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United States of Tara: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
[[File:united-states-of-tara-season-3_8744.jpg|frame|[[Battle in
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* [[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 {{spoiler|fit of rage beats the hell out of the contractor who didn't show up to fix up the new house he bought. [[Crosses the Line Twice|On his kid's birthday]]}}.
* [[Battle in
** More straightforward [[Battle in
* [[Club Kid]]: Lionel likes parties, drugs, and anonymous sex.
* [[Country Matters]]: Tara gets into trouble for this.
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* [[Freudian Excuse]]: A rather heartbreaking one: {{spoiler|Tara was sexually abused year nine at her boarding school. To make matters worse, it's revealed that her being raped ''wasn't'' the trauma that caused her to dissociate, since T was already active}}.
** It's revealed in the season 2 finale that {{spoiler|when Tara was five-years-old, her and Charmaine's parents took in her father's son from a previous marriage, who was "troubled" and was implied to have repeatedly sexually abused her. Tara and Charmaine were moved to a foster home for a while; the woman who took them in inspired one of Tara's alters, Alice}}.
* [[Ghost in
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Hey, it's Patton Oswalt and [[Dollhouse|he's dealing with people with multiple personalities]]! Also featuring [[Desperate Housewives|Alma Hodge]] as Tara's therapist and [[Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip|Tom Jeter]] as Kate's boss.
** Not to mention Tara's husband is [[Sex and
** In addition, [[Recess|Andy Lawrence]] of the [[Disney Channel|Lawrence brothers]] played Jason.
** [[Eddie Izzard]] is Tara's psychology professor.
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* [[I Call It Vera]]: Buck has a gun called Persephone.
* [["I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight]]: [[Tear Jerker|Excruciatingly]] subverted in "Crunchy Ice".
* [[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.
* [[Important Haircut]]: "Don't you know? Tara's {{spoiler|never coming back}}."
* [[Infant Immortality]]: {{spoiler|Averted. When Bryce starts violently killing the alters, sweet and innocent 5 year old Chicken is the first to be murdered.}}
* [[Informed Attribute]]: {{spoiler|While the flashbacks to Mimi clearly showed her as having Alice's exact personality, when Tara tracked her down in the present everyone was still reacting as if she was much more Alice-like than she appeared to be. While prim and proper, she was very much Alice-lite}}.
* [[Jerkass]]: 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
* [[Kirk Summation]]: 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.
** {{spoiler|Shoshanna}} for many of the main characters after her introduction, particularly Tara. She ''is'' a therapist after all.
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** "Crunchy Ice" is the darkest episode of the series, but of course its chock full of [[Black Comedy]]. It's even lampshaded by Marshall.
{{quote| '''Marshall''': It's laugh or cry time here at the musée d'arte. I choose laugh.}}
* [[Never Mess
{{quote| '''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.}}
** Also counts as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for her!
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* [[Papa Wolf]]: Buck will kick your ass if you mess with his loved ones. [[Unstoppable Rage|Ask Kate's ex-boyfriend]]. And like Alice, he is also defensive of Tara as seen in the season 1 finale when {{spoiler|he tried to jump one of the guys who raped Tara/T in high school}}.
* [[Romantic False Lead]]: Charmaine's new boyfriend, "Fake Uncle" Nick, is a Nice RFL with regards to the relationship between her and Neil, {{spoiler|until the wedding}}.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Tara has an {{spoiler|[[Ax Crazy]]}} [[Split Personality]] that {{spoiler|mimics a family member who she had an abusive relationship with. [[Psycho
* [[Slasher Smile]]: {{spoiler|This is how you know [[Ax Crazy|Bryce]] has come out to play}}.
* [[Soap Punishment]]: Alice, one of Tara's alters who is a 1950s housewife, invokes this trope after Kate gives her [[Ethical Slut]] 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).
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* [[Split Personality Takeover]]: 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 {{spoiler|Bryce's plan. He "killed" Chicken and asked to be taken to Tara so he can do the same to her. Later on he killed Shoshana and then Gimme. On "Crunchy Ice" he killed Buck, T. and Alice as well}}.
* [[Stalker
* [[Stepford Smiler]]: 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.
* [[Straight Gay]]: Marshall and Noah.
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** In "Wheels," during the {{spoiler|conference in Tara's mind T refers to Gimme by saying they should "drown the dog." Gimme responds by biting her, then barking}}.
* [[Wild Teen Party]]: 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.
* [[What Happened to
** 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''.
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