Hello, and welcome to the recap of the second episode of Season Three of United States of Tara! I'm very excited to have the opportunity to do a regular recapping gig, and after Brent's venom-fueled season review and Michael's poison-pixel recap of episode one, the Powers That Be decided to change things up and have the recap done by someone who isn't a total Tara hater. (I keed, I keed!)

So, when last we saw the Gregson clan, Tara had decided to go back to college, having dropped out a few credits shy of graduation following a suicide attempt that was supposed to be a big secret but that Charmaine has apparently blabbed all over town.

Thanks to gay neighbor Ted pulling a few strings with some guy he had sex with, Tara is off to her first day at Kansas State at Overland Park as Marshall the filmmaker records the big day. Tara's schedule includes "Art History, "Media and Culture" and "Abnormal Psychology" and while I get the last two, I can't believe Tara, who was after all a working artist, hadn't taken Art History already.

Her first day starts off with not being able to walk across campus with Ted without being nearly mowed down by herds of coeds, including a cute shirtless Frisbee player who prompts Ted to muse about his career choice: "Working here is like getting invited to a big buffet and being told I can do anything I want with the food as long as I don't put it in my mouth." Inappropriate!

Speaking of really inappropriate, we'll get to Neil and Charmaine later.

Back on campus, Tara finds her way to her abnormal psych class and promptly transitions into Shoshana Schoenbaum, the psychologist alter who emerged in Season 2. Shoshana easily delivers the class a hilarious lecture, filled to overflowing with psychobabble like "If we enforce normality, we promote conventionality. If we denigrate abnormality, we repress creativity." And if we ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive, we eliminate the negative and latch on to the affirmative, I guess.

Amusingly, the real teacher, Doctor Hattarras (played by Eddie Izzard) finally wanders in really late (I guess KSOP doesn't have that "if the teacher's ten minutes late you can leave" rule) during Shoshana’s lecture, and since he can't tell that the lecture is nonsense, starts to wander out again thinking he's in the wrong lecture hall. When Shoshana spots Hattarras, she transitions back to Tara who, humiliated, bolts from the room. So much for a good first impression with those classmates.

Tara's not the only one having a rough day at school. Marshall and Lionel are doing a slow burn because Mr. Kern, their film teacher, has "randomly" placed them in a group with Noah, the only other gay kid in the class, and Rory, who's decked out in a truly impressive medical apparatus that looks like it's screwed directly into his skull.

The new gay kid is played by Aaron Christian Howles, who is very cute although his IMDb page reveals an unfortunate propensity for making poor facial hair choices. About Mr. Kern, Marshall complains, "He's not seeing us as people. He's just seeing us as three homosexuals." "And a kid in a halo brace," Lionel helpfully adds.

Marshall continues that he doesn't want to make "gay movies", just good ones. A laudable sentiment, although considering how terrible a lot of gay movies are, Marshall, could I ask that you maybe try to do both?

Kern confirms every bad thing Marshall is thinking when he squats down next to the group and explains he's expecting something "deeper, more emotional, maybe a little razzmatazz," and, he adds, looking pointedly at Rory, "pathos."

I'm not sure if their project, which starts as a tea party straight out of Merchant/Ivory and ends as a Tarantino-style gun battle complete with a signature John Woo sideways-leap-and-shoot, will fulfill Kern's expectations, but I must say that Lionel looks very hot in his 19th Century costume. Even with the penciled-on mustache.

Later in Marshall's room, in a scene that is simultaneously the most fascinating and has the most tacked-on feeling, Lionel asks Marshall, "If the two of us didn't live in Kansas and lived in the city of, say, Fairytown, Homohio, would you and I still be together? I'm just asking. Are we a couple because we love each other or are we just at the mercy of simple math?" To which Marshall replies, "I guess I don't see those things as mutually exclusive."

I love how this scene sets up the possibility of a Marshall-Lionel-Noah triangle, but even more I love how it seems to address in a meta way some of the issues in presenting a same-sex relationship on TV. For mixed-sex pairings, partners can shuffle around amongst themselves nearly endlessly, but for a gay character to have a boyfriend the creators first have to write a second gay character and almost inevitably the two wind up together because there are no other options.

And, "Fairytown, Homohio"? That wouldn't be anywhere near Lima, would it? Glee shout-out?

Oh and that’s it for Marshall and Lionel this ep.

Tara later visits Hattarras at his office and explains that she has DID but didn't tell him because she didn't think it would be a problem. And why should she think that? It’s not as if it has totally effed up her life before now.

Hattaras rather unnecessarily tells her that it was a problem because four of his students dropped the class and two, he ruefully adds, want to transfer to Dr. Schoenbaum's. Heh.

Tara and the prof seem to part on good terms but at the next lecture, Hattarras ambushes Tara by jumping ahead to the chapter on DID. Turns out he believes that DID doesn't exist, that it's a "crutch that severely damaged people use to hide behind" or that it's nothing but a performance to get attention. In the process, he outs Tara as having the diagnosis to the class.

Hmm, I wonder where this could possibly be headed?

It's true that DID is a controversial diagnosis and I'm intrigued by the introduction of a character who clearly doesn't believe that it's real (Charmaine was a doubter in Season One but she's come to believe it. Boy, has she come to believe it!). But this is pure douchebaggery on Hattarras's part. When Tara calls him on violating her confidence after class, he offers one of those "I'm sorry if you were offended" apologies that we all hate so much, and pompously claims that all he did was "start a conversation" about the subject.

Besides, she knew that DID was part of the course and if she can't handle it, then she should think about dropping out again. So unfair. Yes, she knew that the topic was coming up, but it wasn't until Chapter 23 in the textbook, weeks or months away, at least until Hattarras switched it up.

They continue to argue until Tara transitions to the 16-year-old T, who suggests that Hattarras should "shove your big words up your ass" and, um, orally service himself (turns out, he's tried to before). T drop-kicks his hot dog (that's not a euphemism; he's eating lunch) and stalks off.

T later turns up back at home drunk after "giving up stank for some beer," which, gross. She and Kate fight over Tara's car keys and T bloodies Kate's nose trying to go for a joyride. Kate finally manages to talk T down and Tara re-emerges just in time to realize that once again, she just blew winning Mother of the Year.

Elsewhere in the Taraverse:

* Kate wants to go to Japan to teach English, because the tsunami and the nuclear meltdowns haven't been punishment enough for those poor people. Although given the insane obsession with cosplay that some segments of the Japanese population have, she should be sure to pack her Princess Valhalla Hawkwind costume because that would go over huge. In fact, she could get rich there.

Initially Max and Tara object (to her going to Japan, not Princess Valhalla, though they should) but after T and Kate's fight, Tara acquiesces. Kate also has a sweet little scene with Marshall in which she pretty much tells him that he's doomed. They're talking about her Japan plans and Marshall expresses his admiration for how she "puts everything out there" and "never gets stuck." He wishes he wouldn't get stuck but Kate verifies what Marshall has probably suspected ever since he learned what the words "multiple personalities" mean; Moosh is not only "stuck", he's the "glue" that keeps the family together.

* Max sells his failing landscaping business to "Organalawn" and signs on as a manager. This necessitates firing Neil. Because Neil’s life doesn’t suck enough.

* Speaking of which, Charmaine continues her series of about-faces on Neil, first telling him that their relationship failed not because he wasn't "that guy" but because he's "better than that guy." Which makes perfect sense because Charmaine is so damaged that she believes, consciously or unconsciously, that she doesn't deserve happiness and so has been sabotaging herself for years.

But by the end of the episode she's back to belittling him for losing his job which she didn't respect him for having in the first place. Also, they try to have sex twice. I'm no pregnancy expert, but I think at some point you're supposed to stop having sex when you're pregnant. But if you are going to have sex, you probably shouldn't do it on the piano, And if you do do it on the piano, you need to put the key cover thing down so your giant belly doesn't mash down the keys, leading your teenage niece to walk in on you in the middle of the deed.

And does Patton Oswalt have a "one butt-shot per episode" clause written into his contract or something?