United States of Tara



Tara Gregson ([[Toni Collett]) is a mid-30s mother of two with [[Split Personality|Dissociative Identity Disorde]. After Tara [[No Medication for Me|takes a break from her med] to discover the cause, three of her alters resurface: Buck, a male alter who likes the firing range and claims to have lost his member in 'Nam; Alice, a 1950s housewife who claims to have attended Radcliffe at Harvard; and T, a pot-smoking, flirty teenager who likes maxing out Tara's credit cards..

United States of Tara is an American [[Dramed] that explores the effect DID can have on a family. That family in this case includes her husband, Max; her daughter, Kate, and son, Marshall, all three of whom have problems of their own. Max has more patience than Job, Kate's going through that awkward time known as the teenage years and Marshall has to deal with being an openly gay 14-year-old (and Buck being the manliest of men).

The series was created by [[Steven Spielber] and written by [[Diablo Cod]. It began running on [[Showtim] in January of 2009 and ran for three seasons.

"Kate: So the dogs are your and the bathtub is her--"
 * [[All Girls Want Bad Boy]: Kate's first shown boyfriend (Ben, I think) is a Goth and an abusive douchebag.
 * [[Arc Word]: Youwillnotwin.
 * [[Attractive Bent Gende]: Depending on the person, Buck. Depending on even stranger people,.
 * [[Ax Craz]:.
 * [[Bittersweet Endin]: The series finale "The Good Parts"..
 * [[Bury Your Gay]:.
 * [[Calling the Old Man Ou]:.
 * [[Camp Ga]: Lionel, the queen of the 'Gayble'.
 * [[Cannot Spit It Ou]: Tara to.
 * [[Cerebus Syndrom]:.
 * [[Character Developmen]: Everyone. The most obvious examples would be Kate and Charmaine's transformations over the series.
 * Closer to Earth: Gender Flipped. Max is "a member of that strange breed of TV husband that exhibits infinite patience", to quote the New Yorker. To be fair, though, Tara does have a pretty good justification for not always being level-headed.
 * Subverted as of Season 2. Max in a.
 * Club Kid: Lionel likes parties, drugs, and anonymous sex.
 * Conference in the Center of the Mind: When Tara declares the beginning of her "dictatorship" but makes arrangements with each of the alters.
 * More straightforward Battle in the Center of the Mind.
 * [[Country Matter]: Tara gets into trouble for this.
 * [[Darkest Hou]: The entirety of "Crunchy Ice".
 * [[Darker and Edgie]: Boy, [[Diablo Cod] is a lot darker than we originally thought.
 * [[Driven to Suicid]: The Gregsons' neighbor in the Season 2 premiere. Attempted by in "Crunchy Ice".
 * [[Effeminate Misogynistic Gu]: Lionel Trane was so misogynistic that he made other, more mature and secure gay characters uncomfortable.
 * [[Epunymous Titl]
 * [[Fille Fatal]: T has elements of this, what with her aggressively hitting on Max and later.
 * [[Freudian Excus]: A rather heartbreaking one:.
 * It's revealed in the Season 2 finale that.
 * [[Ghost in the Machin]: Probably not in the actual series proper, but the title sequence stylistically represents the three alters living in a house that turns into Tara's head. It won an Emmy.
 * [[I Call It Ver]: Buck has a gun called Persephone.
 * If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Despite the actual words never being said, since he was already hurting Kate, Buck and Marshall just decide to skip straight to making good on the threat.
 * [["I Know You're in There Somewhere" Figh]: [[Tear Jerker|Excruciatingl] subverted in "Crunchy Ice".
 * [[Important Haircu]: "Don't you know? Tara's ."
 * [[Infant Immortalit]:.
 * [[Informed Attribut]:.
 * [[Invisible to Gayda]: Marshall and Noah.
 * [[Jerkas]: For the first six and a half episodes, Charmaine was pretty consistently a massive bitch about her sister's mental illness. She gets better, thankfully.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Buck has his moments of sensitivity.
 * [[Kirk Summatio]: In the second episode, Alice rips Marshall's English teacher to shreds over his bad high school experiences. Needless to say, he reconsiders his treatment of Marshall.
 * for many of the main characters after her introduction, particularly Tara. She is a therapist after all.
 * Grandma Sandi has an epic, and unexpected, one for.
 * [[Knight of Cerebu]:.
 * Laughably Evil: Say what you want about, he's entertaining.
 * [[Mama Bea]: Alice with a whole heap of [[Tranquil Fur] and a side of [[Kirk Summatio]. Aside from her family Alice believes she's one for Tara herself because, in her words, Tara is weak.
 * Mood Whiplash: After Pammy the bartender Buck at the ice rink, Max  which left Tara alone and depressed. Then Kate picks up the thread of a conversation she and Marshall were having earlier, explaining.
 * Mood Whiplash: After Pammy the bartender Buck at the ice rink, Max  which left Tara alone and depressed. Then Kate picks up the thread of a conversation she and Marshall were having earlier, explaining.

"Marshall: It's laugh or cry time here at the musée d'arte. I choose laugh."
 * "Crunchy Ice" is the darkest episode of the series, but of course its chock full of [[Black Comed]. It's even lampshaded by Marshall.

"Grandma Sandi: Everything that's happened to your family, your kids, your husband, everything they are, everything they could've been but aren't, it's all your fault. And if you touch my tree, I'll break your fucking fingers."
 * [[Never Mess with Grann]: Despite the fact that she's a hoarding [[Cloudcuckoolande], [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Grandma Sandi'] got some bite. She was the only character who was ever able to effectively stand up to, giving an [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|amazin] [[Kirk Summatio] with a [[Precision F-Strik] thrown in for good measure.

"Tara: I'm dissolving the United States of Tara and declaring myself king."
 * Also counts as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesom] for her!
 * Occidental Otaku: Kate's first shown boyfriend is a Goth and, to be blunt, Wapanese.
 * Papa Wolf: Buck will kick your ass if you mess with his loved ones. Ask Kate's ex-boyfriend. And like Alice, he is also defensive of Tara as seen in the Season 1 finale when.
 * Romantic False Lead: Charmaine's new boyfriend, "Fake Uncle" Nick, is a Nice RFL with regards to the relationship between her and Neil,.
 * [[Shout-Ou]: Tara has an [[Split Personalit] that.
 * [[Slasher Smil]:.
 * [[Soap Punishmen]: Alice, one of Tara's alters who is a 1950s housewife, invokes this trope after Kate gives her [[Ethical Slu] rant. Alice follows through on the threat, driving Kate to get a job so she can move out (which becomes a major subplot for the next two seasons).
 * [[Split Personalit]: Of course!
 * [[Split Personality Merg]: As with [[Truth in Televisio], the ultimate goal of Tara's therapy is for her to integrate.
 * [[Split Personality Takeove]: Alice seems at times like she wants to do this, what with her "I'll be around all the time" speech to Marshall in the second episode and her deriding Tara for being weak in the season finale.
 * This also seems to be.
 * Stalker with a Crush: gets really creepy over Kate. As does Courtney over Marshall, though to a lesser degree.
 * [[Stepford Smile]: Alice. Trapped in an eternal Eisenhower era housewife personality, said to secretly get drunk off cooking wine and initially seems hellbent on staying in control of Tara's body. Though over time her own psychosis lessens as she learns to work with Tara.
 * Talking to Themself: In Season 1, Alice was the only one that was able to communicate with the other alters and claimed that she had no idea where Tara would go to when she took over the body; in Season 2, Tara was able to have an argument with Buck and have therapy with ; in Season 3, Tara is able to.
 * In Season 3, some alters.
 * [[The Three Faces of Ev]: Pretty solidly averted. T is a pretty easy fit into the Seductress, but that's complicated by her being the literal Child of the three. Alice seems to be the Mother, but she's also highly sexual while still being naïve enough to believe that Tara's IUD won't work because she doesn't "believe in them". Tara's just complicated, as people tend to be.
 * Tara's further complicate things.  is obviously the child so that clears that portion up, but it's hard to deny that T can fit in the archetype as well; T, Alice, and  have shades of the seductress but the latter two also have many traits of the mother.
 * Title Drop: In "Wheels".


 * The Twink: Lionel, and to an extent, Marshall.
 * [[Unexplained Recover]:.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?:.
 * Jason is mentioned a couple of times in the second season.
 * Also the case with T, who doesn't appear at all in the second season and is only talked about once.
 * Actually, she does appear in the penultimate episode of the second season, if only briefly..
 * Wild Child:.
 * In "Wheels", during the.
 * [[Wild Teen Part]: Marshall throws one with Kate's help when his parents are gone in the hopes that the boy he likes will come. Charmaine immediately thinks Kate is to blame.
 * Woman Scorned:.
 * You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!
 * You Keep Using That Word: "Multiple personalities is DID, and schizophrenia is hearing voices."

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