A Few Thoughts on The United States of Tara Series Finale

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I've been casually been blogging this show for its final season, and while last night's show was conceived as a season rather than a series finale, it worked perfectly as one.

If I have one criticism, it's that the finale episode felt disconnected from the season, or even the series as a whole, but even that fits in with the theme of a show with an interesting narrative that never quite found its groove. There was definitely a sense of finality and closure.

I really like what Todd VanDerWerff for the AV Club wrote in his recap yesterday:

The best thing the finale does, I think, is restore Tara Gregson to the center of the show’s sympathies. I know that Tara’s always the center of the show, but in this season, it was easy to forget that Tara was at one time the show’s hero, so far down the rabbit hole did she drag her family. In the finale, which is almost completely free of alters (Bryce turns up at the very beginning, and we get the sense Alice, Buck, and T survived the carnage to make the trip to Boston), we once again see that she’s just a Kansas mom, trying to hang on to her mental capacities long enough to not disappoint her kids and be a good wife to her husband. Toni Collette has spent the last half-dozen episodes or so mostly showing us the terrible things about Tara’s condition, so it was nice to have an episode that reminded us why these people are always so quick to forgive her, even when her alters do awful, awful things.

I think that last part is so important, and illustrates the difficulty in developing a television show whose central character has a mental illness. RMJ writing for Bitch magazine last year, posited that Tara's Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) is exploited as a plot point, and for the first two seasons, I'd agree. Tara's DID was treated more as personality quirk. It was only in this season that we really got to see how Tara's disease affected her family, as well as her own life. (Interestingly enough, a lot of this was saved for the finale, where Tara stays Tara throughout most of the episode.) As I've said before, I think this show suffered by being promoted as a dark comedy rather than an hour-long drama, and the levity of two previous seasons was replaced by a lot of real, scary things about her disease, and what triggered it. It was uncomfortable watching.

I'll miss Tara. Without giving too much away, I'm glad it went out on a relative high note while not attempting to wrap all its loose ends prettily and neatly, like so many shows do. The show's creative crew might not have intended it this way, but for Tara, it seems right.

Showtime Cancels United States of Tara

Showtime's United States of Tara, a dark comedy about a woman with DID (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) wasn't renewed for a fourth season. I'm disappointed, but frankly not all that surprised.

US of Tara is one of the few shows I've watched since its inception. In its third season, it's gone from being a dark comedy to just plain dark as Tara's life unravels with the appearance of a new, destructive alter -- a personification of her abusive half-brother, Bryce. (Her other alters -- Buck, a Vietnam vet, Alice, a fifties homemaker-type, "T," a promiscuous teenager, Chicken, a five-year-old girl, Shoshana, a New York therapist, and Gimme, a sort of id creature in a red poncho who urinated freely, usually in other characters' beds --  were introduced in the first two seasons. They were annoying but never menacing.) The "quirk" factor of the first two seasons is largely gone, replaced by something more ominous and disturbing. I really like the direction in which the show has been going for the last few episodes, particularly since they were just beginning to explore how Tara's illness has impacted her family. Its biggest problem was that the show was billed as a half-hour comedy instead of an hour-long drama. There's nothing typically "comedic" about US of Tara, and I think that confused people, and limited its audience as well.

The show's creator, Diablo Cody (of Juno fame), recently talked to NYMAG.com about what she would have done differently:

I was just coming off Juno, and I think people were expecting a Juno-esque writing style in the Tara scripts, which was something I was already past, creatively. I didn’t really want to turn in eight pages of gobbledygook banter every week, but that expectation was there, so basically I was kind of a mess during the making of the first season. But I got my shit together later on and I think it shows in the episodes. I think the show gets stronger and stronger, and I’m proud of that.

So United States of Tara joins the legions of critically acclaimed, yet commercially doomed television shows that lasted only a few seasons. And that's too bad, because even though it was probably doomed to run out of steam eventually, there were a lot of things about US of Tara that worked exceedingly well: namely a lead character with a mental illness that's not played for sympathy. Sometimes it's hard to see Tara beyond her alters -- and although she's at the center of them she's actually the least fleshed-out of all her personalities -- she doesn't come off as pitiable. That by itself is pretty rare in TV. Also, some of the secondary characters -- Tara's family, not her alters -- who in the first two season just seemed to orbit around Tara without narratives of their own -- have been given more airtime, some more successfully than others. I've already written about youngest son Marshall, who I think stands out among other young gay characters in that they actually allow him to be sexual. And this season the inimitable Eddie Izzard joined the cast as Tara's new psychiatrist/professor/confident.

I've read enough spoilers to stop right here (and the Onion says this season's finale, which airs in a few weeks, works as a series finale), but I guarantee there's still a lot left of Tara. I'm sorry Showtime couldn't give it one more season, but I'd rather see a good show go out on a high note.

Links & Bits for 5/6/11

Women in Rock: Tamar-kali (The F-Word)

I definitely identify as a womanist/feminist. I live my life knowing my worth as a human presence on this planet could never be eclipsed by my gender, that’s ludicrous to me. Based on the power structure in which we exist I walk this planet in the path of the ‘other’ and my lyrics reflect that; my rage, my hopes and the challenges I face. I do not write with political intention but the fact that I am a black woman telling my story in the context that I do makes it a political act in itself.

Will Gaga's $1 Million Donation To Gay Youth Actually Reach Gay Youth? (Queerty)

Not one to let a social media campaign escape her, Lady Gaga is letting her Facebook fans decide how she should donate a million dollars. Though she certainly could use a new creative director and better prosthetics, you can’t argue with Gaga for going the more charitable route with her gay-earned dollars. The artist better known for making awesome music videos to otherwise terrible pop songs has partnered with the Robin Hood Foundation in New York to give $1 million to five non-profits working with homeless or at-risk LGBT youth.

Oh, by the way Queerty's back!

Thoughts on United States of Tara (Womanist Musings)

There is a huge part of me that is happy to see a disabled character at the center of the show, and another part of me that worries about whether or not the portrayal is realistic.

US of Tara's Marshall Stands Apart From Other Young, Gay Television Characters

Marshall is the most annoying character for me, because all of his storylines are related to his sexuality, as if there was nothing else about him worth to write about. His line about gay being like christmas every day in the last episode was so unnecessary and cringe-worthy. I really wish for them to write more interesting stuff for him.

Marshall is now getting threesome action…hmm. Again why did the writers think this was necessary? Is there a secret law that all gay people should have threesomes? Again, I wish they would give Marshall fewer storylines that have to do with his sexuality only or would at least have the decency to not give him storylines that fit rather to Queer As Folk and not to his character.

United States of Tara fans on TWoP

I've been a big watcher of Showtime's United States of Tara since its inception, and reading those comments from Television Without Pity is disappointing, to say the least. Youngest son Marshall's coming out has been one of the show's better subplots. I think what distinguishes Marshall from other young gay characters on tv is that they actually allow him to be sexual (within the limits of what's appropriate for a teenager -- the "threesome" was limited to kissing).



That’s been one of the biggest criticism of Glee’s Kurt from day one:

One of the things that could help to construct Kurt as something other than a girl would be to allow him to express the sexual part of his homosexuality. Certainly the castration of gay men on television is nothing new, but it works in conjunction with feminizing gay men to render them nonthreatening and oftentimes womanly.(PopMatters)

The truth is Marshall is a pretty nuanced characters, and his sexuality is a part of that.