Arrested DevelopmentPilot
DVD Season 1
Alicia Gray - TwoCents Reviewer
alicia@thetwocentscorp.com
Welcome to Arrested Development, where no matter what, the Bluth family is always much worse than your own family. We meet the Bluth family on a yacht where they are celebrating the retirement of George Bluth Sr., C.E.O of the Bluth Company.
Enter Michael Bluth. The poor guy has it bad, he’s waited 10 years for his father to make him a partner in the company. Lucile Bluth comes down the stairs from the top deck to tell Michael she can’t believe a group of gay men are staging a protest during her husband’s party. The men protesting are dressed up as pirates (this will later become important). Lindsay Bluth Funke (Michael’s twin sister) can’t understand why her mother is so upset, until she realizes one of the men is wearing the same top she owns. Now she’s mad.
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Arrested Development
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DVD Season 1
Alicia Gray - TwoCents Reviewer
alicia@thetwocentscorp.com
Welcome to Arrested Development, where no matter what, the Bluth family is always much worse than your own family. We meet the Bluth family on a yacht where they are celebrating the retirement of George Bluth Sr., C.E.O of the Bluth Company.
Enter Michael Bluth. The poor guy has it bad, he’s waited 10 years for his father to make him a partner in the company. Lucile Bluth comes down the stairs from the top deck to tell Michael she can’t believe a group of gay men are staging a protest during her husband’s party. The men protesting are dressed up as pirates (this will later become important). Lindsay Bluth Funke (Michael’s twin sister) can’t understand why her mother is so upset, until she realizes one of the men is wearing the same top she owns. Now she’s mad.
An insert of a fifth member of the family is seen. It’s of Lindsay’s husband Tobias Funke. We hear narrator Ron Howard tell us, she only married him to tick her mother off. We next meet Gob, a magician. We come to Buster, whom we find out is a little “off.” You all know the type. He’s the boy in life whose mother over coddles him to the point where she dresses him till he’s an adult. Yeah, see. He’s off.
Rewind. On the morning of the boat party, we see Michael sleeping on the ground next to George-Michael (his son). To prove his loyalty to the company Michael has decided to live in a model house his family owns, but of course in the attic.
In the next scene, the two guys head down to the Bluth banana stand, also owned by the family. George Sr.’s father started it in the 1950s and will become a mainstay on the show till the end.
Michael goes to Lucile’s house to take away the company credit card, which the clan seems to have been using to charge everything from Gob’s magic tricks to Lindsay’s stay at the Four Seasons. Tobias comes into the room, where Ron Howard tells the audience Tobias lost his medical license because he gave CPR to a man who didn’t need it.
George-Michael continues to work at the banana stand when a young girl enters to tell him she found a fox foot in her banana (her grandmother earlier has been upset when she learns someone cut off the fox foot on her shawl). Don’t worry, it’s just George-Michael’s crazy cousin Maeby. She’s decided that it was be hilarious to get back at the family, but making out with George-Michael on the yacht. This plan comes into effect when both acknowledge that that never see each other. Like most of the jokes, this becomes an ongoing gag that George-Michael has a thing for his cousin.
Tobias believing the party to be pirate themed (thanks to Michael) gets ready by dressing up in Lindsay’s shirt (which we see in the beginning – a man on the protest boat wearing the same shirt). He leaves with the group of protesters and inadvertently ends up protesting the yacht.
We come back to the yacht, where George Sr. gives the company to Lucile, not Michael. Needless to say he’s hurt. Maeby ends up kissing George-Michael, as the police enter the yacht. The place goes into a panic. It’s clear they’re coming for George as he hides in Gob’s trick disappearing Aztec box. News reporter John Heard (from Los Angeles) tells us George has been arrested for defrauding his investors. As the family waits for news on George, at the police station, Tobias comes in to tell the Bluth’s the gay men have shown him the way, to which his family believes him to now be gay (a running joke that continues for the entire series). “No, no, no, Lindsay we’ve already had the conversation” he repeats to them. He’s found a new path as an actor.
Michael comes in to tell everyone the situation. He’s father will have to be held in jail for a while, which means there will be a halt on the family’s expense account. That’s when they gasp of course.
In the next scenes, we see the Funke’s bolt out to the hotel they can no longer afford, Tobias auditions for a play, Michael sets himself up with the rival company, Buster is not prepared to head the company after his mother puts him in charge. Buster has a major panic attack at the office as Buster is wheeled away on a gurney. At that moment they need Michael back.
The family stages an intervention (at Lucile’s house) to get Michael to come back and run the company. He’s not having it and decides his family isn’t worth it. But, balks when Lindsay thinks the least he can do is good-bye to George in prison. George believes he had done Michael a favor by not putting him in charge. George ALSO believes putting Lucile in charge was a sane choice because they couldn’t arrest a husband/wife team. Not quite George.
At the model home, Lindsay and Michael finally have a heart to heart after not speaking for a year. She hasn’t talked to Michael because she knows he’s ashamed of her choices in life. He gives in and decides to stay in California (good move since the show wouldn’t have happened without him,). As we end the first episode, the Funke’s and Michael and his son play a board game. Michael announces that both families will be staying in the model home from now on, making George-Michael a tad bit nervous.
*wink. ;-)
Every episode ends with a faux “coming up on the next episode” where nothing in this segment will ever truly correlate with what’s ahead.
A real coming up on Arrested Development: “Bringing Up Buster.” Buster moves in with Michael. In order to get closer to Maeby, George-Michael decides to audition for the high school play.