United States of Tara, "Inspiration": V is for vandalism

Spoilers for last night's "United States of Tara" coming up just as soon as I leave the iron on...

"How can you spend a lifetime of memories with someone when the person you're spending it with isn't there?" -Tara

"Inspiration" is the first episode of the series to not be written by Diablo Cody, and it's also the least overtly comic episode so far. Is that just a coincidence, or a sign of a direction the series may take going forward?

I'm inclined to think it's the former, but we'll see. We know from some of the confusion in my Cody interview that this episode's author, Alexa Junge, contributed some of the more Cody-sounding bits of dialogue from the earlier episodes, so it's not as if she can't make with the hipster banter. I just think that, given the show's premise, they need to do episodes that are slightly darker in tone now and then -- and to show how the alters dominate Tara's life even in an episode where they barely appear. It may not be as much fun as watching Buck lay the smack down on Kate's boyfriend or Alice putting Marshall's teacher in his place, but for Tara, none of this is fun, is it?

The previous episodes made it clear that the alters know what happens when they're not in control, while Tara has no clue, and this episode starts to explain why. DID generally manifests itself as a defense mechanism for some major trauma, and in her session with Dr. Ocean, we find out that Tara suffered a trauma, though we don't know what (and maybe Tara doesn't, either). And while the mental blackouts no doubt helped her survive whatever happened to her as a child, they're a raw deal now, not when the alters can be summoned by something as minor as a stressful encounter with bitchy PTA moms, or even by (as she tells Tiffany) the smell of instant coffee.

"Inspiration" continues the tension about Tara and Max's sex life, as she walks in on him while he's having his "gentleman's time," and it sets up something of a locked room mystery: which alter vandalized Tiffany's mural? Or is Tara being blamed for something that her body had nothing to do with?

Again, this was a less lively episode than the previous three, but I'm still enjoying it, and welcomed spending a half-hour primarily with Tara herself.

What did everybody else think?