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With a master of divinity degree to his name, Wright sees writing as his true calling, serving up parables in the guise of guilty pleasures.

"We all come into the world thinking we want to be happy, and we think that means having all the things we want," he says. "But the truth is we don't really want to be happy. What we want is to be genuine."

So, while Wright allows audiences to observe the folly of how the other 10% lives -- blowing $1 million on a birthday party, for example -- he refuses to demonize the Darlings.

"One of the rules we follow is that the Darlings are privileged as characters, which is to say, every now and then we'll make a cheap joke about how they're oblivious and have all this money, but in general the ugliness is attributed to the outside world, the paparazzi, the tab-loids," he says.

Like the family's permissive patriarch, Wright indulges all his children. At the same time, with every episode, well-intentioned Nick George (Peter Krause) confronts the realization that he's growing a little too comfortable in the Darlings' employ.

As for all those skeletons in the family closet, Wright aims to have viewers care about the characters, rather than stringing them along with soapy twists (expect an answer to the murder of Nick's father early next season).

"My long-term vision for the show has always been 'The Divine Comedy,' " he says. "It starts out with a guy who says, 'I'm in the middle of my life, and I lost my way in a dark wood.' Just read 'The Divine Comedy' and you know how the show ends."

Best episode: "Episode 5," Wright says, "when the twins have their birthday party. I just feel like the balance of the sociology is proper in that episode: This massive overspending, all this glittery, fancy stuff, and running alongside that is the question of art, where Lisa buys these paintings."

Underrated character: "Juliet. I think the same people who call the show a guilty pleasure misread her role as though it's some sort of detestable Paris Hilton-type thing. They're not really listening. Samaire Armstrong so wonderfully gives voice to this flowery, hopeful girl."

Great line: Wright recalls one that comes after Nick donates $200,000 to charity. "Somebody says, ‘You have no idea how much this money is going to change this organization,' and he says, ‘Actually, I do, but I'm going to give it to you anyway.' That's really the show right there."