Is Season 5 Of 'Arrested Development' Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
The first half of "Arrested Development's" fifth season — yeah, they decided to make another after the mixed reaction to the fourth season — premieres on Netflix on May 29th. Right now you can watch an oddly recut version of season four to prepare, or you can see what critics are saying about the new season.
Warning: some light spoilers ahead, but nothing that should ruin your viewing experience.
Season 5 Uses A Bluth/Trump Plot To Kick Things Off
The season is set mainly in 2015, when, spurred by Trump's presidential campaign, Lucille (Jessica Walters) resumes her project to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and convinces Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) to run for Congress to help the effort.
The Bluths come together for Lindsay's Congressional run—against Lucille Austero, a.k.a. Lucille II, still mysteriously missing—but Arrested Development doesn't shift its focus to politics. If anything, the show almost immediately pushes Lindsay's campaign to the side. Portia de Rossi, who plays Lindsay, disappears after episode five, her campaign referenced only in dialogue as the Bluths plot against each other for reasons that aren't entirely clear.
After Sorting Through The Narrative Mess Left By Season 4, The New Episodes Pick Up Steam
The first episode of the new season is essentially all a catchup on the forgettable (and nonsensical) fourth season, which continues to haunt Season 5 throughout the first five (of an eventual eight in this set, and eight more later this year) episodes available to critics.
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Ron Howard's narration does its damndest to recap the madness, but, after having seen the first seven episodes of the new season, our advice is to just surrender yourself to the constant confusion and instead take pleasure in the clever writing. (Arrested Development, the comedy version of Westworld.)
Tangled is a good place for Arrested Development to be. That may not seem like the case after season four, whose numerous plots were made additionally confusing by the non-chronological episode order, but season five feels more cohesive, like the Bluths are all mixed up with each other, not on their own tangents.
Alia Shawkat Might Be The MVP Of The New Season
As adults, Maeby and George Michael are more involved in the family's depravity, and Shawkat deservedly gets more screen time.
Maeby impersonating a 60-year-old woman so she can live in a retirement community is genuinely funny, and some of the jokes there[…] are very reminiscent of the original seasons.
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The Show Is Back To Its Old Format, But The Trend Of Splitting Up The Ensemble Remains
While the family is usually better together, they're mostly scattered again (with a few strange pairings that don't really work, like Lucille and Tobias), and the narrative focus is completely on Michael.
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The last revival's off-putting trick of blatantly using green scenes whenever cast members couldn't be on set together is back, particularly whenever Portia de Rossi's Lindsay is in a scene with the whole family.
Everything Involving Ron Howard, Narration Included, Feels A Little Off
Often the narration runs over the dialogue in a way that's not at all reminiscent of the sharp, layered, exceptionally clever script construction of those early seasons.
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There are numerous inside jokes about Imagine Entertainment that'll kill among the Hollywood set who speak Variety's slanguage, but they add nothing to the story. Worse is Howard's acting, which entails seemingly looking off-camera at cue cards and struggling to stifle a grin. He's clearly having a good time, but he does his best work in the VO booth.
The Jeffery Tambor Allegations Aren't Handled Too Well
A column at The Washington Post praised this personnel decision — though the new season of the editing-heavy show was filmed before the first public accusations — claiming that Tambor's actions were "far more marginal" than those of, say, Harvey Weinstein. This is totally beside the point, especially since Netflix seems fully committed to shielding Tambor from any further public outcry through promotional activity like a poorly-written, victim-blaming, profile in The Hollywood Reporter.
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However cheeky the meta Transparent allusions were meant to be, they scan more menacingly in the wake of Tambor's firing from the series after being accused of sexual misconduct on set, which he denies. While the bit is a continuation of a plot that started five years ago, jokingly mocking sexual predation and having Jeffrey Tambor laugh about how "Mexico won't be able to walk for a week!" still registers in poor taste now.
Committed Fans Will Find Moments To Love Here…
Sure, there are a few too many forced references to old jokes for easy nostalgic laughs (or blatantly recreated jokes for the same, if more sullied, purpose), but most of the revisions are reminders of why the show worked so well through most of its original run.
Arrested Development's fifth season is more conventional than the fourth — and closer in tone to the original — but several scenes explicitly highlight the impossibility of completely returning to the earlier version of the show.
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… But In The Move To Netflix, 'Arrested Development' Lost Something It'll Never Get Back
On network TV, it felt like a risk-taking outlier when it premiered in 2003. That's far less true in today's rarefied world of streaming, as the latest season comes five years after the last, at a moment when Netflix is awash in original programming.
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On Netflix, there's nothing to fight against — the creators have complete control to do anything they want. That's not always a good thing.
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TL;DR
These first seven episodes are about the series finding its feet again; walking before it runs, and running before it flies. By Episode 5 or so, you might believe the old stair-car can actually get moving like it did in 2003, and that's a helluva lot closer than it was five years ago.