‘Arrested Development’ Season 5: Where Did We Leave All the Bluths?

No matter how many years we jump forward in time, GOB (Will Arnett) will still be the same level of stupid. Season 5 saw our favorite segway-riding magician reigniting his relationship with Tony Wonder( Ben Stiller). After hooking up with Tony Wonder in order to out him for not being a gay magician, GOB started to question his own sexuality. It’s still unclear if GOB’s feelings toward Toy are romantic or just based on something he’s never experienced: friendship.

Regardless, GOB spent most of Seasons 4 and 5 currying favor with the Christian community in order to become the go-to Christian magician. That all culminated with a special performance at the 2nd of July parade. The closet conversion trick was supposed to see GOB and Tony entering two separate closets as a straight and gay man, respectively. When they emerged from their closets, their sexualities were supposed to have switched. Instead what happened is that someone mysteriously filled Tony’s closet with cement. The first part of Season 5 ended with the now “gay” GOB suspecting that his new friend was dead. Because comedy!

You know what they say: like mother, like Motherboy. After Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli) mysteriously disappeared at the end of Season 4, Buster (Tony Hale) was arrested for her alleged murder. Since he had a long and complicated relationship with his ex-girlfriend/ex-mother figure and was found near the scene of the crime, he was a natural suspect.

But alas, Buster’s imprisonment only lasted long enough for him to fight with his real mother. After Buster’s brother Michael (Jason Bateman) found a photograph proving that Lucille Austero was actually alive and in Mexico, Buster was released from prison by the DA. In theory.

The first part of Season 5 ended with Lucille 1 (Jessica Walter) refusing to tell Buster he was free from prison in order to get her own revenge. Buster was featured on a prison-themed float during the 2nd of July parade, where he was “rescued” by his uncle/father Oscar Bluth (Jeffery Tambor), who also didn’t know that Buster was technically innocent. We’ll get back to that photo, but for now know that Buster is on the run even though he’s legally innocent of Lucille Austero’s murder.

The Bluth family matriarch wouldn’t be herself if she wasn’t feuding with every one of her children. So let’s go down the list, shall we? Lucille refused to tell Buster about the prison release she negotiated because she’s mad at him for saying he doesn’t need her. She’s frustrated with Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) because her daughter is supposed to be running for Congress against Lucille 2 and Lindsay’s old nemesis Sally Sitwell (Christine Taylor) but she’s nowhere to be found. She’s been avoiding Michael because he insists on looking into the family’s money and is suspicious about the Bluth family’s promise to build a wall between America and Mexico. And as per usual, Lucille has forgotten about GOB.

However, Lucille’s big drama in Season 5 had to do with with her husband George Sr. After retiring to the Bluth family’s secret beach home, Lucille found a new start (also pronounced “ANUSTART”) with Dusty (Dermot Mulroney), a rich party boy attorney.  Lucille spent most of the season flirting and embracing her fling with him after announcing that she was going to divorce George Sr. It’s unclear what, if anything, is going to come from that divorce announcement.

Ever since Season 4, George Sr. has had a hard time regaining his testosterone. That held true at the end of Season 5’s Part 1. While his wife once again blatantly slept with another man, George Sr. struggled to win back his marriage and his family.

The only thing George Sr. had working in his favor was the land for the wall. Early on, George Sr. and Lucille pushed for America to build a wall on the U.S. and Mexico border, figuring they could buy the property before the wall was built and sell it back to the United States for a huge profit. There were two problems with that plan. First, the Bluths trusted Buster’s map-making skills, meaning they didn’t purchase land on the U.S. and Mexican border. Instead they purchased a random plot of land somewhere in Mexico. And secondly, George Sr. didn’t even keep up with payments for that land, meaning he no longer even owns it.

Season 5 Part 1 ended with George Sr. out of his family, his marriage, his many homes, and his elaborate wall-building scheme thanks to the Mexican Romneys.

George Sr.’s twin brother hasn’t fared much better. He’s also on the outs with Lucille. The season ended with him breaking out his nephew/son Buster from prison. Only Buster wasn’t really in a prison, but on a prison-themed float. And he wasn’t really incarcerated when it happened. The season ended with them cuffed together.

Leave it to the Bluth family’s only responsible member to clean up its many messes. Lucille may have negotiated Buster’s release from prison, but it’s Michael who proved to the DA that his brother was actually innocent of Lucille Austero’s death. How did he do that? By showing Lottie Dottie ( Frances Conroy) a photograph of Austero driving into Mexico in the Bluth family stair car. More on that in a moment.

In the meantime, things were still tense between Michael and his son George Michael (Michael Cera). This was largely because George Michael was still dating the woman they were both interested in, Ron Howard’s daughter Rebel Alley (Isla Fisher). Nothing ever became of Michael’s ambitious plans to sell his family’s life rights to Ron Howard’s production company, but he still has other plans. For once, things seem not completely terrible for Michael.

Too bad the same thing can’t be said for Michael’s son. Remember that picture Michael used to free Buster, the one that shows Lucille 2 driving into Mexico? Turns out that was actually George Michael and his cousin Maeby (Alia Shawkat) donning wigs and playing a game called Ron Howard and Brian Grazer Go to Mexico. Yes, that is a weird game, but more importantly no one knows where Lucille 2 actually is. Their proof of her survival was just Maeby in a wig.

That forged evidence is the least of George Michael’s problems. He’s still responsible for Fake Block, a tech company that’s supposed to make people’s online information more private but is actually a wood block app. To run this fake company he’s taken on the role as George Maharris, a fake internet genius who is really dating Rebel Alley.

Throughout Season 5 Maeby focused on the two things she does best: lying to people and giving terrible advice. Almost all of the questionable choices George Michael has made happened at the suggestion of his cousin, or her elderly alter-ego Annette. Oh that’s right: Maeby spent most of Season 5 posing as a retirement-aged lady so that she could live in an old folks community.

This backfired on her as her family’s longterm rival Stan Sitwell (Ed Begley Jr.) started to fall in love with her other half. Just to add another uncomfortable incest wrinkle into this equation, it should be noted that Stan Sitwell almost adopted Maeby’s mother Lindsay. Anyway, Maeby spent most of Season 5 juggling how to kick Stan out of her new place and how to make the most out of her role in George Michael’s fake company, Fake Block.

Ever the outsider, this aspiring actor spent most of Season 5 desperately trying to fit in with the Bluth family and failing miserably. At first Tobias (David Cross) tried a stint as Lucille’s therapist where he taught her the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.” Lucille took that about as literally as you may imagine. He then tried to gain his in-laws’ respect by tracking down their daughter and his wife, Lindsay.

But even that didn’t go according to plan. While looking for Lindsay in Mexico, he came across a Lindsay imposter — his former love interest DeBrie (Maria Bamford). She had been crashing with Lindsay’s former love interest, the face blind Marky (Chris Diamantopoulos). Figuring that a Lindsay replacement was better than no Lindsay at all, Tobias grabbed DeBrie and took her back to California with the intention of turning her into a replacement congressional candidate. Part 1 ended with Tobias, DeBrie, and Tobias’ long-lost bastard son Murphy Brown (Kyle Mooney) forming their own little dysfunctional family.

After being mistaken for her political opponent’s prostitute, Lindsay stumbled into politics herself. Backed by the Bluth family, Lindsay vowed to put up a wall in Mexico, a political move Lucille and George Sr. planned on using so that they could sell their border land back to the United States. As we covered before, that didn’t really work out, causing Lucille to once again turn on her daughter at the end of Part 1. Now Lucille needs Lindsay to lose her congressional campaign.

None of this really matters, because Lindsay is nowhere to be found. The Bluths’ only daughter left early in Season 5 to search for her real mother. DeBrie is currently acting as her unofficial replacement.

The proof that Lucille Austero was still alive turned out to be evidence of a weird game George Michael and Maeby were playing. So for all we know, Lucille 2 is still missing or worse, dead. Hopefully Season 5 Part 2 will finally clear up this dark mystery.

Arrested Development Season 5 Part 2 premieres on Netflix Friday, March 15.

Watch Arrested Development on Netflix