Arrested Development: The Bluths are Back!

Memorial Day Weekend is supposed to signal the arrival of summer. People flock outdoors en masse to frolic on the beach and get a tan. However, for fans of Arrested Development, this was a weekend to stay indoors, log on to Netflix, and watch 15 brand new episodes of this brilliant show, which had been resurrected from the dead. It was like Easter for TV lovers.

Some brief history for the uninitiated: Arrested Development ran on Fox from 2003 to 2006 for 53 episodes before being unceremoniously cancelled (like all great TV that has the misfortune of being on Fox). The show suffered from poor ratings, but was a critical darling that already had a cult following. That following only grew after cancellation and the show has lived on through DVD sales and online streaming. There were constant rumors of an Arrested Development movie that were shot down in rapid succession, but last year, creator Mitchell Hurwitz announced that he had finally wrangled the enormous cast together and they had a plan. He was going to make a brand new 15-episode season of the show, to be followed by a movie that would wrap everything up once and for all. Which brings us to May 26th, 2013, when all 15 episodes were released on Netflix and the long wait was over.

The show tells the story of various members of the Bluth family, a highly dysfunctional and bizarre group of people. It has been seven years since we last saw them, but the new season kicks off effortlessly, catching us up with what these characters have been up to since the events of the last episode and launching into brand new schemes and intrigues that are as confusing and hysterical as only the Bluths could make them. There's a big government project to build a wall along the border of the US and Mexico, political shenanigans between Lucille 2 (Liza Minnelli) and Herbert Love (a Herman Cain-esque figure played by Terry Crews), George-Michael's internet start-up, and of course, Michael's attempts to make a movie about his family, which will undoubtedly lead to the actual Arrested Development movie.

Each episode focuses on one member of the family over a period of time, so it is only when you watch the season as a whole that you fully understand what was going on in every episode. For example, the first episode ends with Michael finding an ostrich running amok in his mother's penthouse. How did that ostrich get there? You're going to have to wait till Lindsay's episodes to find out. Arrested Development was always a self-referential show filled with inside jokes and meta-commentary, and this narrative structure is the perfect way to build up the jokes and get fans to re-watch episodes to fit all the pieces together. There are several guest stars designed to delight the fans and recall some of the show's most iconic weirdos. And of course, the omniscient narrator (voiced by Ron Howard) has plenty of surprises and snarky insight up his sleeve.

The fourth season of Arrested Development is an utter joy and the show hasn't missed a beat since its cancellation in 2006. The narrative structure doesn't allow all of the cast to interact and play off each other as much as I would like, but the sheer complexity and density of comic genius in every episode is awe-inspiring. I don't know if the next step is a movie or whether Netflix will commission more seasons, but either way, I'm in. This season has proved that the show still has incredible stories to tell, and I don't want to wait another seven years for more.