It was this episode that made me think that maybe Arrested Development was the greatest television show ever produced. It almost seems as if they took something that Lucille had said in several episodes, good grief, just an offhand remark, and they made an episode that incorporate the family’s grief upon learning of the death of George Sr. and a number of cleverly placed Charlie Brown references, the most obvious and enjoyable of which came whenever a character, feeling blue, walked with their head down while Peanuts-style piano played in the background.
The jokes in this episode showcase the more rapid and complicated humor Season 2 had progressed towards, but they were still not without their unbelievably crazy sight gags. But they also couldn’t have a visible joke that wasn’t a reference to something else as well. The moment I may have laughed at the hardest in my first Arrested Development run came when George Michael discovered George Sr. hiding in a hole behind the family home. It had the element of George Sr. faking his death and always being on the run from the law. It had George Michael being exposed to shocking things. And on top of that, the image was identical to the famous image of Saddam Hussein being discovered, which tied in to the show’s running references to all things Iraq. Priceless.
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