It was pretty asinine how Fox ran all four final episodes of “Arrested Development” in one night, on a Friday when nobody watches TV, and how they kept showing commercials for sitcoms they weren’t cancelling, and how they all looked really stupid and pandering.
It doesn’t really matter, though, because I got to see all four episodes, and they blew me.
Away. I keep forgetting to say “away.” All four of them were awesome, and it was about as perfect a series finale as you’re ever going to get from television. Even if they don’t end up continuing the series on Showtime, it’s okay, because it ended so well. It was funny, and juvenile, and topical, and self-referential, but it also tied everything together brilliantly — the kind of plot twist on top of another plot twist on top of a reference to something that happened two seasons ago on top of an adolescent sex joke that only they can pull off.
My favorite bits that I can remember: the Hung Jury, Maeby’s birth announcement, having to bleep out the mention of “Veronica Mars,” the guy visiting Buster in a coma, Ann-yong’s real name, the cabinets without enough set decoration, Buster’s directions to the cab drivers, the names of the Iraqi streets, every time Ron Howard said “oh my,” and pretty much every time Ron Howard said anything.
The only way it could’ve been more perfect is if they’d been able to get not just Judge Reinhold and Bud Cort, but Jude Law.