During the season finale of United States of Tara, I thought I was watching the series finale.  Soon afterwards, I found out that US had already gotten an early season renewal and would be coming back next year on Showtime.  However, I can’t really fathom what new directions this show might take in the future.

At the end of the finale, there were no new mysteries that needed to be revealed; everyone had established a peace, if somewhat tenuous, and Tara seemed to have found out information that could lead her to some sort of recovery. 

The narrative path of this show seems to have limited the possibilities of the show, and perhaps led to the finale's inability to serve as a bridge to any new season this show will have in the future.  The first season, DID (aka multiple personality disorder) seemed to be used as a gimmick, more concerned with the entertaining or dramatic aspects of DID, rather than showing the reality of the disorder.  It seemed to be the result of a thought process that may have went like this, “What would it be like if a suburban/Midwestern normal mom also was dissociative?”

I wasn’t surprised to find out that as the show progressed, a real woman diagnosed with DID would eventually function as a consultant.  My impression is that the show began to deal with real aspects of DID, like co-consciousness, uncovering layers of abuse, new personalities emerging, and the non-funny parts that aren’t just dramatic, but kind of messy. 

I liked the premise of the show from the beginning because, years ago, I had dealt with a mis/diagnosis with DIDNOS (dissociative disorder not otherwise specified) when I was exhibiting symptoms early on of what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder.  As the innate researcher that I am, I would go on to read all the different narratives about the disorder, and even though they didn’t mirror my experience fully, I did learn how we all dissociate to some degree, and how it is a coping mechanism.

In addition to trying to understand myself through this diagnosis, and ultimately finding it didn’t fit my experience, I was intrigued by DID from the perspective of a writer.  I found that the idea of losing time and the complexities of dealing with traumatic experiences through certain personality developments to be something that could be explored through fiction.  In fact, later on I would explore DID from a story-telling point of view in my short story, “Bodysnatcher.” 

However, even if I saw the possibilities of DID as a story-telling device, I realized that the cause of DID, extreme traumatic experiences that were severe enough to cause dissociation, were really what made this diagnosis more than just a convenient way to tell a story.  Being bipolar, my diagnosis wasn’t rooted in trauma, but in biology; medication did provide a type of cure that can’t be found with DID.  If Tara was written as bipolar, she might have exhibited some of the same behaviors as seen in the television show created by Diablo Cody—promiscuousness, inability to have stable relationships, even the creativity she exhibited—but trauma wouldn’t be the focus.  In fact, throughout the first season, it seemed that uncovering early, deep dark and insidious trauma, beyond the date rape Tara experienced as a teenager away at school, wouldn’t be part of this DID story.

Only after the consultant came on board—perhaps coincidently—did we see a deeper probing in US that lead to the finale’s revelation of abuse at the hands of a family member at an early age.  I think it is this revelation, which is a light in the tunnel for Tara, that leaves this family unit with a sense of hope. 

But from a story-telling point of view, where can we go?  If this were real life, we would see this revelation to be a step in co-consciousness and then integration of the multiple parts, by understanding what role each personality played in protecting the core child-self Tara (or Chicken), who in turn seemed to take on the abuse to protect her sister.  This process wouldn’t be fun, or very funny, or something that we can see cleverly done by Shoshanna, the alter psychotherapist.  It would be raw Three Faces of Eve, Sybil kind of drama which reminds us that yes, people do really really horrible things to children to the point that their psyche cracks. 

So, I would have been comfortable with where Diablo Cody led us to via the finale episode of this season, if it were to be the last of our experience of Tara.  But, what I have read is that the new showrunners are looking forward to adding new antics, new hilariousness, a new dark comic sensibility that this show has been comfortable with thus far.  The sensibility that, in fact, runs through the original series line-up at Showtime.  But I just can’t envision this—here the story can go into a darker and more truthful, and perhaps expected, direction, or it can stick to the quirky, dark and funny, but definitely fictional course it seems to be primed to go. 

Maybe it is just my failure of imagination to envision a third or fourth, etc, possibility, in which truth that honors the original abuse that causes DID is balanced with the quirky Diablo Cody sensibility that fits Showtime so well.

Either way, I am willing to try next season, and see where this show goes and who Tara might become.