I think one of the reasons I lost interest in United States of Tara last season was that, in addition to introducing us to Tara, her family, her alters, explaining her disorder and giving us a plot, the writers also wanted to explore the origin of Tara's Dissociative Identity Disorder. I don't think I could articulate it at the time but I wasn't ready to care about that yet. I didn't know Tara well enough to need to know from whence she came.
The show seems to be giving that another shot this season, but much more deliberately and I think less obviously, too. Whereas last season the quest for Tara's beginnings seemed rather tell-don't-show, on tonight's episode we started to see Tara's earliest memories but without her having to actually say, "When did this all start happening and why?"
Tonight's episode began with Max busting up the new house, only to break through a wall to see Tara on the other side (metaphor alert!) He's pissed at her not for sleeping with Pammy as Buck, but for not telling him that she was transitioning. Then, he gets turned on by ordering her to see a shrink (who doesn't?) The two of them go at it in the back yard since Tara doesn't want to have sex inside the house, only to illustrate the benefits of having sex indoors, as Charmaine sees them through the window and Kate notices that her mom has grass all over her back.
Speaking of Kate, she's back to snotty teen mode, although maybe you can't blame her if your pleasant stoned ice skating trip is spoiled by your mother's alternate personality's girlfriend protesting her love over the PA. She spends more time with Lynda P. Frazier, discussing Valhalla Hawkwing and potential creative ways to make money off her. Kate takes her annoyance out on Max as well, shooting back "No one!" when he asks her who the parent is, after he bails her out when her car breaks down at Lynda's house. Tara is intrigued by Lynda for some reason, although she doesn't know why yet. Not just because she's black.
While I almost find it hard to believe that even Charmaine would be this obnoxious, I liked the line about her wanting a Badgley Mischka wedding gown and chocolate fountain AND wanting to dance down the aisle AND have her whole wedding party wear sunglasses. Sounds like someone on the US of T writing staff is sick of weddings. Her newly-announced pregnancy seemed to come out of left field (especially as Tara pointed out, Charmaine was allegedly staying with her sister in order to "revirginate") so we'll see if the new and responsible, potentially homeowning, baby-having Charmaine will clash with the tacky wedding version. And how all the various people who have stock in the house will cooperate.
Tara, believing her situation to be too complicated for a local therapist, starts reading the book by her neighbor's shrink, the famous Shoshana Schoenbaum. She find a (somewhat strangely still furnished) 70's-style office in the new house which delivers flashbacks to her early life, and amidst significant-sounding tonal music, she sits down to read Schoenbaum's book, in a voice in her head that I recognized as Toni Collette's, but with what sounded like a new inflection, so even though I knew what was coming up, it was still a neat little clue.