Arrested Development Wednesday: The Incestuous Largesse Salutes Motherboy

Our two month Arrested Development love fest comes to a close with a look at the series’ most fascinating Bluth dynamic, namely, the mother-son duo of Lucille and Buster.  We’ve taken the time here to explore the psychopathology (and related awesomeness) of each of the show’s main characters, but we’ve undoubtedly saved the best for last here.  Lucille and Buster are not my favorite characters, per se, but they are certainly the most interesting.  To properly appreciate the unique bond between Lucille and Buster we needn’t look further than their successes in the annual Motherboy fundraiser.  They’re accustomed to taking home the “Cutest Couple” award from this mother-son bonding awareness benefit (read: dance), and so there is perhaps no better lens through which to marvel at these two idiots.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Unpredictable Largesse Salutes Upcoming Family Guy Wednesdays

Lucille and Buster exploration next week. You can’t rush these things. In place of our usual Arrested Wednesday journey let’s cozy up to a little Family Guy, if only to whet the palate for subsequent hump days.  Let’s start by humping this:

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Sneaky Largesse Salutes George Bluth Sr.

George Bluth Sr. is the founder and CEO of the Bluth company as well as the patriarch of this incredible family.  He is, for all intents and purposes, single-handedly responsible for the dysfunction of the group.  The consummate businessman and self-starter, George struggles to maintain the fortune that he has amassed through real estate and frozen bananas.  He also finds it difficult to leave his wealth in the hands of the very people he has neglected for so long (his children), particularly after he is carted off to prison early in the series.  Oh yeah, George’s run-ins with the SEC are what eventually lead to his imprisonment and Michael taking control of the company.  George wasn’t pleased with this turn of events, but instead of turning to the family for support he decided instead to rely on his mistress/assistant Kitty to hold down the fort.  Kitty likes to show people her breasts.  Oh sure, Michael was still technically the CEO of the company but his biggest hurdles as the company’s leader were typically those put into place by his father, albeit from behind bars.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Family-Oriented Largesse Recommends Maeby Funke

The spawn of Tobias and Lindsay, no one understands the depth of their fucked up relationship like Maeby.  So distanced from her parents that she opted to become her own legal guardian, Maeby divides her time pretty evenly between trying to escape her family and coping with George Michael’s hang ups over intrafamilial intimacy.  Some call this incest.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Awkward Largesse Recommends George Michael Bluth

Get to know him.

Where to begin?  George Michael is pure bliss.  Arrested was the breeding ground for Michael Cera’s perfect, adolescent, social fallibility.  Earnest, naïve, altruistic, and the definition of awkward, George Michael Bluth was the perfect compliment to the hostility and greed that defined his family.  Forever stuck in the teenage vortex, George Michael had been shielded from the insanity of his family for most of his childhood.  His father, Michael, made sure to keep everything Bluth-related far removed from his son.  Unfortunately, the death of George Michael’s mother led to him and his dad rejoining the family, thrust for the first time into the center of the chaos.  Michael, constantly worried about the insane-Bluth contagion infecting his son, does what every good father would do: he dresses George Michael up in a banana suit and gives him 20 hours per week in the banana stand.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Blue Largesse Salutes Tobias Funke

Tobias Funke: An Analyst Therapist, an Analrapist

This one’s going to be rather short because frankly, all you need to know about Tobias is referenced in the title above: “Blue.”  I’ve been excited to write about Tobias since last week’s post about his wife, Lindsay.  Tobias, the least respected of the Bluth clan, is an analyst-therapist (see: caption) and a gay “never nude.”

The Slutty Largesse’s Arrested Development Wednesday Salutes: Lindsay Bluth Funke

Lindsay represents the liberal elite of the Bluth family, a woman who fashions herself an activist but who in reality divides her time pretty evenly between shopping and throwing back martinis with her mother.  (Something of a national pastime in the Bluth family, sharing drinks with Mother Bluth rarely ends well.)  For Lindsay, sharing drinks with her mom never ends well, and by the end of the series we start to understand a bit more as to why this is.  You see, Lindsay is both Michael’s twin sister and the adopted daughter of George and Lucille.  Do the math.

The Magical Largesse’s Arrested Development Wednesday Salutes: George Oscar Bluth

Our beloved Gob (pronounced like the biblical figure, Job), the eldest of the Bluth children, is truly magical, as he is both a struggling magician and the most amazing of the Bluths.  His presence on the show is what pushes the series into the “legendary” echelon, his antics and interpersonal style capturing everything right (and yet so, so wrong) with the family.  A founding member of the Magician’s Alliance (and its first to be excommunicated), Gob’s accomplishments in the magic community still go largely unnoticed.  He is, by all accounts, a total idiot, and at his most honest, he knows this.  His jealousy is palpable, both toward his “more successful” magic brethren and his siblings, if only because George and Lucille Bluth are exceedingly honest about loving their other children more.  His parents, quite literally, hate him.  And hilarity ensues.

The Largesse’s Arrested Development Wednesday Salutes Michael Bluth

We start with Michael for a reason.  He represents the best of the show, the heart of the family, and by far the most conflicted member of this great, great cast.  Marketed to the audience as the family straight man and the savior of this once great family business, Michael grew to represent everything we came to love about Arrested one dead-pan one-liner at a time.

The Largesse Enthusiastically Recommends Arrested Development

I had a really long and exquisitely detailed write-up of the show and its most important plot details here, but let’s face it: if you don’t know about this show yet, you’re beyond saving.

Let’s get right to the brilliant insights, then, shall we?