Oscar tells Buster he is not a fugitive and while Buster goes to sign himself out of prison, Oscar runs away, leaving the stair car on the police department's parking lot.
George and Lucille have a meeting with the Chinese investors, and find themselves eventually forced to come clean about the situation, which prompts the Chinese investors to give them additional three million dollars, which Dusty claims they now must return to save their honor. But before they can, Michael comes across the bank account where the money was wired and uses it to buy Fakeblock from George Michael.
Tobias's makeshift family prompts Stan to leave his and Maeby's house.
The Arrested Development episode "Check Mates" provides examples of:
- Arc Welding: The Fakeblock, GOB, Lucille 2's disappearance, Michael's suspicion of his parents and over-attachment to his son, and US-Mexico wall arcs collide head-on in the last scene with disastrous results.
- Complexity Addiction: Michael's superfluous obsession this season with catching his parents in one of their schemes finally bites him in the ass hard.
- Downer Ending: Oh boy, see Wham Episode below. But hey, at least Maeby finally kicks Stan out, I guess.
- Good Feels Good: George and Lucille, to their pleasant surprise, actually enjoy not lying for once when they fess up to the Chinese.
- Heroic BSoD: All the Bluths' faces at the end of the episode (except Buster and GOB), but especially George Michael's.
- Hope Spot: Lucille and George get a generous out from the Chinese to leave the whole wall fiasco behind and George Michael and Maeby finally sell Fakeblock.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Michael does a spectacular job screwing everything up for almost every other Bluth. To be fair, he wouldn't have bought Fakeblock if George Michael had just been honest with him.
- Oscar not only abandons Buster, but drops the staircar (the scene of Lucille 2's murder), in front of the police station!
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Oscar runs away after Buster asks him to give up drugs.
- Wham Episode: The last scene packs a whopping punch as when things are finally looking up for the Bluths everything goes to hell: Michael uses the $3 million that the Chinese gave to his parents to return to buy the worthless, GOB-led Fakeblock, which will incur the wrath of the Chinese in addition to the company going belly-up. Finally, Buster is arrested seemingly for the murder of Lucille 2. The looks on the Bluths' faces at the end of the episode says it all.
