"United States of Tara": Guess Who isn't so Tough After All?

***WARNING*** This episode discusses important plot points from this week's United States of Tara.

So after last week's Adventures in Cruising with Lionel, this week finds poor Moosh as confused as ever about this crazy thing we call love.

Marsh's story this week begins and ends in sister Kate's bedroom which makes me realize just how desperate things are for our boy in suburban Kansas. How bad is it that he has to keep turning to sister Princess Valhalla Hawkwind for advice on life and love?

That's the sister currently making a living sitting on cakes for her internet fans and who, by the end of the episode, will be contemplating letting her new internet boyfriend buy her a place to live. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean everything she says is batsh*t crazy.

While Kate searches for the perfect little black dress, the topic of Lionel comes up and we learn that he and Marshall aren't currently speaking or something and that, in the words of Moosh, "I think that we decided we are totally two different kinds of people, with no shared interests or whatever."

Um, Marsh — that's what is known as heterosexual marriage. I'm just kidding, all you straight folks! (Okay, not really...)

Jump to Marshall in the kitchen cooking something up when Lionel wanders in who demonstrates his utter self involvement by telling Marshall:

I know you feel bad about deserting me at the park, Marshall, but it's totally okay.

Apparently Lionel is channeling Senator John McCain and is totally rewriting his own history, as it was Lionel who scampered off into the bushes with his trick thereby leaving newbie Marshall to fend for himself.

Fortunately, Marshall has enough backbone to tell Lionel he doesn't feel bad and had left the park "...before I became somebody's wife."

Lionel offers to give Marshall all the "deets" on the man-sex in which Lionel engaged in, but Moosh isn't interested. But that doesn't stop Lionel from describing the encounter this way:

The second we walked in the door, he kissed me. Then he took me to the living room where there were candles. We drank red wine and then watched the special features from his Dawson's Creek boxed set. He kissed each one of my eyelids. It was as close to perfect as I've ever felt. 

Marshall looks incredibly sad, as if sorry he left and had missed out on his own chance to have such a romantic encounter. Says Marshall, "Wow, I'm happy for you I guess."

Keir Gilchrist, who plays Marshall, is terrific here as he convincingly portraying Marshall's longing and loneliness. It's all very subtle and a reminder that Gilchrist is pretty much acting circles around everyone else on the show.