The fourth season of Arrested Development got on Netflix today and it is amazing. Watching it is like a being at your college reunion at a dicey dive bar, but all your favorite old friends came, and you’re drinking Sangrias as they fill you in on their lives, your drink seems to get stronger as their stories get more detailed. It’s exhausting and intoxicating, and you’re glad you actually came to this thing, and that they came to this thing, and you caught up.
Most of the original cast returns, and the season is peppered with both popular (I don’t want to give anything away, but a certain former SNL cast member plays a younger version of a Bluth) and vaguely familiar faces from comedy (like that guy who played ‘Justin’ in the episode of The Office where they go to Pam’s high school to get interns: “This just in… Justin!”). If you are not happy with just these faces to hang out with on your 8.5 hour marathon, don’t fret, there is more to love.
It’s a whole new set of self referential jokes. A whole new set of freeze frame hilarity. And just like every amazing reunion, by the time you’ve expanded yourself to absorb all this new information and feel these rekindled emotions, it’s over. And yes, it is distracted at first. Most reunions are. It’s almost boring how distracted it is, so prepare to stick through it. Prepare to wish another friend would walk over to you while this old friend bores you with what they have been up to.
Arrested Development takes advantage of being able to mass produce episodes that people can watch at a stretch. It’s like making a terribly long and complicated movie. A terribly long and complicated and amazing movie. They take advantage of the audience wanting to run through it and return to the re-runs for hours of discovering hidden jokes.
So now the story of a family that you thought needed to give you closure after they abandoned you and the one audience who had no choice but to get hooked (they’re a Monster!) right back in.
Watch away on Netflix. Oh, and here’s this now.
