you could feel the impact the shortened length had on the season run, but overall, it was good.
first episode was gold and the rita plot that i wasn't even enjoying when it started, became the season's triumph — so much that i felt some episodes were kinda empty after it was over — as much as the space for character development always've been the strongest point of the show and it wasn't different here, i still think it was way less summed to other brilliant storylines like previous s1 and s2.
although this episode, specifically, was weak and soulless, in execution at least. it all did make very sense — except for the lindsay storyline tf was that — but when put together it just didn't worked, perhaps the effects of a rushed season. (kinda like the show knew it would've been given a 2nd chance really)
i won't comment on characters or actors still because, of course, i'll still see them.
but this was a masterclass on TV comedy, and i really loved it. not at all do i think netflix seasons will match the fox ones, not even if it tries, cause much, much of it was all effect of the age, landscape and cultural scenario it was made into. that's not the end of the story, but definitively the end of an cycle. curious for next seasons.
It was Arrested Advelopment.
GREAT season finale. Nice season so far.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-05-16T05:10:01Z
[8.5/10] There is a lot going on in “Development Arrested”, but I don’t really mind. Sure, just like in the last episode, some of it is racing to an ending without enough track. But the twists and reveals and resolutions are all so absurd and satisfying that I am hard-pressed to complain.
I know there’s a large contingent of Arrested Development fans who take issue with Michael, arguing that he’s at least as bad, if not worse, than his more explicitly selfish family members. And I think there’s some truth to that. But I’d be lying if I didn’t find the ending to the series poetic in its way.
For years, the family has complained that he’s a robot, incapable of showing emotion. And yet what prompts him to do it here, in a mirror of the series’ opening episode, is the realization that he basically succeeded in his mission to keep the family together, that the sacrifices he made over the past three years paid off, and the Bluths finally managed to make it out of trouble.
Of course, the reaction isn’t a favorable one. As Lucille herself once put it, no good deed goes unpunished, and for all their complains about Michael’s inability to show emotion, they’re all vaguely grossed out when he finally does. More to the point, there’s no appreciation for everything that led to this point, just more selfishness and a slippery slope to selling out. So there’s something satisfying about Michael taking his son and deciding to amscray to Cabo with a boat and some funds and let the family “keep themselves together for a while.” Of course, George Sr. has pulled off another escape, in Michael’s final strange bedfellow, because the universe of the show dictates that Michael can never truly win, but it’s still a satisfying send off nonetheless.
One of the chief criticisms of Michael, though, is that he doesn’t really listen to his son or genuinely help him with his problems. There’s some metahumor to George Michael telling his dad that he’s heard this “out of the woods” business several times before to no avail, not to mention the “We’ll have a good talk about your problems” promise that never comes true. So there’s some catharsis when George Michael really does come clean about his feelings for Maeby.
Michael gives the right answer for a bizarre situation -- one that’s patient and understanding of his son, while calmly explaining that regardless of blood relations, Maeby is family, and so acting on those sorts of feelings, especially among fifteen-year-olds, just isn’t an option. There’s still some out there gags about it (mostly the Pete Rose bit), but it’s a surprisingly down-to-earth way to resolve one of the show’s most transgressive longstanding story threads.
Likewise, a lot of the show has been about George Michael’s inability to fully grow up and express himself. So when he finds out that GOB stole his girlfriend, Ann Veal, and punches him in the face over it, it works oddly well as a moment of self-actualization and growth for him. (Hell, it may even count as foreshadowing!) Plus, as bizarre as it is, GOB’s “religious girlfriend” turning out to be Ann works well as a crazy twist that nevertheless feels set up by prior events.
In terms of major arcs, I like the reveal that Lucille is the power behind the throne, even if it comes pretty late in the game. Watching her manipulate Michael and try to get him, and everyone, to sell their souls in order to preserve the company works well as a devil’s temptation. Jessica Walter nails the queen bee role as usual, and it sets up Michael’s descent into selling out, little by little, until he realizes the muck he’s fallen into.
That said, I have mixed feelings about the Lindsay storyline here. I actually like the reveal that she’s adopted. It “artlessly” makes the George Michael/Maeby situation a little less gross, and George Sr. and Lucille stealing an adoptee out from under the Sitwells seem about right for them. It even adds some elegance to the detail that she’s the “Nellie Bluth” in the picture Michael found earlier in the season.
But maaan, all the jokes about her being over the hill or otherwise too old now that it turns out she’s forty play as sooooo hacky. I’ll confess to getting a bit of a kick out of how her default move when this is noted is to go for the hair (and the alopecia/alpaca wordplay with Stan Sitwell is a good gag), but the whole “women are bad after 40” is played unfortunately straight here, and it leaves things on a sour note.
Plus, as uncomfortable if innocent as some of the George Michael/Maeby material, the episode really goes for broke in a pretty gross way with the Bluth siblings. Michael trying to reassure an insecure Lindsay is a good beat (especially with the flashback to Lucille’s bullying of her daugher in the 1970s), but Lindsay deciding to try to marry Michael now that she’s adopted so she can keep their family fortune, and GOB try to revenge pick her up down the line is just too much for me, even on a show that gets its jolts from lots of transgressive humor.
That said, the smaller gags generally work well for me. The bit with Tobias and the “hot sailors” hits about the notes you’d expect for the character, but though the laughs are cheap, I was largely on board. I liked Buster facing both his second and first biggest fear with this return to the ocean, giving Tony Hale room to go broke in his performance. Maeby gets one of the most meta routines in the whole show by trying to get the family to sign the rights to their story away and gets one last “That’s a freebie.” Plus, the endless line of Michael waking up to various familial weirdos on the other side of the bed made for some great laughs.
There’s even another great bit of mirroring and payoff to the series as a whole. We get another most important thing = family/breakfast gag. We get the Bluths being chased by SEC boats yet again, and a great party to recognize Michael’s succession gone wrong. But we also find out who gave up Lucille -- with it turning out to be Anyong out for revenge for the grandfather she stole the Banana Stand idea from. A lot of this info is dropped late, but it works just well enough to feel like a big, twisty solution to all the little mysteries the show’s been hinting at from the beginning.
Overall, it’s hard to take issue with this finale. Yes, it packs a ton into a small amount of runtime, but that was always this show. It’s a herculean task to try to wrap up all the ideas and characters and running gags that Arrested Development tossed in the air, but Mitch Hurwitz and his team do a commendable job of it, giving a sense of bookends to the series’ original run, while showing how just enough has changed, and stayed the same, over the past three years, to convince Michael to run away rather than stick around this time.
The original run of this series is, if not untouchable, than certainly in all time great echelon of T.V. comedy. It’s flashbacks, continuity gags, ambitious and transgressive humor, collection of riches-to-rags self-centered characters, and clockwork plotting remains one of the most unique and hilarious things in all of television. There was a magic to this run of episodes, matching great on-screen talent with brilliant writing and endlessly ambitious gags than ran across episodes, seasons, and the series as a whole. Arrested Development may have ended too soon, but it’s still nice to see the show sail off into the sunset, at the top of its game, even if, true to the series, there were more complications to come.