[7.8/10] It’s so nice to get a genuinely good episode of Arrested Development. The GOB episode works in a way nothing else this season has. Even the Tobias episode, a solid enough outing, wasn’t nearly as focused or funny as “Colony Collapse.” For the first time in season 4, the show feels like itself again, and it couldn’t be more welcome.
This outing combines familiar running gags and elements, like people forgetting Ann, tricks vs. illusions, and even GOB’s bees. But it mixes in new bits, like a Simon and Garfunkel-tinged homage to The Graduate, sad pronouncements of “He’s not coming,” and an appropriate nickname of “Get Away” for our star, who earns the moniker in more ways than one.
I liked just about every part of this. The opening bit about GOB’s relationship with Ann is well done, featuring returns from all our favorite Veal. I think my favorite part is GOB’s mental dysfunction and breakdown. Will Arnett does a really good job of conveying childlike emotional distress under a rambling stream of “Come on!”s and “The guy in the $3,000 suit” lines that suggests an almost physical inability to actually process real emotion when presented with it. I enjoyed him trying to turn his religious wedding into an excuse for a show-stealing trick, and his inevitable “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment was well-placed.
I also got a kick out of his escapades with Mark Cherry, the ersatz Justin Bieber that GOB gets involved with. Between the Bieber references and the Entourage spoof, this episode shows its release date a little bit, but even if the referenced things are a little dated, the show has fun with it. GOB overstaying his welcome in a hip group, to the point of having a pop song made to tell him to scram, is a good bit.
Plus, as bizarre and dark as it is, I love the comic absurdity of GOB getting into a Forget-Me-Now loop where he can’t erase the memory of his shame but does erase his memory of taking a Forget-Me-Now pill to try to erase that shame. It’s an out there concept, but the show has a surprising amount of melancholy fun with it, and Will Arnett nails it as always.
Poor Steve Holt though! I just feel so bad for that little dope. He’s so sweet and earnest in his desire to have a relationship with his dad, and good lord is he barking up the wrong tree there. Beyond that, the return of GOB’s sick bees is a nice little gag. And the episode finally pays off some of the things it set up previously, like DeBrie ending up in GOB’s limo and the cave that “Father B” bought off Craigslist.
It’s hard to say why this one works so much better than prior episodes. In some instances, the jokes are just better. In others, it’s that the call backs and new material blend together much better than in prior efforts. But maybe it’s just that “Colony Collapse” feels the most complete as an episode, setting things up and paying them off within the half hour, and working with a throughline of GOB hitting rock bottom. As we near the halfway mark, I can only hope that it’s a good omen and season 4 picks up from here. That’s not my recollection, but I can hope!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-05-27T00:20:36Z
[7.8/10] It’s so nice to get a genuinely good episode of Arrested Development. The GOB episode works in a way nothing else this season has. Even the Tobias episode, a solid enough outing, wasn’t nearly as focused or funny as “Colony Collapse.” For the first time in season 4, the show feels like itself again, and it couldn’t be more welcome.
This outing combines familiar running gags and elements, like people forgetting Ann, tricks vs. illusions, and even GOB’s bees. But it mixes in new bits, like a Simon and Garfunkel-tinged homage to The Graduate, sad pronouncements of “He’s not coming,” and an appropriate nickname of “Get Away” for our star, who earns the moniker in more ways than one.
I liked just about every part of this. The opening bit about GOB’s relationship with Ann is well done, featuring returns from all our favorite Veal. I think my favorite part is GOB’s mental dysfunction and breakdown. Will Arnett does a really good job of conveying childlike emotional distress under a rambling stream of “Come on!”s and “The guy in the $3,000 suit” lines that suggests an almost physical inability to actually process real emotion when presented with it. I enjoyed him trying to turn his religious wedding into an excuse for a show-stealing trick, and his inevitable “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment was well-placed.
I also got a kick out of his escapades with Mark Cherry, the ersatz Justin Bieber that GOB gets involved with. Between the Bieber references and the Entourage spoof, this episode shows its release date a little bit, but even if the referenced things are a little dated, the show has fun with it. GOB overstaying his welcome in a hip group, to the point of having a pop song made to tell him to scram, is a good bit.
Plus, as bizarre and dark as it is, I love the comic absurdity of GOB getting into a Forget-Me-Now loop where he can’t erase the memory of his shame but does erase his memory of taking a Forget-Me-Now pill to try to erase that shame. It’s an out there concept, but the show has a surprising amount of melancholy fun with it, and Will Arnett nails it as always.
Poor Steve Holt though! I just feel so bad for that little dope. He’s so sweet and earnest in his desire to have a relationship with his dad, and good lord is he barking up the wrong tree there. Beyond that, the return of GOB’s sick bees is a nice little gag. And the episode finally pays off some of the things it set up previously, like DeBrie ending up in GOB’s limo and the cave that “Father B” bought off Craigslist.
It’s hard to say why this one works so much better than prior episodes. In some instances, the jokes are just better. In others, it’s that the call backs and new material blend together much better than in prior efforts. But maybe it’s just that “Colony Collapse” feels the most complete as an episode, setting things up and paying them off within the half hour, and working with a throughline of GOB hitting rock bottom. As we near the halfway mark, I can only hope that it’s a good omen and season 4 picks up from here. That’s not my recollection, but I can hope!