United States of Tara (2009-)

USA

Television Series

Creator: Diablo Cody

Cast: Toni Collette, John Corbett, Rosemarie DeWitt, Keir Gilchrist, Brie Larson, Patton Oswalt

Though seldom credible and often quite illogical, this family comedy-drama, revolving around the mother’s dissociative identity disorder, has an emotional honesty and believability that makes it as affecting as it is funny and unpredictable.

Season 1 (2009)

Tara, having recently made the decision to come off her medication in order to achieve a better quality of life, is forced (along with her family) to re-adjust to sharing it with her three alter egos – Alice, a prissy housewife; Buck, an uncouth biker; and T, a hormonal teenaged girl – in this blackly comic, hugely entertaining first season.

Season 2 (2010)

A couple of years have passed; Tara is on new medication, and has been free of her alters for months now; but when a neighbour unexpectedly commits suicide, Buck and friends reappear with a vengeance, bringing with them more and more chaos, in this frequently hilarious second instalment of Diablo Cody’s comedy-drama.

Iain.Stott