United States of Tara

Network: Showtime
Episodes: Ongoing (half-hour)
Seasons: Ongoing

TV show dates: January 18, 2009 – present
Series status: Has not been cancelled

Performers include: Toni Collette, John Corbett, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Keir Gilchrist, Pamela Reed, and Fred Ward.

TV show description:
This TV series chronicles the life of a suburban housewife and mother of two from Overland Park, Kansas. Far from typical, she has dissociative identity disorder (DID). Her alternative personalities include the wild and flirty teenaged T, old-fashioned housewife Alice, and a Vietnam war vet named Buck.

Tara Gregson (Toni Collette) works as a mural painter. She loves her family as much as any mother and feels guilty putting them through such bizarre events. She endured sexual abuse during her time in boarding school. She doesn’t have memories of before or after the abuse but has been shown to have had DID before the abuse started. After a DID episode, she never has any memory of what her alter has done, yet her alters know everything about her. She occasionally goes through times of not taking her medication in an attempt to live without the help of drugs, but it’s then the other personalities show again.

Max Gregson (John Corbett), has a calm understanding of his wife’s disorder. They’ve been married for nearly twenty years, and it’s no longer a shock for him to come home and see one of her other alters at home. Their daughter, teenage Kate (Brie Larson), works in a family restaurant chain. Her gay younger brother, Marshall (Keir Gilchrist), is good-natured, likes classic films, and aspires to be a director. One of Tara’s alters, Buck, is homophobic which makes for an interesting family dynamic.

Tara’s sister, Charmaine (Rosemarie DeWitt), resents her for having always been the center of attention and believes the DID was a form of acting out. An incident with one of Tara’s alters caused Charmaine to lose her job at a mail-order vitamin company. She had breast augmentation surgery at the request of her first husband, and has now been left disfigured. Beverly and Frank (Pamela Reed and Fred Ward) are Tara and Charmaine’s parents, and would like Kate and Marshall to move in with them because of Tara’s condition.

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