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Arrested Development: The Righteous Brothers
by Karina Longworth, posted Apr 17th 2005 9:57PM
Tonight's episode of Arrested Development - the last of the second season, and so, possibly, the last ever - began with a blanket disclamer: Viewer Discretion is Advised. Since there was no specification as to what exact element of the episode viewers were advised to use their discretion against, I've made three guesses:- Several uses of the word "bastard", at least one of which directed at Desperate Housewives creator Mark Cherry, who cameos as himself;
- Three sets of (artfully blurred) exposed breasts: Kitty's, Lucille's, and ... Tobias'.
- Potential incest in the form of a kiss between George Michael and Maeby ... who may or may not be biological cousins.
Hmmm. Maybe a little bit of all-of-the-above?
I'll
be extremely disappointed if this is the final episode of the series -
for reasons beyond the obvious, "it's-the-best-show-on-TV" thing. For
every great cliffhanger plot point thrown out in this episode (Buster
learning Oscar's "pop secret", Tobias giving up the chance to reconcile
with Lindsay to run off with Kitty to Vegas), in some ways it felt like
a rehash of last season's finale, but without the urgency of that whole
we-sold-houses-to-Sadaam thing. How many times can George Sr. set up
Oscar and get away with it?That said, the Franklin Comes Alive CD bit was pure genius. From Michael's declaration that when GOB asked for "$5000 so that you could invest in a Franklin CD, I thought you meant a mutual fund and not a compact disc of you talking to your hand"; to the actual lyrics ("It ain't easy being white/it ain't easy being brown/ all this pressure to be bright/ I've got children all over tooooowwwn"); to GOB's emotional breakdown opon Michael's fake admission that it was his "favorite CD" - the whole subplot was a fantastic example of the way Arrested Development builds jokes on top of jokes on top of jokes.
On a final note, this episode should remove all doubt that Michael Cera is the most underrated young actor ... in the entire world. He never slips into self-caricature - even when gobsmacked with sexual hysteria over his cousin.
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