Time for Arrested Development Season 1, Disc 2!
Episode 7: My Mother, The Car
Michael keeps planning surprise birthday parties for his mom, and the rest of the family keeps not showing up. Lucille gets in a car accident and frames Michael.
Episode 8: In God We Trust
George Sr. is released for the afternoon to take part in a living art pageant where he plays God. Lucille goes on a date with the family’s prospective new lawyer. Tobias is a never-nude, and George Michael tries to impress Maeby with a muscle suit.
Episode 9: Storming the Castle
Michael schemes to get Marta and GOB’s ex on stage at his magic act together so Marta will see how GOB is awful. George Michael has smooth, feminine legs.
Episode 10: Pier Pressure
Buster asks George Michael to buy some pot from GOB for him for Lucille 2 and her vertigo. GOB tells Michael, and they decide to “teach him a lesson” using GOB’s hot cop friends. George Sr. ends up teaching them a lesson about teaching lessons.
Episode 11: Public Relations
Michael hires a publicist to help make the family look better. Tobias takes an acting class from Carl Weathers.
Episode 12: Marta Complex
Marta begins to fall in love with Michael, and GOB and Michael think she is sleeping with someone else on the cast of her show. Buster falls in love with Marta too.
Episode 13: Beef Consomme
Michael and Marta want to be together, but feel guilty. GOB continues to hunt for the man Marta’s been sleeping with. Buster hires a mariachi band. Marta finds the three brothers fighting over her and says goodbye to all of them.
Episode 14: Shock and Aww
George Michael has a crush on his ethics teacher. So does Michael. She has a crush on Saddam Hussein. Lucille adopts a Korean boy out of spite. They think his name is Annyong but that really just means Hello in Korean.
Trish’s Review
A few of these episodes are less strong (“Pier Pressure” and “Marta Complex” def), but “Public Relations” and “Shock and Aww” are two of my faves. They both have running jokes that quietly play throughout the whole episode, and “Shock and Aww” introduces Annyong who is pretty great.
Rating: Four out of five pictures of Saddam Hussein in a swimsuit cut out of a rare library book.
Kill/Fuck/Marry: Kill Michael because he starts to annoy me in these episodes, especially with his convoluted plans to get with Marta. Fuck Beth Baerly, the ethics teacher, because she’s played by Heather Graham and seems up for whatever. Marry the hot cops. All of them at once. ALWAYS A PARTY.
Steven’s Review
Honestly I think this is the part of the series where I really start to love Lucille (1, obviously, not 2-aka-Austero). She seems more and more genteely sociopathic, but in such a fun way that it’s hard not to love her for it. Michael and Lindsay swim in and out of likability, with Tobias sinking deeper and deeper in psychopathy-inducing awkwardness “as an actor” (which is honestly a huge credit to David Cross’s abilities as an actor in real life).
Rating: Four out of five tweaked undercover informant nipples.
Kill/Fuck/Marry: My kill vote is evenly divided between GOB and Buster, but leaning toward GOB. Fuck is obviously Beth Baerly i.e. Heather Graham, because who doesn’t want to hook up with Felicity Shagwell? Honorable mention goes to Jessie the publicist here, because girl knows what she wants and isn’t afraid of going for it! Marry… I’m still going to have to go with Marta on this one. She’s somehow managing to continue a healthy adult relationship from her end, even if she has terrible taste in men.
Previously: Arrested Development 1.1
Next: Arrested Development 1.3