Arrested Development is an American television sitcom that originally aired on Fox from November 2, 2003, to February 10, 2006. A fourth season of 15 episodes was released on Netflix on May 26, 2013, and a fifth season was released in two parts on May 29, 2018, and March 15, 2019. Created by Mitchell Hurwitz, the show centers the Bluth family. The Bluths are formerly wealthy and a habitually dysfunctional family. It is presented in a continuous format, and incorporates hand-held camera work, narration, archival photos, and historical footage. The series stars Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, Tony Hale, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter. In addition, Ron Howard serves as the series narrator and an executive producer on the show.
The main characters of Arrested Development can be divided into the Bluth ( ) and Fünke ( ) families.
Bluth family tree
† denotes a deceased character Dashed lines denote adoption
Cast table
+ Character Portrayed by Season 1 2 3 4 5 Main characters Michael Bluth Jason Bateman colspan="5" Lindsay Bluth-Fünke Portia de Rossi colspan="5" Gob Bluth Will Arnett colspan="5" George Michael Bluth Michael Cera colspan="5" Maeby Fünke Alia Shawkat colspan="5" Buster Bluth Tony Hale colspan="5" Tobias Fünke David Cross colspan="5" George Bluth Sr. Jeffrey Tambor colspan="5" Lucille Bluth Jessica Walter colspan="5" Narrator Ron Howard colspan="5" Supporting characters Oscar Bluth Jeffrey Tambor colspan="5" Lucille Austero Liza Minnelli colspan="2" Barry Zuckerkorn Henry Winkler colspan="2" colspan="2" Kitty Sanchez Judy Greer colspan="2" colspan="2" Steve Holt Justin Grant Wade colspan="5" Lupe B.W. Gonzalez colspan="3" Annyong Bluth Justin Lee colspan="3" Carl Weathers Himself Maggie Lizer Julia Louis-Dreyfus colspan="2" colspan="3" Stefan Gentles James Lipton colspan="3" G.O.B.'s Wife Amy Poehler colspan="3" Marta Estrella Patricia Velasquez colspan="4" Cindi Lightballoon Jane Lynch colspan="4" John Beard Himself colspan="5" Ann Veal Mae Whitman colspan="3" Wayne Jarvis John Michael Higgins colspan="2" colspan="2" Dr. Fishman Ian Roberts Stan Sitwell Ed Begley Jr. colspan="2" Sally Sitwell Christine Taylor colspan="2" Mort Meyers Jeff Garlin colspan="3" Starla Mo Collins colspan="3" Tony Wonder Ben Stiller colspan="2" colspan="2" Gene Parmesan Martin Mull colspan="2" Terry Veal Alan Tudyk colspan="2" Andy, Donnie, Emmett and Rocky Richter Andy Richter colspan="2" Rita Leeds Charlize Theron colspan="2" colspan="2" Trevor Dave Thomas colspan="2" colspan="2" Larry Middleman Bob Einstein colspan="2" colspan="2" Bob Loblaw Scott Baio colspan="2" Ron Howard Himself colspan="2" DeBrie Bardeaux Maria Bamford colspan="3" colspan="2" Rebel Alley Isla Fisher colspan="3" colspan="2" Herbert Love Terry Crews colspan="3" Marky Bark Chris Diamantopoulos colspan="3" Argyle Austero Tommy Tune colspan="3" Paul "P-Hound" Huan Richard Jin Namjung colspan="3" Mark Cherry Daniel Amerman colspan="3" Murphy Brown Fünke Kyle Mooney colspan="4" Lottie Dottie Da Frances Conroy colspan="4" Dusty Radler Dermot Mulroney colspan="4"
Primary characters
Michael Bluth
Michael Bluth (played by Jason Bateman) is the second oldest Bluth son and the main protagonist of Arrested Development. He is the father of George Michael Bluth and widower to Tracey Bluth. In season 3, it is revealed that there is a typo on his birth certificate, which reads Nichael Bluth. Michael's wife Tracey died of ovarian cancer two years before the first season. His role in the story is that he is the one son who has no choice but to keep the family together, and he serves as the straight man in the comedy series. Throughout the original run of the show, Michael is consistently the de facto president of the Bluth Company after his father's arrest. He is the only main character who appears in every episode of the series.
Lindsay Bluth-Fünke Lindsay Bluth-Fünke (Portia de Rossi) is the adopted daughter of George Sr. and Lucille Bluth, as well as half-sister of Lucille, who raised her and Michael to believe that they were twins. She is unhappily married to Tobias and together they are the neglectful and self-absorbed parents of Maeby.
Lindsay is vain, greedy, selfish, and materialistic, claiming to be an activist but supporting current trendy causes only for the social status. These causes have included opposing circumcision, anti-Iraq War protests, the removal of the 10 Commandments from a courthouse, the right to die (specifically regarding her brother Buster), and awareness about graft-versus-host disease (which her husband was afflicted with due to unnecessary hair transplants).
In the last episode of season 3, it is revealed that Lindsay is not actually Michael's twin sister, or even a Bluth at all; she was adopted by the Bluth family to "stick it" to the Bluth family's rivals, the Sitwell family. She also discovers that she is 40 years old, three years older than she had previously believed herself to be. Feeling that her youthful allure has now escaped her, she becomes desperate to marry a successful man, and divulges to Michael that they are not biological siblings, hoping (with no luck) that she can seduce him.
Creator Mitchell Hurwitz came up with Lindsay as the family's politically liberal figure, but Lindsay is also meant to represent a liberal who personally benefited from her politics more than she sacrificed, due to the image she built.Breaking Ground: Behind the Scenes of Arrested Development. In Arrested Development: Season 1- Disc One, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc., 2004. This motif is continued in the series' revival and fourth season, in which Lindsay travels to India in an attempt to connect to her spiritual side and then tumultuously dates Marky Bark, a genuine liberal activist, while still married to Tobias. She later unwittingly becomes the call girl of politically conservative politician Herbert Love, eventually abandoning her long-held liberal views and finally realizing her closer affinity for conservative ones. When Love falls into a coma, Lindsay at the last minute takes up his mantle in his campaign to run for U.S. Congress.
In the show's fifth season, Lindsay goes missing after no longer being able to tolerate her supposed mother's controlling attitude, but reemerges in the final scene. The season's penultimate episode reveals through a Ron Howard documentary about the Bluth family shown to the court, that Lindsay is in fact Lucille's half sister, being the daughter of Lucille's mother who put her up for adoption.
Having previously appeared in Ally McBeal, de Rossi said that she was looking for a new series like it.Frazier Moore, "Portia gets expressive: Uses her comedic face in Arrested Development", The Province, Vancouver, B.C.: January 4, 2004, pg. D.13. She was also attracted to Arrested Development for what she thought was a "fresh new perspective on comedy."Dana Gee, "Here's a sitcom that puts the fun back in funny", The Province, Vancouver, B.C.: November 2, 2003, pg. C.12. She played Lindsay as someone who "doesn't have much of a clue but... has a pretty good heart." She explained her approach by saying that, "with Ally McBeal, we were very rehearsed and staged. But this is a lot looser."Alison Cunningham, "Mane event: Portia de Rossi trusts her instincts – and great hair", National Post, August 6, 2005, pg. TO.41. Hurwitz felt that de Rossi made the character somewhat similar to Lucille.
Gob Bluth
George Oscar "Gob" Bluth II (known by his initials "G.O.B.", ; played by Will Arnett) is the oldest child of George Sr. and Lucille Bluth.
By trade a part-time magician, he is a founding member of the "Magicians' Alliance", a group that was formed to preserve magicians' secrets; however, he was later blacklisted by them for revealing such a secret in the pilot episode. He is known for incorporating over-the-top theatrics into his magic shows, including pyrotechnics, dance routines, wind machines, and Europe's "The Final Countdown", though his illusions often malfunction.
George Sr. paid little attention to Gob as a child and has no respect for him as an adult; his mother Lucille openly loathes him. Gob's desperate and unsuccessful attempts to win his father's approval and become the Bluths' "favorite" son is a major theme of his character. As Michael's older brother, Gob believes he is inherently entitled to more respect, and feels threatened and insulted by the fact that he is less successful than Michael. On several occasions, Gob and Michael realize that their rivalry has been nurtured by their father and mother's manipulations. Gob is known to be the womanizer of the Bluth family, though he often exaggerates his romantic encounters in what he believes is an intense competition with Michael (though Michael does not reciprocate these competitive feelings). In fact, Gob loves Michael more than anyone else in his family and is surprised whenever Michael does not express such feelings in return. Eventually, Gob discovers that he is the father of the teenage jock Steve Holt. Toward the end of season 1, Gob, in a series of escalating dares, marries a woman who deals in trained seals (played by Arnett's then-wife Amy Poehler). The two immediately and permanently become estranged from each other and she later becomes infatuated with Tobias Fünke, Gob's brother-in-law, and joins the army in the hopes of avoiding her attraction. A running joke throughout the series is that Gob never learns his wife's name.
Gob's character has been well received and Arnett was nominated for a number of awards for his performance as Gob including the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006 as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (shared with the entire cast).
George Michael Bluth George Michael Bluth (also known as George-Michael Bluth during the fourth season) (born March 3, 1990; played by Michael Cera and in flashback sequences by Christian Lavery) is the son of Michael Bluth. He begins the series as a student at Balboa High School, and works at the family frozen banana stand, where he is "Mister Manager." He is straight-laced, quiet, awkward, and obedient.
He is reunited with his cousin Maeby in the first episode, and develops a crush on her after she forcibly kisses him (to teach their parents a lesson for not letting them spend more time together, although it fails because their parents are entirely oblivious to it). His nervousness around Maeby and his wrestling with his sexual emotions for her become one of the main recurring themes of the show. In the second season, he starts dating a girl named Ann, a devout Christian whom his father and Maeby dislike. Season 2 ends with George Michael and Maeby kissing, to his delight. After the incident, the two try to avoid each other for much of the third season. Later in the season, he and Maeby accidentally get married during what they believed was a fake wedding to cheer up Alzheimer's patients in a hospital in "Fakin' It".