Line #78 Recap/ArrestedDevelopmentS1E1Pilot


1	Michael anticipates becoming the new president of his father's homebuilding company, having put up with his family for years in order to achieve it. Instead, the position is given to his mother, Lucille–just before his father George Sr. is arrested by the SEC. When his family proves unable to run the company, Michael reluctantly returns to help. Meanwhile, Gob's magic career is derailed and George Michael develops a crush on his cousin Maeby.
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4	!!The pilot of ''Arrested Development'' provides examples of:
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6	* AmbiguouslyGay: Tobias tells Lindsay he's not, saying "how many times must we have this..."
7	* BreakoutCharacter: George Sr. was originally supposed to spend the rest of the series in prison, but the producers loved Creator/JeffreyTambor so much that they wrote him to eventually have a role in every subsequent episode. Ditto for Tobias, who was supposed to embark on his acting career. Note how George Sr. and Tobias are the only two characters to not have a FreezeFrameIntroduction.
8	* CallBack: One of the gay pirates from the boat that was playing "Free At Last", after being released from jail: "Free at last!"
9	* CampGay: So flamboyantly dressed, Tobias thinks they're going to a pirate party.
10	* ChekhovsGag:
11	** Lindsay interrupts her claim that not all homosexuals are flamboyant to note that she has the exact same blouse that one of them is wearing. It ''is'' her blouse, on Tobias.
12	** Lucille's fox fur is missing a foot. Maeby later pretends to George Michael that she found the foot in her frozen banana.
13	** George Michael comments that he thinks he already has the board game ''Monopoly'', following Gob's trick at the banana stand. Later, when Lindsay finds him getting ready to leave for Phoenix, he's in the process of packing away at least 3 identical copies of the game.
14	* DisappearingBox: During George Sr.'s retirement party, GOB hid his father in the tomb to hide him from the Securities and Exchange Commission. He hid behind the revolving door in the tomb, which kept him out of sight until the police dogs found him. This was broadcast in-universe on the FOX 6 news and GOB was subsequently kicked out of The Alliance of Magicians.
15	* TheDitz: Buster, reading a map: "Obviously, this blue part here is the land."
16	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The lighting and sets are noticeably different from how they would appear after the show was greenlit.
17	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The first scene with Maeby features her trying to con George Michael into thinking she found a foot in her frozen banana.
18	* FreezeFrameIntroduction: Every main character except George Sr. and Tobias (who originally weren't supposed to stay on the show after this episode) get one.
19	* FunWithAcronyms: HOOP - "Hands Off Our Penises," an anti-circumcision movement.
20	* FurAndLoathing: Lucille laments that someone has cut off the foot of her fox.
21	* HowWeGotHere: We start at the boat party, then cut to the beginning of that day.
22	* HypocriticalHumor:
23	** Lucille's reaction to the homosexual protesters:
24	--->'''Lucille:''' Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant, it just makes me want to... set myself on fire.
25	** Lindsay, at a wine-and-cheese fundraiser to "Stop the Hunger:"
26	--->'''Lindsay:''' Oh, no, I'm completely stuffed.
27	* InsistentTerminology: The introduction to the RunningGag about Gob's "illusions."
28	* {{Irony}}: Tobias did his fellowship in psycholinguistics at MIT. One would think that he'd have a little more insight into his constant [[DoubleEntendre double entendres]].
29	* KissingCousins: Maeby concocts a plan to [[RunningGag teach their family a lesson]] about never seeing each other by kissing George Michael in front of their parents.
30	* LampshadeHanging:
31	-->'''George Sr.:''' That's the Securities Exchange Commission.
32	-->'''Buster:''' They have boats?
33	* LastSecondWordSwap:
34	-->'''Tobias:''' Well, most of that money was from the Bluth company, I mean how- ...''are'' you?
35	* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: Buster playing his ceremonial drum as Michael tells Tobias, Lindsay, and Lucille that they're going to have to fend for themselves.
36	* ManOnFire: Lucille says that everything homosexuals do is so flamboyant that it makes her want to set herself on fire.
37	* MissingMom: George Michael wishes his family would stay together because it's been kind of lonely since his mom died.
38	* NextEpisodePreview: Sets the precedent for the epilogue-based "OnTheNext Series/ArrestedDevelopment" [[TheStinger stinger]] found at the end of each episode: when they made this, they didn't know if the show would actually get picked up, so they made up some scenes.
39	* OhCrap: George Michael's reaction to learning that he would, for the foreseeable future be sharing a room with the cousin he was attracted to.
40	* {{Pun}}:
41	** The signs held by the pro-naval-gay-marriage protestors. ''"Why Knot?"''
42	** The news headline for the event: "''Swish''-bucklers!"
43	** And another headline about the Bluth patriarch, 'Arrested Developer'.
44	* RefusalOfTheCall: Michael initially refuses to help the family.
45	* RimShot: Heard after George Sr. tells his family "it's a party, not a shareholders' meeting".
46	** And after Gob asks "Are those police boats?" He's serious. They are.
47	* ShoutOut: "Can you hear me now?"
48	* StagingAnIntervention: The Bluth family holds one for Michael to get him to take charge of the company after Buster proves unable to perform the task. Michael points out that an "intervention" doesn't work that way, and what they are doing is more of an imposition.
49	* StealthInsult: Michael's ''first line''.
50	-->'''Lucille:''' Look what they've done, Michael. Look what the homosexuals have done to me.
51	-->'''Michael:''' You can't just comb that out and reset it?
52	* TheUnfavourite: GOB, clearly.
53	--> '''Lucille:''' I don't care for GOB.
54	* WorstAid: Tobias lost his medical license after performing CPR on someone who, as it turns out, was not having a heart attack. It inexplicably results in the man hospitalized for a broken sternum.
55	* YouKeepUsingThatWord: The family calls Michael to an "intervention".
56	-->'''Michael:''' I'm sorry, what exactly is this intervention for?\
57	''(a moment of awkward silence)''\
58	'''Lucille:''' We need you to come back and run the business!\
59	'''Michael:''' Oh, okay. Well, then, so, technically it's not really an "intervention". It's a little bit more of an ''imposition'', if you think about it.\
60	'''Lindsay:''' Oh, whatever you wanna call it!\
61	'''Michael:''' I'd love to call it an "imposition".

Context Recap / ArrestedDevelopmentS1E1Pilot