United States of Tara: The Complete First Season
Showtime has always claimed to be fearless and groundbreaking with its original programming. Producing shows that other networks said were suicide like the amazing Queer As Folk that gave audiences their first honest look into the gay world and later with Weeds a show following the life of a pot smoking, drug dealing soccer mom became what the network would be known for and they have done it again with The United States of Tara. This is the most original and daring series I’ve seen in a very long time.

The show follows the life of a woman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder or D.I.D. named Tara Gregson (Toni Collette). Tara has her loving husband Max (John Corbett), two wonderfully unique kids, Kate (Brie Larson) and Marshall (Keir Gilchrist), a wacky sister named Charmaine (Rosemarie DeWitt) and also four distinctly different personalities that occasionally commandeer her body and run amok.

‘T’ is the first of the ‘alters’ that we meet and she is a wild and crazy 15 year old girl who only wants to party and have fun. As time goes by we meet ‘Buck’ a redneck with a penchant for bowling and firearms, ‘Alice’ the perfect 50′s style mom and housewife with superior baking abilities and a fourth revealed mid season whose nature and name I won’t reveal in case you haven’t seen the show. (Trust me it’s worth the wait and more fun if you don’t see it coming).

The entire premise and execution all seem a little far fetched and out there until you realize that this show was created, written and produced by the inimitable Diablo Cody of Juno and Jennifer’s Body fame. When you take that into account some of it actually seems a bit tame. She has such a distinctive voice to her writing that there is no mistaking her unmistakable stamp on everything that this show has to offer.

I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting to like this show. I had heard that Toni Collette‘s performance was amazing but that was really all I had heard. Normally when people jump on the bandwagon about a performance they way they did with hers I usually end up disagreeing with them. That did not happen here, this was definitely the exception to my rule because I think she is absolutely amazing in this role! And again credit to Diablo Cody the dialogue is so sharp and so, for lack of a better term, ‘real’ you have no choice but to fall in love with these characters and immediately feel like you’re one of the family.

Aside from the stories involving the ‘alters’ which are the crux of the storyline there are also sub plots for each of the family members that are equally interesting and engaging. My personal favorite is of course the courtship that goes

on between 14 year old Marshall and his hottie high school son of a Pastor crush Jason played by the all grown up youngest Lawrence brother Andrew Lawrence. Clearly young people’s attitudes toward sexuality are expanding and the once prevalent knee jerk reaction to fear and hate is slowly becoming tempered. I love that we get to see these changes in our society reflected in pop culture in a way that twenty years ago would have been unheard of.

Brie Larson has her own distinct development as young Katie takes her first job and has to deal with the consequences of hooking up with the boss who ultimately falls for you and won’t leave you alone. (Something tells me her storyline has been lifted directly out of Diablo Cody‘s life. It’s just a guess but I’d put money on the fact that she once worked at Applebee’s and dealt with an overzealous manager’s advances.)

The thing that stands out most about this show is that as dysfunctional as they may be, and they are SERIOUSLY dysfunctional, the emotion that permeates everything isn’t anger or fear or frustration… it’s love. You know that these people genuinely love each other and will go to the ends of the Earth for one another. I think most people watching wish they could be as close with their family members; I know I do.

Special features on this set are a bit limited and seem to be there more to bolster the Showtime line up than to give insight into Tara itself but some of them are worth checking out.

There is Sitting Down with Diablo Cody which is basically just a chat with the creator. They don’t talk about the show or the characters it’s just a very brief weird series of questions. It’s entertaining but I wanted more. And we also have Tara’s Alters which is a much better featurette that has interviews with the cast and crew talking about her four other personalities; this is great but again way too short.

The rest of the features include cast bios and a photo gallery and then stuff for other Showtime series.’ I really wanted to see more about the show itself I think there is a lot to talk about here so it’s a shame that they kept it so minimal.

So while there is some really wacky stuff going on in The United States of Tara and some very specific issues that people with D.I.D. face the rest of it are issues that we all face. The same way that you don’t need to smoke pot to appreciate Weeds or need to be a gay club boy to love Queer As Folk, you don’t need to respond to several different names to fall in love with the United States if Tara!!!