Warning: Do not proceed if you haven’t finished watching the new season of Arrested Development. Spoilers ahead; you have been warned.
Netflix wants more, Imagine Entertainment wants more, and obviously so does series creator and mastermind Mitch Hurwitz. On May 26 Arrested Development returned after a seven year hiatus with 15 new episodes. The new season ends with without much resolution and this is by design, reveals Hurwitz. In a postmortem interview with Vulture, Hurwitz discusses exactly why so many plot points and character arcs were left up in the air.
The initial idea for these new episodes was to reset things. Let’s show what happens to this family, who were starting to make progress as human beings, when they decide to go it alone. Part of the theme of this thing is that we do need our families. Our families are attached to us whether we like it or not, in all these mysterious, invisible ways. It’s somewhat allegorical but we see that they’ve all affected each other’s lives in really profound ways for the negative because there’s no communication between them to speak of. So in one sense that was the theme, but in another way it really was just setting up the future. If the pilot was about their lives falling apart, then this was designed to be the first act of a larger story about winding everybody up, getting everybody to a point of peril and then having a jumping-off place for the next story where they all come together.
Whether it’s a movie or another season on Netflix, Hurwitz has a plan for what’s to come next. As far as we know, Lucille Austero aka Lucille 2 is dead and the impetus for the next Bluth adventure will be a murder mystery.
That really is the idea. Everybody’s gotten their lives into a state of peril and everybody said, “To hell with this family,” and Michael said “I’m done with all of you,” and then — Buster is arrested for murder! Now what do they do? Now they have to come together or let their baby brother go to the chair. We’re sort of resolving or ending the season with both an emotional story and a plot story. The plot is that Buster’s been arrested for the murder of Lucille 2. And think about it, all the Bluths have a relationship with her. One of the main reasons we were kind of obsessed with telling the story in the right order is because we wanted to slowly reveal not only that Lucille 2 was gone and that she died, but that they all had ways in which they were connected to her that could either look like motives or could exculpate some of them. But they’re all connected to this woman who disappeared … It’s always been a show that dealt with a lot of big plot points, stealing the Queen Mary and all these off-the-wall things. The more important stuff is really what’s going on in their hearts and minds. That’s what the Michael–George Michael thing is about.
When can fans expect the next chapter in the story? It’s all up to the talent and their inherently conflicting schedules.
Whatever the next step is, I will say that by design the Bluths will come together. They’re all going to be together. Now it’s a question of what’s the most efficient way to do that, how do we make that happen and when do we make that happen? It certainly won’t be another seven years. If we do it, we’re going to do it soon while we’re all still alive. While we’re all still sensate. A lot of it has to be worked around John Beard’s schedule.
I highly recommend you jump over to Vulture to read the Hurwitz interview in full; in addition to talking about the future of the show, he also discusses the intensive creative process behind making the new season, Franklin’s absence, the return of Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder, making Ann Veal a more substantial character, the idea behind the Fantastic Four musical, the many easter eggs, George Michael’s almost chicken dance, and why ostriches.
Also this week, Hurwitz spoke to the press at large about making more Arrested, responding to reviews, finally revealing Michael’s late wife Tracey Bluth in a flashback, going back on his idea of watching the new episodes out of order, the inspiration behind Terry Crews’ Herbert Love, and he shares a scene that didn’t make the final cut involving Mitt Romney and George Clooney. In fact, he also blurted out that there are tons of extra footage that he hopes will eventually see the light of day. “We have a lot of material that we’re planning on putting out on Netflix at a later time, probably, to tie in there.” Consume all the juicy quotes at Entertainment Weekly.
Bonus! Pop after the break to watch behind-the-scenes featurettes with Hurtwitz, Portia de Rossi (Lindsay Bluth), David Cross (Tobias Fünke), Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth), and Henry Winkler (Barry Zuckerkorn). Also there you’ll find a Q&A clip with some of the cast and a look at the walk-on contest winners. Continue reading Mitch Hurwitz opens up about the future of ‘Arrested Development’ (video inside) →
