The Plaid Pladd

Episode 15: Staff Infection
Michael discovers everyone in the family has been on the company payroll and so puts them all to work. Buster and GOB get into a fight at the construction site, which the other workers insist they settle with a construction-equipment duel. The feds do a subpar job of installing new lighting in the Bluth offices while scoping out the place.

Episode 16: Missing Kitty
Michael fires Kitty, the secretary, for being awful, but George Sr. insists she knows too much. She flashes him a lot. GOB tries to get on a Girls With Low Self-Esteem video by “magically disappearing” i.e. blowing up his family’s yacht. That Kitty happened to be inside?!

Episode 17: Altar Egos
GOB convinces Michael to have a one-night stand (no real names!) and ends up sleeping with a blind woman while pretending to be a pirate lawyer. Surprise! She turns out to be the prosecutor on George Sr.’s case. GOB’s night also didn’t go as planned when he accidentally got married to Amy Poehler (RIP Will Arnett and Amy Poehler’s love).

Episode 18: Justice is Blind
Michael feels guilty about trying to one-night stand a blind girl, so he continues to pretend to pursue a relationship with her. He feels even more guilty about being Michael Bluth and eventually confesses. He takes her dog Justice to the vet and discovers that JUSTICE IS BLIND meaning that Maggie could see that whole time. Maeby is scamming her school out of my money by pretending to be her own sickly twin sister, Surely.

Episode 19: Best Man for the GOB
GOB is still married to Amy Poehler so Michael offers to throw him a bachelor party. George Sr. decides to throw one instead, using it as an opportunity to frame his accountant for murder to prevent him from testifying. Buster gets hopped up on juice.

Episode 20: Whistler’s Mother
George Sr.’s twin brother Oscar shows up to ask for money and pursue an affair with Lucille. He convinces Michael to buy his useless lemon grove and lets George Sr. take the fall when it turns out to be a bad deal. Eventually Lucille saves the day with her geriatric sexual allure.

Episode 21: Not Without My Daughter
Michael takes Maeby to Take Your Daughter to Work Day and makes a deal with her that the first of them to lie will pay the other $50. Then the police show up to question him about Kitty’s disappearance, since he was apparently the last one to see her ALIVE. Maeby snoops around the police station and finds Kitty very much alive and helping the police attempt to coerce Michael. Lindsey lies rather than confess she has a job at the mall, and ends up getting fired when GOB and George Michael release a bunch of mice.

Episode 22: Let Them Eat Cake
Kitty attempts to seize control of the Bluth company with the info she knows. She thinks it’s only unpaid taxes, but George Sr. confesses the Bluth company had been building houses in Iraq despite sanctions against doing business with Saddam. George Sr. fakes a heart attack during a polygraph test and subsequently escapes from the hospital.

Trish’s Review
Once again this disc was a mix of episodes I really like (“Not Without My Daughter”, anything with Maggie) and ones I would skip over if I could (“Best Man for the GOB”). This disc also saw the introduction of the Overly Literal Doctor who announces George Sr.’s escape to the family by saying, “He’s gone” and “We lost him”.

Rating: Four out of five blind seeing-eye dogs
Kill/Fuck/Marry: Kill Kitty (by blowing up a yacht she was on), Fuck Maggie (while using a false name), Marry Amy Poehler (on a dare)

Steven’s Review
I absolutely love Overly Literal Doctor, who is one of the best running gags in the show, so this is an awesome time to be alive/watching the series. Maeby also starts getting more screen time and character development, which I’m anxious for as we get closer and closer to bigshot studio producer Maeby (one of my other favorite features of the show). Also tons of great Barry time, woo! He reminds me more and more of Jim Rash’s Dean Pelton from Community.

Rating: Four out of five Girls With Low Self-Esteem™.
Kill/Fuck/Marry: Kill George Michael, because it’s becoming clearer and clearer here that he’s some kind of shell of a human made of equal parts Tobias and his father (Tobias once more in second place here, fighting hard to win). Fuck Kitty, because we all know what happens to those who don’t by now… Marry Maggie. For Justice!

Next: Arrested Development 2.1
Previously: Arrested Development 1.2

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