"United States of Tara" Recap 308: "What Happens in the Corn Maze, Stays in the Corn Maze!"

In this week's United States of Tara there's no sex in the city, Kate Plus Hate and one of our Chickens is missing

So Moosh and Noah have secured a spot in the High School Film Festival, one of only twenty student films selected. Tara can't accompany him to New York because of her mid-terms so Max is drafted to chaperon, reluctantly, because, as required by sitcom law, he has a terrible fear of flying.

Before that, however, the family plus Noah attend a "Pumpkin Festival" in a corn field which isn't quite as glamorous as a film festival in New York but I bet the pies are amazing. Marshall commiserates with Noah about his not being able to go with them. Noah can't even ask his dad to cover the expenses and Marshall's suggestion that he request "...money so I can fly to Jewtopia and have buttsex with my filmmaker boyfriend" somehow doesn't strike Noah as the best approach.

As this week's awesome prop, a giant grinning furry banana that's taller than the kid carrying it, passes by in the background as Noah exhorts Marshall to go to the festival and be brilliant. He then asks if Marshall has called Lionel. Marshall lies to his face and my annoyance at the stupid pointless lie almost makes me not find their holding hands in the middle of a corn maze adorable. Almost.

In a different part of the maze, some idiot in a monster mask jumps out and scares Tara so badly that she transitions to Chicken who promptly runs away. While everyone else has fun in the maze, the Gregsons play "Find the Crazy Lady" and Noah finally locates her huddled against the wall of a corn crib. Thankfully, she transitions back to Tara and Noah helps her to her feet, leaving behind the stuffed bunny Max won for her. Once again Noah is handling Tara's transitions and her various alters almost a little too well. It makes me nervous that he's up to something behind Marshall's back that might cause some heartbreak later.

That's unfortunately it for Noah this week and there's no sign of Lionel or Ted. But Marshall has a few more scenes, including one where he finally confronts Max about laying so much weight on Marshall's shoulders.

Father and son are flying to St. Louis on Kate's flight on their way to New York, and Max in typical sitcom fashion is freaking out because of the turbulence. He pops a few of Tara's pills — one hopes tranquilizers and not anti-psychotics.

Marshall tries to distract him by talking about the film festival and Max completely deflates him, saying "There's a lot of people on the planet ... just, don't get your hopes up." That's great, Max. Way to parent. Max then takes a time out to pray for the plane not to crash while Marshall gives him the stinkeye.

It's a good setup for later scenes but I was a little distracted when the meal service was announced. Would there really be meal service between Overland Park and St. Louis? I don't think I even got a snack the last time I flew into St. Louis from Madison and that was before the economy disappeared and the airlines cut back on extras.

At the St. Louis airport Kate, Marshall and Max meet Evan. Kate's apparently told Evan nothing about Marshall including his age (yet she has found time to tell him about her stint as a camwhore, which, Kate, that's already cost you one job and almost messed up your stewardess gig so why do you keep telling it to people?) so Evan brings Marshall a toy truck as a present.

This leads Marshall to snark about his hands being filled with giant lollipops and balloons and the voluminous pockets in his cunning sailor suit, which is kind of beneath you, Marshall, but could be forgiven if it were funnier. Evan's had to bring along his son Monty, and the "kiddie hates Daddy's new girlfriend" shtick is every bit as deadly as I predicted it would be last week.

Monty screams that Kate isn't his mother, Monty screams that he hates Kate, Monty runs around like a hellion while Evan sits by helpless. It's every sitcom cliché ever about small children of divorce, and if I thought the writers were cleverer than they are, I might have thought that they were being ironic. The only important things about the St. Louis layover are that it gives Marshall the chance to complain to Kate (who doesn't care) about being forced into a caretaker role for his parents and it gives Max the opportunity to piss Marshall off by repeatedly lavishing Kate with praise in front of him.