I have so many observations and comments on tonight's episode that it's really challenging not to burst out with them right now instead of waiting to talk about them in chronological order. Oh, what the hell. Tara and Charmaine's mom Beverly is such a massive bitch that it's verging on unbelievable: however, the evidence of her crappy parenting lies in her daughters' tenuous mental health. And Alice vs. Beverly is a great matchup. And Neil is such a great guy it's not hard to see why Charmaine does love him: but props to the show for not making Nick a shallow one-note bad guy in comparison to Neil. And what an ending for the episode! I hope the next episode starts with Max punching Buck in the glasses. And I can't believe it took me until tonight's "Previously on The United States of Tara" to notice that the little girl in Tara's flashback is wearing a poncho like Gimme.
Phew! Obviously it was a power-packed episode. We began, unusually, with a flashback, as sleeping Tara dreams of herself and Charmaine as little girls riding their bikes in the bicentennial (there it is again) parade. They greet a woman name Mimi who encourages them to keep riding, have fun, and DON'T SAY ANYTHING TO ANYONE. Hmm, OK.
Tara wakes up, alone, as Max is on the couch following his confession that he hooked up with Pammy. When Marshall walks through the living room Max explains that the couch is "better for my back," which Marshall retorts is "a completely believable situation." Tara and Max are still squabbly, as she tells him "I'm not the one who slept with somebody else," and Max says, "Not this week." He would like to call off the open house next door at the Hubbard place but Tara insists they follow through, hoping to get a new set of neighbors, strangers who will somehow make their lives more normal by staying out of their business.
Tara goes and chats with Charmaine who advises Tara to cut Max some slack and wants to know why she and Nick can't just move into the Hubbard house. Tara confesses to Charmaine that she's still obsessed with the house, due to all the flashbacks its been bringing her. Charm advises Tara to call their mother to see if they can find out who the mysterious Mimi is. Then Tara snaps at Charmaine for using such "ungraceful" terms as "rape" and "molesty" until Charmaine, the Unlikely Voice of Reason, tells Tara to STFU since everything's falling apart on HER.
Zach's doing a little Pygmalion thing on Kate, taking her to play tennis and asking if he can call her "Catherine" instead of "Kate," and she picks up on the creepy Tom Cruise-ness of this request. He then offers to buy her sunglasses. It was at this point that I started getting gay vibes from Zach, that maybe he thinks he can purchase himself the woman with whom he thinks he should be seen.
Speaking of gay (I love that transition), Lionel takes Marshall out hustling for stranger sex in the park, home to the World War I museum. Poor Marshall—this is so obviously not his scene but he seems so desperate to find the "YOU ARE HERE" sign on the gay map that he's letting Lionel take him into some skeevy situations. "It's just sharing parts of your body with a stranger," Lionel tries to comfort Marshall, but of course that doesn't really sound super sexy. Little Marshy meets a guy in a shrub who invites him to "come back here so I can introduce you to my cock," and thankfully neighbor Ted, who's got a little something going on himself, spots Marshall, pretends to be his father and spirits him away from the sketchiness.
The episode had a neat transition at this point, as Lionel's car door opens and then we cut to a pair of lady legs swinging out of a car: it's Tara and Charmaine's mom, come to assist after Charmaine turned the water works on to her over the phone. I remember Beverly being fairly bitchy last season but not anything compared to how she was tonight, starting off with the way she greeted Charmaine was by accusing her of showing her pregnancy, bigtime, in her face. They all go into the Hubbard house to chat and while Tara wants to ask her mom who Mimi was, Tara's mom blows her off, except "blows her off," isn't exactly the right term. "Raging bitch" was the term I had in my notes. I guess there are moms out there who are as awful as Tara and Charmaine's—fortunately, I don't know and am not related to any—so it's almost hard for me to believe that they would keep someone as shitty as her in their lives, but again, the proof of her parenting is in the pudding. Beverly admits that perhaps Mimi was a babysitter but it's too late: after taking her mom's abuse Tara transitions into Alice and sashays away.