1.01: Extended Pilot

1.01: Extended Pilot

I'm kicking this off with a special feature-- a recap of the extended pilot, which is only on the DVDs. It's about five minutes longer than the aired pilot and I don't know all the differences, but I've noted them where appropriate.

“Orange County, California” announces the subtitle. On a yacht, we are immediately introduced to Michael Bluth (“Manager/The Bluth Company”), who will shortly be made partner of his father’s company. Mrs. Lucille Bluth (“Socialite”) storms over to Michael ranting about what the homosexuals have done. Right next to the yacht, a group of gay protestors is on a raft, disturbing the retirement party. Lindsay Bluth Funke (“Activist”), Michael’s twin sister, tries to calm her mother down, and notices that she has the exact same blouse as one of the protestors. “I like it better on him.” Lucille snipes. We’re shown a picture of Lindsay’s husband, Tobias (“not on boat”), a psychiatrist whom she married in an act of rebellion.

Next up is Michael’s oldest brother, GOB. Fun Fact #1: apparently there were two actors in the final rounds competing for the role of GOB: Will Arnett and Rainn Wilson, who you probably know better as one Dwight K. Schrute. I cannot imagine a better GOB than Will Arnett though, so I think it all panned out perfectly. Also, in case you missed the title card, GOB stands for George Oscar Bluth II, which is interesting given later information. I originally figured it was Job, like in the bible, but it is indeed an acronym and I will spell it accordingly in the recaps.

Anyway, GOB (“Magician (part-time)”) argues against Michael’s use of the term “magic trick”: “A trick is something a whore does for money.” Some children gasp nearby. “…or cocaine!” (this line was “or candy!” in the aired pilot). He is head of the Alliance of Magicians, which blackballs any performer who reveals magicians’ secrets.

Last but not least, there’s Buster (“Graduate Student”), whose real name is Byron and who basically spends all his time getting worthless grad degrees instead of ever getting a real job (welcome to the club, buddy). Right now he’s studying cartography, and when Michael questions this course of study he starts to suffer one of his characteristic crippling panic attacks.

So, Michael is happy, the narrator tells us, because he’s decided never to speak to his family again. Fun Fact #2: Ron Howard is the executive producer of the show, and also the narrator. Initially they had him record the narration as a stand-in until they found somebody else, but it worked out so well that they kept him.

Title card (no intro this time).

We're back to earlier that day, where Michael and his son George Michael (“Frozen banana salesman/child”) wake up on the floor. Michael brags about how they’ve done nothing but sacrifice for this family, and tonight his dad will make him partner. We find out that Michael is living in the attic of one of the company’s model homes, so they can still show it to clients. They have the usual lived-in clutter hidden among the fake furnishings of the house (cereal in a plastic turkey, bike helmets in a fake TV).

George Michael says that he’d rather live in a model home than be like his aunt and uncles, “whose eyes have never stung from the sweet sweat of a hard day’s work”. Michael is stunned by this language but it turns out to be a “I learned it from watching you!” kind of situation, so he admits that his family is spoiled. The boys have to spontaneously change their conversation to a sales pitch when a couple of clients walk in to the model home.

They bike over to Balboa Island, where George Michael works at the family’s frozen banana stand. GOB rolls up on a Segway scooter and demands a twenty from George Michael, then does a magic trick (which is greatly aided by the camera cut) to turn it into a Monopoly game. GOB gets all nostalgic about playing Monopoly with his family (while conspicuously pocketing the twenty), and it's mentioned that George Michael is thirteen, for those of you keeping track. He rolls off, ignoring George Michael’s pleas for the money, since a magician never reveals his secrets. “Wow,” George Michael muses, “that’s so much like stealing.”

Michael is making preparations for his dad’s retirement party nearby, and GOB scooters over to talk to him.  Michael is skeptical of GOB’s contribution of a magic show with a new illusion called the Aztec Tomb, which was $18,000. GOB lets it slip that Lindsay has been staying at the Four Seasons on the company dime. “Lindsay’s been in town for a month?” Michael asks. GOB: “…I don’t think so.” He flees.

Michael goes to talk to Lucille about finances, but she’s in a state since someone cut the paw off her fox stole. She admits to paying for the Aztec Tomb, and when accused of playing favorites claims to love all her children equally. (Cut to “earlier that day”, at lunch with Buster: “I don’t care for GOB.”) She distracts Michael by talking about his dad’s big announcement tonight, and when he asks if it’s about him, does this:

 “I wonder how I could talk you out of ever making that face again,” Michael replies. Tobias enters the room, and Michael asks how his job search is going, since apparently he lost his medical license giving CPR to someone who was not actually having a heart attack. Tobias's attempts to cover his failure are interrupted when Lindsay comes in, and tries to pretend that they just got in before giving up and half-heartedly apologizing to Michael for not telling him they were in town. They talk about her latest fundraiser for HOOP (“Hands Off Our Penises”), and Tobias admits that most of the money came from the Bluth company. Lindsay and Lucille look busted. Michael starts speechifying about how when he’s in charge they’ll have to fend for themselves, and as he gets pumped tribal drums start up-- but we find out it's just Buster practicing for one of his classes.

Back at the banana stand, a girl comes up to George Michael and claims to have found a fox paw (hey!) in her frozen banana. It turns out this is Maeby Funke (“Cousin”), Lindsay and Tobias’s daughter, who regularly rebels against her parents (i.e. getting into beauty pageants when Lindsay thinks she should get a tattoo). Her family has been living in Boston, so she tells George Michael that they should teach their parents a lesson for keeping them apart so much, like pretend they didn’t know they were related and make out. George Michael is hesitant. “Come on George Michael,” his cousin coaxes, batting him playfully on the nose with the severed fox foot. 

Tobias has mistakenly assumed from something Michael said that the party is pirate themed, so he finds some piratey stuff in Lindsay’s luggage and follows some other garishly dressed men onto a boat—the yacht club protestors, apparently. Once he boards the raft, we see that he is the one from earlier wearing Lindsay’s “exact same blouse”.

George Sr. (who I don’t think we’ve officially “met” yet, oddly enough) is making his announcement about his replacement: “the smartest Bluth, my favorite Bluth, and the sexiest creature I’ve ever laid eyes on”—(Michael looks confused but a little flattered)—and it’s Lucille! She is estatic. Michael is pissed. George Sr. tells him that it wasn’t the right time.

Michael pensively watches the homosexuals with their “Freedom” signs, and tells George Michael to say his goodbyes because it’s time for them to move on. When George Michael tells Maeby, Lindsay is walking by, so Maeby seizes her chance and starts making out with George Michael. While  the family photo op is taking place (we're now caught up to where the episode started), there are sirens and everyone realizes that the SEC boats are approaching.

Lindsay, Buster and Lucille break into the captain’s… cockpit? They try to get Buster to steer them to safety with his cartography skillz, but as his line of reasoning starts with “obviously this blue part here is the land,” it doesn’t look hopeful. He breaks into a panic attack while outside George Sr. is on his cell phone directing someone on what to shred and keep. GOB stuffs him into the Aztec Tomb to hide.

That night, the boat chase is on the news. Okay, this is where the overarching plot of the series is starting, so let’s lay it out: George Sr. is arrested and put in prison for embezzling from the Bluth Company, which builds housing developments. GOB is also mentioned (the reporter pronounces his name with a hard G, like “gob”) for hiding George in the Aztec tomb. She demonstrates the rotating panel, which is what does the vanishing: “Perhaps a good trick for a human, but the dogs found him almost immediately.” GOB looks crushed. “I have to think the Alliance is going to frown on this.”

Tobias comes in still dressed in his pirate fancies, and recounts his adventure. Apparently most of the homosexuals/pirates were actors in the local theater. He sees this as a sign from the universe. “You’re gay.” Lindsay deadpans. But nope. Tobias wants to be… an actor. Nobody really cares though, since George Sr. is going to be kept in prison and the attorney is putting a freeze on the company accounts. Lucille wants to put Buster in charge since he’s had business classes, but Buster isn’t sure that 18^th century agrarian business principles will apply. “Let me ask you, are you at all concerned about an uprising?”

Michael shouts that he’s sick of his family and that he and his son are leaving. “Somebody is a rude Gus, that’s all,” Tobias murmurs to Lindsay after his departure.

In the aftermath of the arrest, the Funkes have to check out of the hotel—dwell and dash, as it were—so Tobias starts auditioning to make some money. Lucille has to field all of the media’s questions (“The SEC is making him out to be some kind of mastermind, which I assure you he’s not. The man can barely work our shredder”), and Michael takes a job with a rival housing firm in Arizona. Buster is having panic attacks due to the stress in his new position in board meetings (and interestingly, this board room set is totally different from what we’ll see later episodes). 

The family decides that they need Michael back. Tobias suggests an intervention.

Somehow they got Michael back for the intervention, and Lucille grudgingly admits they need him to come back and run the business. GOB’s been getting blackballed by the Alliance since the news blew his illusion; even kids’ birthday parties are more comfortable with an Alliance-approved magician. Everyone starts fighting, and Maeby sighs in the other room where she and George Michael are playing cards. “I’m tempted to kiss again to teach them a lesson,” George Michael tries, and poor kid can’t really explain his way out of that one. Damn, Michael Cera is a big bag of awkward, especially at thirteen.

Michael tells his family that he already has a new job in Phoenix. “It’s something you apply for, and then they pay you to, uh… never mind, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” Lindsay points out that the least he can do is say goodbye to George Sr., since he hasn’t visited him in prison yet.

“I quit,” Michael tells George in the visitor’s room. His dad nods. “Probably a good career move.” Michael just has to ask why he was passed up for partnership, and this is my favorite part of the entire episode.

George: Michael, listen to me. These guys, the SEC, they’ve been after me for years. I put you in charge, you’re going to be wearing one of these orange jumpsuits, too. You’d be an accomplice. No. It had to be your mom. *motions Michael closer* They cannot arrest a husband and wife for the same crime. *winks*

Michael: Yeah, I don’t think that that’s true, Dad.

George: Really?... I got the worst fucking attorneys.

(The “fuck” is bleeped in the aired pilot, but here they leave it in.) The way Jeffrey Tambor takes off his glasses and puts his head in his hands, I just… this show was spot-on from day one.

Anyway, George realizes he should have done right by his son, and for Michael, that’s enough for now. Back at the model home, Lindsay is ransacking the place for anything valuable, and surprised by how little there is.

[Ahhhh, I was going to put in a screencap of Lindsay's hilarious face when what she thinks is a drawer comes off in her hand, but apparently they only put that scene in the extended pilot, and Mac blanks out any screencaps from DVDs. All the pictures I post are courtesy of Netflix, by the way.]

She runs into George Michael in the attic (he’s sorting through three Monopoly games), and they say their goodbyes. George Michael mentions that it’s been nice to have someone to talk to “since Mom died,” which is the first mention of why Michael is a single parent. Michael comes upstairs and sends George Michael outside, and he goes after giving Lindsay a sweet and sincere hug. I think the rare moments of humanity in the family really make the shenanigans all the funnier in the end. They are batshit crazy, but they still love each other, you know?

Michael asks Lindsay why she never called him. She admits that her life is a mess, and does this:

“What are you doing? Are you trying to cry?” Michael asks. “I’m SAD.” She replies. She calls Michael out for being judgmental and disappointed in her, but he admits that his life isn’t so hot either. “We’re an incredibly disappointing family!” they agree. But Michael wants George Michael to be around his family, so he decides to stay and try to save the business.

The Bluths (minus Lucille) play Monopoly, and Michael tells George Michael that the Funkes will be staying at the model home as well. He’s thrilled until he finds out that he’ll be sharing a room with Maeby.

“Next” on Arrested Development (although the scenes we see at the end are more extensions of the current plot, since it’s rare that they actually happen in a later episode): George Michael is uncomfortable sharing space with Maeby (apparently the bedroom set also changes), Lindsay gets a job, GOB gets turned down for Michael’s Phoenix job, and George Sr. is loving it in prison.

And that’s it! This one was a little lengthy, but after this the episodes are shorter and I’ll be a bit more succinct. Honestly, it’s hard to summarize this show because of all the minor jokes and sight gags that you miss if you’re just paying attention to the storyline. Especially in the pilot, I felt the need to quote more often because it really sets the tone for the rest of the series, but I’ll try to rein that in as the project progresses.