Now the story of a great television show that got cancelled and the diehard viewers who had no choice but to keep yelling and screaming until Netflix brought it back for another season, seven years later. It’s the Arrested Development Season Four Recap-A-Thon, Episode 3: “Indian Takers,” which finds Lindsay going on a rather unfulfilling spiritual journey.
Lindsay Bluth-Fünke (“neither a Bluth nor a Fünke”) is first discovered in India, on “a spiritual journey to let go of all possessions—and to find something cute to keep her stuff in.” The journey is the result of a (partial) reading of Eat Pray Love, of course; she sheds her material things (including a photo of Maeby), and heads off to India with a single bag. Somehow, that bag gets swapped with what she believes to be another woman’s, but I think we all know who “this chick” is going to turn out to be—as well as the shaman who advises her to find love at home too.
The single funniest scene in “Indian Takers” is probably the Fünke family’s trip to purchase a home, with no income and no savings, via a NINJA loan (“Oh, ninja please!”), which nicely captures the pre-bubble real estate world (“There was a lot of this going on back then”). A close second is the flashback to little Buster, writing his letter from “Camp Kissimmee, Mommy,” which is apparently a tent in Lucille’s bedroom.
This episode was penned by Caroline Williams & Dean Lorey, the former new to the series (but a staff writer on The Office and Up All night), the latter a vet of the original show (he wrote “Fakin’ It”—aka the Judge Reinhold episode—in season three). New running gags reappear, including the ostrich and “prayer-hands” (Michael: “Seriously, shoot me if you ever see me do that”), while, license plate or not, “anus-tart” is a pretty inventive bit of slander. And the bartering restaurant is downright genius (“Oh I’m sorry sir, we’re no longer taking hotel soaps”). And kudos for the invention of “face blindness,” an illness nearly as ridiculous, yet crippling for Lindsay’s fragile ego, as “never nude.”
Hurwitz and Miller’s direction is energetic (the split-screens and odd framings of Lindsay and Tobias chasing each other around their mansion are clever), and the jokes snap in this, the best season four episode thus far.
NOTABLE GUESTS:
- Ed Helms as James “I Don’t Sell” Carr(s)
- Maria Bamford as Debris, a new friend from the “Method One Clinic”
- Chris Diamantopoulos as “Marky Bark”
WELCOME RETURNS:
- A newly discovered appearance by Buster and Lucille on the cover of the Balboa Bay Window magazine
- The housekeeping robot
- Johnny Bark the tree guy (rest in peace)—in the form of his son Marky
- Maggie Lazar’s client from the “Out on a Limb” episode, now a waitress
- “Mommy, What Will I Look Like” signage, used to trap the “Thanksgiving miracle”
- Halliburton Teen—sure, it’s just from the previous episode, but still glad it’s going to be a go-to reference.
BEST LINES:
- Lucille: “At least I was able to turn my Queen around.”
- Tobias: “Let’s give it another shot… to the head, kill it!”
- “I could have spoken up, but I just wanted to see if you guys got there.”
- “And that was with me picturing fudge.”
- “What interesting friends we’ve made!”
- “Wow! That was… so… fast.” And “Now that time…. Was also very quick!”