Seriously, how annoying is it to be locked out of an inside joke? Pretty annoying, amirite? It's like, your friends keep laughing a little too loudly when one of them says, "Her?" about your new girlfriend Ann. And they keep doing this really weird dance and screaming, "CHA-CHEE-CHA-CHEE-CHA" when you're being a wuss. You're vaguely aware this mockery originated with a cult-favorite TV show, but it'd be really nice if you could fire an appropriate reference right back at them, for once, you know?
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Battlestar GalacticaThe good news is, if you've never binged on Arrested Development before, a lot of those moments that have heretofore been lost on you are about to make much more sense. From its beginnings as a sorely under-watched comedy on Fox to its growth into a show so beloved its fans' enthusiasm practically willed a Netflix-backed fourth season into existence 10 years after its cancellation, Arrested Development has proved itself as one of the smartest eye-rolling, self-referential comedies in television history. And the best part is this story of the once-filthy-rich-now-disgraced-and-poor Bluth family is also one of the easiest and most fun to binge-watch. Shake up a 9 a.m. martini and get to it.
Number of Seasons: 4 (68 episodes)
Time Requirements: The entire series is around 25 hours, which means if you're watching five episodes a night (less than two hours!), you can get this bad boy logged for the low, low price of two weeks. Really binge on 15 episodes each weekend and you'll be done in eight days.
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix, Amazon Prime, DVD (You'll have to have Netflix for the fourth season, though.)
Best Character to Follow: A 50/50 split between Lucille (Jessica Walter) and Buster (Tony Hale). Also known as "Gangee" (weirdly, a word for "grandma"?), the ever-GIFable matriarch of the Bluth clan is the patron saint of old-lady, one-percenter comedy, while her debilitatingly dependent youngest son Buster (who may or may not be her husband George Sr.'s kid) serves up the most mortifying Oedipal complex ever committed to film. Together they comprise a disgustingly dynamic duo—I'd say "a bizarrely perverted Charlie Brown and Lucy," if there weren't already multiple Charlie Brown jokes sprinkled throughout the show's four seasons—that provides the darkest (and perhaps truest) glimpse into the disturbing psyche of the Bluth family.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip: The best—and alternately most inconvenient—thing about Arrested Development is that if you skip any episode, you're risking missing out on the beginning of a recurring gag, or worse, a minor joke that might end up being your favorite of the entire series. Besides, of every show you could possibly watch this summer, this is probably the least intense TV bender you can go on, so let my official answer be, "None of them! What are you, chicken?"
That said, if you really must be a cheater and skip episodes, the fourth season is the time to do it. *Arrested Development'*s first season establishes the show's characters and tone, the second is the show in its full stride, and the third—the season when showrunners found out they were getting canceled and decided to go out with an especially batshit bang—is so chock-full of mile-a-minute meta-brilliance that it acts as sort of reward for fans who watched all of the first two seasons.
The fourth season, while intended as the real cherry on top, feels more like a détènte than anything, or perhaps just a comfortable reunion. After 10 years, during which fans discovered and fell in love with the show at exponential rates, it was released all at once last spring via Netflix as a reinvigorated sequel. However, it's a sequel that follows a completely different show format and features a new cast of guest stars including John Slattery, Max Winkler (Henry's son! as Young Barry Zuckercorn!), Ben Schwartz, Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen (playing young Lucille and George Sr., respectively). And while it's pretty delightful to see the newbie cast of Workaholics giving Michael a hard time at the airport, the new episodes sort of feel like elements of a bonus features menu rather than a legitimately crucial part of the Bluth saga, so there's no real harm in skipping through them, moving to the next episode whenever the one you're on gets a little dull.
Seasons/Episodes You Can't Skip:
Season 1: Episode 2, "Top Banana" This is the banana stand episode everybody always references. In retrospect, it's hard to believe that such a classic AD episode was just the second of the entire series, but then again talent is what made it a cult classic to begin with. Absolutely requisite viewing.
Season 1: Episode 7, "In God We Trust" The episode with the "Living Classics" pageant, featuring a live-action "Creation of Adam," wherein George Michael (Michael Cera) gets a little too into his "Adam" chestpiece. It's also the first time we hear the phrase "never nude," a crucial brick in the AD monolith.
Season 2: Episode 3, "¡Amigos!" A packed-with-perfection episode in which Tobias (David Cross) sneaks into the Blue Man Group and makes unwitting gay jokes (his forte). This is also the chapter where we discover the one thing that gives Lucille unadulterated joy—her terrible private eye Gene Parmesan. Also, Gob (Will Arnett) not only hires a bounty hunter who he calls "his friend," but also manages to insult all of Mexico with his impression of a chicken. Plus, Buster tries to defect from the Army—which he only joins to spite Lucille for cheating on "his father" with "his uncle" (who is actually his father, it's complicated)—by escaping to what he believes is Mexico but in reality is Santa Ana. There's also a highly unlikely Quincy Jones joke tucked in there.
Season 2: Episodes 12 and 13, "Hand to God" and "Motherboy XXX" These two episodes are Arrested Development at its best, and possibly two of the greatest episodes of television ever made. "Hand" boasts a double whammy: not only does Buster get his hand bitten off by a "loose seal" (say it aloud) "with a yellow bowtie," it's also an episode with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss returning in her role as the very, very untrustworthy lawyer Maggie Lizer. Plus, Tobias and Lindsay (Portia de Rossi)'s teenage daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat) continues to moonlight as a big-time Hollywood producer, which, perfect. "Motherboy," on the other hand, brings the Lucille-Buster relationship to its peak creep factor with some backstory: a "mother-son bonding contest" the pair have entered every year ... in matching costumes. This year Buster refuses to go, so Lucille tricks George Michael into coming with her. Amy Poehler also returns as Gob's wife (she first appears in Season 1), and Carl Weathers returns to exploit Tobias again—with help from Dave Attell.
Season 2: Episode 17, "Spring Breakout" One of the best Lucille-centric episodes of the series. After she accidentally mixes Buster's pain meds with alcohol (thanks to that classic AD winky-face gag) and ruins an important investor meeting, Michael (Jason Bateman) tricks Lucille into checking into rehab. Also, it's the one where Buster gets drunk on boxed wine after mistaking it for a giant juice box. The whole alcoholism narrative gives us a glimpse into one of the best (and drunkest) parties the Bluths ever had (when they last tried to stage an intervention for Lucille) and then Zach Braff parodies Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis. We also get more "never nude" gags, a Saddam Hussein joke, and Judy Greer's Kitty shines in an especially nutty plot line. So all in all it's a pretty perfect episode.
Season 3: Episodes 2 through 6, The "For British Eyes Only" Arc Another classic quote-mine, these five episodes are the ones where Charlize Theron plays a British MRF—"Mentally Retarded Female"—whom Michael dates, believing she's just gorgeous and incredibly, debilitatingly naïve. The whole misunderstanding, which includes her justifiably concerned father, devolves into a 007-style British spy parody that ends with another Bluth admitting, "I've made a huge mistake." It's a masterful, unmissable arc that makes it astonishingly clear how like his family Michael actually is. Plus, we meet Bob Loblaw!
Season 3: Episode 9, "S.O.B.s" Commonly referred to as the best Arrested Development episode ever, "S.O.B.s" is certainly its most self-aware. At this point, the showrunners knew that Fox was going to shut them down, so the episode blasts back with every piece of ammo in the artillery. It mocks other Fox shows (mostly reality shows) that got renewed by pretending to be a "live" episode, brings out almost every guest star it possibly can, uses the plot—wherein the family plans a benefit to bail out their company—as a tongue-in-cheek parallel to the survival of the show, and even directly references its imminent death. Also, "Discipline Daddy."
Why You Should Binge:
Because it's one of the canonical shows of our generation, and because it's a perfect match for its era: sarcastic, overly self-aware, cynical, and filled to the brim with daddy (and mommy) issues. More technically, Arrested Development, like many half-hour comedies, is a dish best served in one fell swoop. All the running jokes fit together seamlessly, so it's a lot easier to pick up on the more subtle nods to earlier episodes when you've just watched them in the past week. Plus, did I mention it's one of the shortest binge-watches you'll undertake this summer?
Best Scene:
From "I blue myself" to "It walked on my pillow," this show is composed entirely of "best scenes"s, so you can take your own pick, but Buster discovering Gob's incredibly racist puppet Franklin in Season 2 is well...
The Takeaway:
There's always money in the banana stand, dummy.
If You Liked Arrested Development You'll Love:
Arrested Development popularized the one-camera, self-aware "mockumentary" style, so pretty much any of the shows that came after it might tickle your fancy: Party Down, The Office (just Seasons 1 through 5, though—it's all downhill after Pam and Jim get pregnant), Parks and Recreation, etc. And though Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm technically preceded AD in 2000, the former shares the latter's penchant for terrible-person comedy.
