Just finished the series and I really hate Tara...

but was it completely out of her control if she had been on the meds and gotten rid of the alters temporarily? With 2 kids in high school and leaving the nest soon, was it really necessary to do her experiment with them in the house to have to deal with the consequences of her going off meds? WHy not wait until the kids were out of the house? Look at all the distress her being off meds caused for her kids...all so she could be creative enough to get work in her chosen profession???

Didn’t Max say to Marshall in one of the later episodes that while both he and Tara knew that Tara had some issues, they had NO idea to what extend how deeply Tara’s issues went. So having anger towards Tara for having children doesn’t make much sense.

I agree with the poster that the family decided together that Tara should make a go of things off the medication so that she could deal with her issues rather than suppress them. I think that Tara wanted to be present in the lives of her family members rather rather than drugged and unaware to a great extent in regards to what was happening in her life. So I can’t feel anger towards Tara there, either.

As for people with mental health issues having children…I see a lot of people who might not be diagnosed with any kind of disorder who I question whether they should be parents or not.

As for how Tara handled herself, I’m not sure if it’s right to blame her for what her alters did. Plus Tara’s family had some co-dependency issues in that sometimes they would not be 100% honest with her about what the alters did. If they had told her everything that had happened, she might have decided in a different course of action after being told that things were worse than she was aware.

I agree with you, the side characters were really well developed. Apart from Kate (who you describe), it's also very well presented how all these changes affect Marshall, and also why Max is one of the few people who could resist with Tara for so long (because of his father leaving his crazy mother he had some "oedipus" complexes and decided to never leave his wife no matter what), and the sister who needed attention ...

And I agree with most people on this thread - Tara maybe cannot be responsible for her disease, but if your behavior is physically and mentally hurting other people, you should be stopped. Much less damage would be done if Max would just have full custody and the kids would be raised just by him.

first of all, did not watched the 3 season (it was never broadcast in my country by low ratings, only the first 2 seasons) and i never looked upon netflix. This is my summary of tara after reading many spoilers (back in the day) about season 3 and the 2 seasons i watched:
everyone on the house are mentally ill somehow. Max allows tara and alters to do anything she desire, even defends (mostly) the alters and tara to other people. i remember one episode where the male alter (T i think it was) came out on some sort of party and punched someone on broad day light. max jumped over stopped the alter and even defend it. man, if your wife believes its a man and its hurting someone physically or mentally or other-wise, its time to take her to a mental institution and lock her for good there.
kate: she has the worst traits of tara (and even some alters) she is a bit*h and a true prostitute (remember she had sex with anyone for any reason, like "hey can you give me a cigarrette? (the guys says) sure, if you blow me (and kate says something like) sure, if you give me the whole box i will do you all night" if your daughter its opening her legs to anything with a stick (if you know what i mean ;) ) between the legs, thats an issue not just a "horny" teenager.
she allowed all the cr*p beacause, first that was a nice "get out of jail" free pass for anything she did, it was easy cry over his crazy sh*t mom ruining her life and get away with a naked 30 year old men in her bedroom. then again once she lok out for work she demanded too much money and a high position anywhere when she was a teen without any experience on nothing. but sure you would get named CEO of sega probably LOL.
Marshall: he was gay and i love him, but he was totally lame. accepted any abuse of anyone, from tara alters and from anyone in the high school. he took years to accept that he was gay, when all the family (including tara alters) know that he was a freacking gay man since his birth probably. the first season it was painfull see him accepting it.
like if you watch a cow entering into a meat grinder and you watch it on really slow motion. see the cow beeing shred into pieces and screaming. watch that for 2 full hours and it is the taste i felt watching this kid realizing the most OBVIOUS thing in the universe.
the worst written character its tara sister. the irst season was in every episode screaming "commit her to a mental asylum now!" if she was a judge on gotham city the joker would be toast (she would demand to put him on a vault on arkham asylum and he would never be seeing again) and the family was at her back "yeah she is a total b*tch" when she was the only sane person there.
in the 2 season she was 100% loving and supporting her by a stupid episode where she takes care of her in the T alter and when she comes back to herself she does not remember anything, and the sister realizes that she is truly insane and that it is really another personality not just a "joke" from her pretending to have an alter to do any crazy sh*t.
overall, the 1 season was the best. it show promising future. in the 2 season when the writters choosen total bat sh*t crazy over developing the history rather that have tara have an alter change every 10 minutes (and in 3 season i heard somethig like every 5 minutes of the episode) that does not work for me since in real life that its not possible. she was faking it, or he was truly insane and you cannot help a person up to that point. if the meds does not work and every day a new alter its born, you cannot fix that. it would have been more realistic to commit her into a special mental facility to threat her decease, and see others new characters with other new alters helping out one to the other and the alters to heal themselves, and see how her family (tara`s and maybe the other new characters families) heal themselves from that traumatizing experience. but no lay writting dictates every episode needs 2 new alters, that will make the people wanting for more.
and near the season 2 finale, when she had that personality that whent like an angry animal attacking everyone... that should be her one way ticket for GOOD to the mental asylum. yeah people with mental issues must be help, not discriminated, blah, blah, blah. if a person with a mental illness its destroying your life by mental or physical torute, or attacks, just because its has a mental illness does not grant him or her a free pass to anything in life. you need to get help, and if you love to be crazy because you wanna destroy anything and you abuse your "illness" to do so, you must be sent away to be heal or at least to stop you from damaging other people.