"United States of Tara" Recap 311: And Then There Was One

Turns out Marshall's escape from Casa Gregson is short-lived. After one night on a cot in Grandma Sandi's Christmas room, he acquiesces to Max's pleas to come home and help handle Bryce. So much for Max's big breakthrough. I guess when he said "call me when you get there" the "so I can guilt you back" was implied.

Marshall is reluctant to return but after a loopy conversation with Grandma Sandi in which she offers him a tin of fruitcake from 1974 (the same year, she explains, that they found that Lucy skeleton in Ethiopia and Grandpa Sandi bought a Samsonite suitcase with wheels on it that he used to pull Max around on) she tells Marshall that he has to love his mother no matter what. And I agree with that, but there's a difference between "love" and "subjugate yourself to."

Max has sounded the alarm because Bryce has killed another alter. We watch Buck emerge in the kitchen with Max for a final beer, explaining that he's not about to "take a dirt nap" without one last cold one. Buck apologizes, asking Max to tell Tara that he tried his best. Buck asks that his ashes be mixed with a fifth of Jack Daniel's and poured over the grave of John Wayne and, with a quote from The Duke ("Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway"), that's it for Buck.

Buck's death prompts Max to gather up all of Buck's guns and pornography and store them at Charmaine's house. Because that's what you want in a house with an infant, a trunk full of firearms and dirty magazines. Charmaine broaches the subject of committing Tara but Max won't hear of it. They've always gotten Tara back before, he says, and they'll get her back this time.

After Max leaves, Neal suggests that he and Charmaine sell the house and move to Houston, both because it makes good business sense and because he's afraid of having a child molester personality living next door to his daughter. Both of which are excellent reasons to move, although I think I'd only mention the first one to the listing agent.

Max packs up the rest of Buck's arsenal in the basement, which suddenly makes Max's being OK with storing guns around children make sense since he's obviously been OK with having them lying around unlocked around his own kids for years. And as an aside, how is someone as severely mentally ill as Tara able to buy guns in the first place? I mean I know we have pretty worthless gun control laws in a lot of states but I think even Kansas has a check off box for "clinically insane."

Bryce wanders down the stairs and asks Max why he has such a problem with him, since if he kills off all the alters Max would be free. It's kind of a fair question, actually. If Bryce extinguishes everyone else and Tara survives, then Max is dealing with two personalities instead of seven.

Marshall and Grandma Sandi also wander down the stairs and Kate appears shortly thereafter, and Moosh introduces her to Grandma Sandi. Wait, Kate's, like, 20-years-old and has never met the grandmother who's lived in the same town with her her whole life? I know Max doesn't like dealing with her but that's pretty extreme. After some hilarious grotesqueries are exchanged, Bryce grabs a skin mag and departs.

Max barges out in full-steam down denial, insisting that "fun family activities" will bring Tara back. Which is how we end up at...

The art museum, Tara's favorite place. The whole family's there, including Charmaine, Neal and "Wheels" despite Neal's edict last week to cut off all contact. Marshall's fatalism is on full display here as he tells Kate that nothing any of them do will make a difference. Kate shudders under Bryce's lecherous gaze, prompting Moosh to crack that she always attracts the cutest guys. Which is true; even that freakshow Gene from Season 1 was pretty cute.

Kate is less than amused but Marshall explains, "It's laugh or cry time here at the musée d'art. I choose laugh."

Charmaine again tries to talk to Max about committing Tara, showing him a brochure and trying to enlist Kate's aid, but Max still won't even think about it, insisting that he can handle Tara himself. Is that so, Max? Is that why you called your son home after one night away, because you were doing such a great job handling her?

At least Max holds on to the brochure as he sits down next to Grandma Sandi. She tells him "crazy's no good for anybody" and that his children need stability. Max yet again doesn't want to hear it and, upon learning that Grandma Sandi's cat Nancy Grace was crushed by a box filled with used tea bags, flees to the men's room.

He's joined there first by Neal, then by Bryce, who pees standing up to everyone's consternation. (There are devices that allow for that. A friend of mine's husband gave her one for her birthday a few years ago when she was doing a lot of multi-hour commutes without rest stops.) Max tries to draw Tara out and leans in for a kiss but Bryce grosses out and calls him a pervert. Takes one to know one, child molester.