The Bluths don’t seem to stray far from Newport Beach (or Mexico) unless they’re being chased into the open waters by the feds. Still, we’re dreaming of an “Arrested Development” banana stand in New York City.
With Lindsay’s (Portia de Rossi) pursuit of a career in politics and Tobias’ (David Cross) forever-aspiration of joining the Blue Man Group New York, plus George Sr. and Lucille’s political parallels to President Donald Trump’s, the idea of the dysfunctional clan visiting NYC might not be so far-fetched after all.
While we could dream up an entire city-set episode of the Netflix series — one that involves a Lucille and Buster trip to Trump Tower and a horrified Lindsay failing at the subway swipe — we left the fanfiction up to the cast themselves.
“Maeby would probably be uptown somewhere dressing like an old lady to get money and spend it all in Brooklyn, and hating how long it took her to get to Brooklyn and actually hating all the hipsters there,” Alia Shawkat said during a roundtable chat with her co-stars Will Arnett, Tony Hale and Jeffrey Tambor ahead of the latest season premiere.
The first half of season five, now on Netflix, sees Shawkat’s Maeby hiding out in an old-age home and slipping into a myriad disguises, something she said would transport seamlessly to the city.
“She’d be enjoying lunch at Barney’s and actually enjoying herself with old rich people and being like, ‘I guess I’m young, I gotta go get laid in Brooklyn,’” she added.
While the only daughter of Lindsay and Tobias would be balancing bike rides and lattes with Upper East Side cab rides and shopping sprees, her uncle Gob would be “trapped in the past in old, cool New York,” she said.
“Gob would be at Studio 54,” Arnett envisioned. The actor who plays the struggling magician was swiftly reminded by his co-stars that the famous nightclub shuttered in the ’80s. “Then, he’d be hanging with Andy Warhol,” he suggested.
As for Buster, Hale isn’t so sure he’d make it in the big city without the help of his mother and No. 1 companion, Lucille, played by Jessica Walter.
“I don’t know if Buster could handle New York,” he said. “He’d be lost in the park in a daze or staring at a wall in some hospital.”
Tambor, who plays patriarch George Bluth Sr., had a different vision for his fictional TV family: The Bluths “would definitely be close to Wall Street. We would be down there listening to the vibe, taking in what’s new.”
“Arrested Development” seasons one through five (part one) are currently available for streaming on Netflix. A release date for the second half of the latest season has not yet been announced.
