living in discomfort, the importance of the relationships at the heart of this show, the tricky mother-daughter dynamic, adding Busy Philipps to the mix, and what she’d be excited to see in a possible third season.

Collider: This is such an interesting show because, at its start, your character’s self-destructive streak made her a bit unlikable, or at least someone that other people didn’t really want to have around. But since then, it’s gone a bit in reverse and she’s become quite likable I know it’s a silly question since she’s not a real person, but how are you most proud of her, for the journey that she’s taken? How do you feel about how far she’s come, just in these two seasons?

SOFIA BLACK-D’ELIA: I’m really proud of her because, even though progress is slow, she is finally taking responsibility for at least some of her actions. The drinking was just the surface level problem. Beneath that was a person who liked to blame everybody else for everything that went wrong in her life. In this second season, we really get to see Sam own up to her side of the street. I’m proud of that and her, if she were real.

She definitely has more of self-awareness now that she didn’t have before. Do you think that was always in her before the drinking, or is this part of her discovering who she is now?

BLACK-D’ELIA: It’s probably a little bit of everything. She’s growing up. We start the season with her 29th birthday, I think. She’s got a real job, for the first time in her life. She’s working a program. All of those things have to get taken into account, when someone is finally able to look at themselves.

When you do a show with a high concept or some sort of mythology to it, it actually seems like you’d be more constrained because you have to follow certain rules when you’re telling a story. WIth a show like this, that’s about characters and relationships, it actually feels wide open and the possibilities seem endless because you could take the characters anywhere. Were you part of the conversations between Season 1 and Season 2, as far as where things could go next with your character? Did you have any idea what the arc would be, going into this season?

BLACK-D’ELIA: I had a general sense. I think it was John Riggi, one of our amazing executive producers, that Sam start in this amazing place this season. It’s really the complete opposite of where we meet her in Season 1. What happens when everything is really going well and she finds success was really interesting to me. I knew that’s where we’d be started from, and I was really excited about that idea.

As part of her sobriety, she’s having to learn to embrace discomfort because you can’t really run from discomfort. How well is she doing that? Can you relate to that aspect of her? Are you someone who personally can embrace life in moments of discomfort or awkwardness, or is that something that you’ve tried to embrace since playing her?

BLACK-D’ELIA: That’s such a funny question. I don’t know anyone that is really good at living in discomfort, personally. I would love to know who they are, other than people that meditate a lot. Even them, I don’t buy it. We all have different defense mechanisms for that. Like you said, at one point in her life, drinking was the defense mechanism. Now, she’s running out of ideas and options. That’s what this second season is really about. When you can’t go to your old tricks, what happens then? That’s where the higher power comes into play and this very sincere idea of something bigger than yourself.

When we meet her in Season 1, pretty much every relationship in her life was rocky. Since then, she’s really formed a pretty cool group of people that are there for her and that she is also there for. What have you most enjoyed about getting to explore all of those relationships in her life, from her family, to her sponsor, to her friends, to trying to find romance again?

BLACK-D’ELIA: The show is those relationships. Like you said, it doesn’t have the parameters of something else or some other genre. Those relationships are the heart of the show, and it’s the most fun thing to work on. Obviously, my relationship with Ally [Sheedy], who plays Carol, is just the most fulfilling aspect of the gig for me. We got to really go to some weird places together this season, especially in the flashback episode where we go back to dad’s Shiva. That was a really amazing, emotional, wild week. I love those moments in the show when we go back in time and see a little bit behind the curtain of these dynamics that we’ve gotten to know so well.

Was that something that you knew you’d always get to revisit, at some point, or did it surprise you that you got to go there and dig into that through a flashback?

BLACK-D’ELIA: I’m trying to remember when I first heard that idea floated, but I do think it was pretty early on, and I was always intimidated by that idea, for obvious reasons. It’s a really heavy thing to explore in a half-hour comedy, but I was also really excited by it. I was just so enamored with the script that John Riggi wrote for that episode, and I just couldn’t believe that I got to be a part of it. I just thought that he really knocked it out of the park.

The relationship between Sam and Carol is at such an interesting place this season, with Carol having trouble seeing her daughter as anything other than the drunk that messes up. How hard is that for Sam, who’s putting in all the work now and making an actual effort, but her mother can’t seem to really acknowledge that?

BLACK-D’ELIA: It’s tricky. Addicts or not, we tend to think that, once we have realized there’s a problem and apologize for it, all should be well and good, but that’s not always true for the people that you hurt, especially if you’ve been hurting them for really a long time without taking any accountability. So, I understand both perspectives in that relationship, which is why it’s my favorite of the series. From Sam’s perspective, she really is doing the best that she can, and I think a little would go a long way, in terms of Carol being proud of her, or having empathy for her, or going to a meeting, or anything like that. And then, from Carol’s perspective, this girl suddenly decides that she’s gonna get her shit together and wants the relationship to be the perfect mother-daughter relationship, which doesn’t exist anyway, by the way. So, I understand both sides of that coin.

I absolutely love the friendship between Sam and Felicia on the show. Felicia just seems so vibrant and larger than life while Sam very much seems like she would prefer not to ever have to define her feelings. What has that been like to find with Lily Mae Harrington?

BLACK-D’ELIA: It’s so joyful. Lily is just pure magic. She brings so much life and so much vibrancy to that character. She has so much more confidence in herself than anyone else on the show, which is really fun to play off of. Sam is in a constant state of self-deprecation, and that’s a very strange concept to Felicia. So, I really like the juxtaposition of that with those two gals, and I just adore working with Lily so much. What people probably feel is that we just genuinely really like working together and we make each other laugh.

What was it like to add Brit into the mix with them this season, with Sasha Compère turn it into more of a trio?

BLACK-D’ELIA: It was really fun because Sasha is so great and so talented. It’s these three very different personalities coming together, and we just had such a blast. The issue is that the three of us really make each other laugh too much, and so we sometimes get in trouble. But it was a really great time, having the three of us in so much together this season.

Do you guys get room to improvise and find some of that, or is it all very scripted?

BLACK-D’ELIA: It always depends on the episode and the scene, and what we’re trying to get in that day, but there’s always room. Everyone’s been very gracious with us. Especially if it’s [Jon] Glazer and I, we’re gonna go off. There are certain people that really take to that, and I love to go off the rails with them, but it’s always very dependent on the scene.

Busy Philipps has joined this season and her character is someone who seems to really understand Sam and her struggles, but also doesn’t want to get too involved. She seems to want to have Sam make her own decisions and find her own path. What was it like to add her to the later portion of this season? When someone new like that comes in, do they immediately find their groove in the show, or is there a bit of an adjustment period?

BLACK-D’ELIA: Busy was such a shot of adrenaline for us. At that point in the season, we would drag our feet a little bit. That’s when we’re all getting a little tired. But Busy just has the brightest, loveliest energy, and she was so down to clown. I love that character, and she’s just such a charming actress. She did fit right in, especially because, like you said, she’s very different than what Sam is used to in a sponsor. She has real grand sponsor energy. She’s not interested in the minute detail of the day-to-day. She’s ready for Sam to step up, and she has a little bit less patience. There was room for her to be a very different kind of character in the dynamic, and we needed that, big time. She’s not gonna hold Sam’s hand.

Have you been a part of conversations about a possible Season 3? Do you have any idea what the next step could be for Sam?

BLACK-D’ELIA: That’s above my pay grade, unfortunately.

Do you have your own list of things that you would like to see and explore with her, or are you at a point where you feel safe in trusting the creative team and what they give you?

BLACK-D’ELIA: Oh, I always trust them. This season, especially, we really found a groove, tonally and with the greater cast. It feels more like an ensemble this season. And so, I’m excited, not just for Sam, if we got to go again, but for everybody because I think all of those dynamics have come to a really interesting point, by the end of the second season.

Single Drunk Female airs on Wednesday nights on Freeform and is available to stream at Hulu.