"United States of Tara" Recap 306: Marshall Shoots and Scores!

Hey, United States of Tara fans! Welcome to this week’s recap. Alas, I’m afraid we don’t have that much of the gay this week. It’s not quite “Where is Teddy on 90210?” bad but close!

Here is what we do have for Moosh this week:

Marshall and Noah, having decided not to lens a documentary on Noah's masturbatory proclivities (thereby guaranteeing a shutout on the gay film festival circuit), are instead building set of a miniature town in Marshall's basement. After hurling a few gratuitous barbs at poor Lionel and his supposed lack of filmmaking acumen — stay classy, fellas! — the boys rummage through a box of old videotapes his parents shot years ago.

Marshall is initially reluctant to review them – and with all the sex tapes circulating online, who wouldn’t be? – but Noah points out the importance of including the personal in a film that is supposed to be about Marshall's family.

Fortunately, these tapes aren’t that personal. One labeled "Tara + Max 1991" yields footage of Max doing his best Kurt Cobain impression, as well as shots of a very pregnant Tara and the headless torso of a hot guy who, through a hilariously bad dubbing job, we learn is Neil before he turned into Patton Oswalt. Noah thinks young Neil is pretty hot, which he is, although current Neil ain't so bad his own self.

Sometime later, Max takes a look at the miniature town set, as well as this week's awesome prop, a Tara doll with six retractable heads fitted behind Tara's doll head, each one representing the alters. It's very 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

The doll and the set are supposed to represent the family's current screwed up life as contrasted with the supposedly perfect life captured on the old tape. Marshall describes it as "a little calm before the DID storm, simple and boring."

Max lets him know that life with Tara was never simple or boring. In fact, it was always crazy but Max was happy to be a part of it because he loves Tara. It's very sweet and it plays nicely into this season's overarching theme of traps and escape. Max, because he's married to Tara, is the one person most securely "trapped" by his life, but he's also the one person who doesn't see himself as being in a trap at all.

Plus we learn that Tara drank while she was pregnant with Kate, which explains a lot.

That's pretty much it for this week's gay, except for a romantic tracking shot of the boys in the basement kissing in silhouette.

Elsewhere in this week's episode:

Tara's alters continue to honor their contract with Tara. For example, when Tara wants an annoying crow in her back yard shot, Buck pops out and shoots it, and more importantly, goes back in when it's done. Later when Tara and Charmaine's mother Bev shows up (at Neil's invitation, in hopes of squeezing some cash out of her in exchange for face time with "Wheels"), Alice emerges to deal with her when Tara doesn't want to.

Tara sees these events as breakthroughs but Dr. Hattar(r)as isn't so sure. He thinks that Tara is avoiding hard situations by hiding behind her alters (which he doesn't believe are real). Tara protests that with the contract in place her life is easy and that it's fair for her to want her life to be easy. The good doctor points out that life is in fact not easy and that the only reason her life seems easy to her right now is because she's avoiding doing the hard work.