Altar Egos
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| Arrested Development episode | |
| "Arrested Development" | |
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| Episode No | 1AJD16 |
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| Airdate | March 17, 2004 |
| Writer(s) | Barbara Feldman |
| Director | Jay Chandrasekhar |
| On the next: | “Maeby attempts to deposit her cheque. G.O.B. adapts to married life. Tobias is sent to break into Maggie’s house to steal evidence, only to discover that she’s not blind.” |
| Guest star(s) | Amy Poehler as Wife of Gob Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Maggie Lizer James Lipton as Warden Stefan Gentles Jane Lynch as Cindi Lightballoon |
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Arrested Development Season 1 |
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| All Arrested Development episodes | |
"Altar Egos" was the sixteenth episode aired of TV comedy series Arrested Development.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Michael Bluth and his family gather at the courthouse to discuss George Sr.’s upcoming trial. They have received a plea offer, but their lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn hadn’t read it because he was “getting back into the dating world” – he’d been busy trying to pick up cross-dressing prostitutes. Lucille, speaking for George Sr., wants to accept the plea because he needs a woman back in his life. However, George Sr. already has a woman in his life - Cindi Lightballoon, an undercover FBI agent who had watched George Sr.’s "Caged Wisdom" series of self-help videos and fell in love with him. She tells George Sr. that she knows for a fact that he can beat the government's case against him, so George Sr. wants to go to trial. Michael nevertheless walks off with the thick plea, which he plans to read.
Meanwhile, Lindsay receives a letter from Maeby’s school saying that her daughter is failing the ninth grade. Determined to not be like Lucille , who ignored Lindsay’s own failing of the ninth grade, Lindsay and Tobias agree to hire George Michael to tutor Maeby.
At the bar opposite the courthouse, Michael sits down to read the plea, but G.O.B. is more interested in getting him to have a one-night stand with a lawyer. As he leaves, a woman, Maggie Lizer, bumps into Michael and they strike up a conversation. Michael, at G.O.B.’s advice, introduces himself as Chareth Cutestory, a maritime lawyer, and does indeed have a one-night stand.
Back at the model home, Maeby shows George Michael her most recent failed test and pays him to just fill in the right answers and return it to her. George Michael wonders where the money she pays him with came from.
The following morning, Michael is wondering how to end his first one-night stand. He's struggling to follow G.O.B.’s instruction to just walk away when he realizes something. Thinking back to last night, he suddenly realizes that the woman he was attempting to never see again was blind, and had a pang of guilt about abandoning her.
George Sr. is continuing to exploit his relationship with Cindi. He presses her for more information about his case and then starts tweaking her nipples through the prison yard fence. Lucille catches him doing this. George Sr. tries to explain, but Lucille storms away, threatening divorce.
Michael comes home, upset about not getting away from his one night stand. At the same time, G.O.B. comes home with news of the woman he met last night. But when he hears Michael's story, he tells him he too still needs to get out. Because G.O.B. screwed up and got married during a series of escalating dares.
Later, Michael arrives for his date in the park with Maggie. He tries to seem interested, but is actually reading the plea as they walk. Maggie realizes this however.
While working on a chain gang, George Sr. is approached by Cindi, who tells him the fact that she thinks George Sr. will be set free. But, in fact, Cindi misunderstood one of George Senior's "Caged Wisdom" tapes in which he said faith was a fact. Not realizing she was watching a bonus blooper reel, Cindi had been espousing her faith that George Sr. wouldn't be convicted, not any actual inside facts.
And back at school, George Michael runs into Maeby. She took her old test again and got an A this time. She now pays him to write an essay for her, though now has to run off to a fundraiser for a sick girl. This strikes George Michael as odd.
Later, at the courthouse, Michael meets up with his family, having still not read the plea. Barry Zuckerkorn didn't read it either because he had been occupied with George and Lucille's divorce. George Sr. explains to Lucille that Cindi was just an FBI informant, who actually had no information, and begs Barry to take the plea. Lucille forgives George, and Michael points out that they can't accept their offer because they don't know what it is. But they decide to anyway.
The hearing gets underway, until Michael notices that Maggie Lizer is the prosecutor. She's the most feared prosecutor in Orange County because her blindness wins her sympathy from the judge, the jury and, often, the defendants themselves. Michael tells Barry and G.O.B. that Maggie is his blind one night stand. G.O.B. implores him to string her along and Barry says Michael can help win the case.
George Michael, meanwhile, attends the fundraiser for Surely Fünke, where he discovers that Maeby has been posing as a dying wheelchair-bound sick girl named Surely.
Michael visits Maggie, who, still believing he is a lawyer, hands him the Bluth case file to read so she can get some help with the case. Michael is stuck with an ethical dilemma.
[edit] Episode Notes
- Episode 18, Missing Kitty, was originally intended to come before this and the next episode.
- This episode, and the following episode Justice is Blind are regarded as a two-parter, as all the storylines directly continue on from each other and nothing is resolved in Part 1. They were aired together as an entire one-hour episode.
- The title is a play on the term “alter ego”. The word "altar" refers to the fact that G.O.B. gets married in this episode.
- Buster is neither seen nor heard in this episode.
[edit] References
- Happy Days - Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler, Fonz on Happy Days) does the "Fonz" pose in the bathroom mirror.
- Best in Show - Cindi Lightballoon (Jane Lynch) is seen in front of a fake pet grooming truck. In the movie Best In Show, she played a professional dog groomer.
- Seinfeld - Wife of G.O.B.'s plea for a maritime lawyer is reminiscent of a plea for a marine biologist in the Seinfeld episode The Marine Biologist; a series in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus starred.
[edit] Callbacks/running jokes
- Affair - George Sr.'s habit of cheating on Lucille is once again apparent as he tweaks Cindi's nipples through a chain-link fence, an activity he did in Shock and Aww.
- Lucille also mentions that George Sr. had slept with her sister in the past, too.
- Barry's secret life
- Barry is looking for a transvestite (he's a tranny hunter)
- Barry says to Michael "I could kiss you on the (bleep)"
- Blendin - Cindi Lightballoon rides the "Blendin' Mobile Pet Grooming" van to the prison (a pun on blend in). From this van in Shock and Aww some government agents washed a fake dog to signal to Cindi.
- Cornballer - A Cornballer appears on Maggie Lizer’s kitchen table.
- Four women - G.O.B. often teases Michael for only having slept with four women. Michael says the tally is now up to 5 in this episode, as he slept with Beth in Shock and Aww. It would then go up to 6 after he slept with Maggie Lizer.
- Letter - Maeby's "failure of 9th grade" letter is shot exactly like Lucille's "you're an adoptive parent" letter from Shock and Aww
- Surely - Maeby's alter ego
- An earlier reference is made to Maeby's alter ego Surely: In Shock and Aww, the school has a sign, "Hold on, Surely Fünke. Surely Fünke: How we ♥ thee."
- Maeby writes her name on her failed math test as S. Funke
- Sweet Pink Mouth - Tobias bribes George Michael by offering to pack his "sweet pink mouth" full of icecream. This phrase is later use in Whistler's Mother, for the line "your sweet pink mouth goes north, not south" in All You Need is Smiles.
[edit] Hidden/background jokes
- Republicans - The courtroom office and courtroom are decorated with portraits of Republican presidents.
- Maritime lawyer - When 3 of G.O.B.'s wife's seals die, she says she needs a maritime lawyer, the type of lawyer Michael pretended to be to Maggie.
[edit] Character cameos
- Wife of G.O.B. - This marks the first appearance of G.O.B.'s wife. She is played by Amy Poehler, the real-life wife of Will Arnett (G.O.B.).
- Maggie Lizer - This is the first appearance of Maggie Lizer, who would return in the following episode, followed by another two-parter in Season 2.
[edit] Foreshadowing/Future References
- This episode includes a flashback to Michael's performance in The Trial of Captain Hook - Michael plays Peter Pan in this, prosecuting Captain Hook. The scene is repeated in Fakin' It, and the song 'You're a crook, Captain Hook, Judge won't you throw the book, at the Pirate' is used again in this episode and others, when Michael acts like a lawyer. The words, 'Won't you throw the book' could also be a reference to Justice is Blind, when Michael throws a book at Maggie in the courtroom.
- Also, Captain Hook's hand falls off during the flashback, a possible foreshadowing of Buster's hand being eaten by a seal and replaced with a hook.
[edit] Goofs
- Lucille proclaims she could not breastfeed any of her children because of George Sr.'s tweaking, but later in Spring Breakout, the narrator states "it was Buster's first taste of alcohol since he was nursing." One of these statements must be false, unless the narrator is implying that Lucille used alcoholic formula.
