[7.7/10] Hey! Another episode from this season that I unabashedly like! I know Michael Cera has fallen in esteem a bit over the years, but I still think he’s the best actor of his generation when it comes to playing awkward, nerdy guys in a way that is both believable and endearing. I’ll confess, even having seen this episode before, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to George Michael’s feature episode, but it ended up being the most complete and fully-formed episode of the lot so far.
This is the rare season 4 episode that strikes a nice balance between having a self-contained plot (George Michael’s coming of age in college and FakeBlock app development), connections to other stories (Maeby’s scheme, the Rebel Alley situation), and callbacks to prior Arrested Development gags (“Anns in one basket”, the Star Wars kid video, hell even the whole wood block conceit). While there’s other episodes I’ve rated higher, this one feels the most like an episode from the original run, with a semi-complete story and a few really creative, out there gags.
The abiding spoof of The Social Network makes for a nice structure to build the episode around. I enjoy both the silliness of George Michael stumbling into Web 2.0 infamy and buzz, and the absurdity of the fact that, once again, he’s doing the whole thing to impress Maeby. His coming of age sequence through college is one of the few “passage of time” sections in this season that really clicks, and his desire to have something to block friends nicely dovetails with his experiences with would-be pals betraying him and a desire to put up “a wall” between him and his dad.
The out there gags really worked for me too. I enjoy the long pause while George Michael stops to contemplate whether to lie about his app to his dad and Maeby, and the notion that he has instinctive lying potential thanks to his Bluth genes. His attempts to remake himself as an adult in various ways are a laugh and oddly relatable despite their outsized tone, and it’s nice to see season 4 paying off a few things set up previously in ways that are funny and not just bits that make you go, “Oh, I guess that’s what was happening.”
Overall, this is what I was hoping for from the Arrested Development revival -- something that isn’t perfect but feels like a natural extension and even evolution for the characters from where we left them, with a nice mix of twists on old gags and entertaining new ones.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-06-14T04:16:37Z
[7.7/10] Hey! Another episode from this season that I unabashedly like! I know Michael Cera has fallen in esteem a bit over the years, but I still think he’s the best actor of his generation when it comes to playing awkward, nerdy guys in a way that is both believable and endearing. I’ll confess, even having seen this episode before, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to George Michael’s feature episode, but it ended up being the most complete and fully-formed episode of the lot so far.
This is the rare season 4 episode that strikes a nice balance between having a self-contained plot (George Michael’s coming of age in college and FakeBlock app development), connections to other stories (Maeby’s scheme, the Rebel Alley situation), and callbacks to prior Arrested Development gags (“Anns in one basket”, the Star Wars kid video, hell even the whole wood block conceit). While there’s other episodes I’ve rated higher, this one feels the most like an episode from the original run, with a semi-complete story and a few really creative, out there gags.
The abiding spoof of The Social Network makes for a nice structure to build the episode around. I enjoy both the silliness of George Michael stumbling into Web 2.0 infamy and buzz, and the absurdity of the fact that, once again, he’s doing the whole thing to impress Maeby. His coming of age sequence through college is one of the few “passage of time” sections in this season that really clicks, and his desire to have something to block friends nicely dovetails with his experiences with would-be pals betraying him and a desire to put up “a wall” between him and his dad.
The out there gags really worked for me too. I enjoy the long pause while George Michael stops to contemplate whether to lie about his app to his dad and Maeby, and the notion that he has instinctive lying potential thanks to his Bluth genes. His attempts to remake himself as an adult in various ways are a laugh and oddly relatable despite their outsized tone, and it’s nice to see season 4 paying off a few things set up previously in ways that are funny and not just bits that make you go, “Oh, I guess that’s what was happening.”
Overall, this is what I was hoping for from the Arrested Development revival -- something that isn’t perfect but feels like a natural extension and even evolution for the characters from where we left them, with a nice mix of twists on old gags and entertaining new ones.