It’s obvious from the end of the season that this is a story Mitch Hurwitz is not finished with. This is not entirely unlike previous endings to the series, including midway through the first season when they weren’t sure about being renewed for a second order to finish off their eventual 18-episode set. People complain about loose ends in series all the time, but ending with a note of mystery can be a satisfying conclusion. The story to this season even ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, with all of us wondering exactly what happened to Lucille 2, although the number of references to Clue throughout the season suggest that perhaps if we watch the entire thing over again, the answers to these questions we’re left with at the end of episode 15 are contained within the season all along. Time will tell.
The strength of Arrested Development, its greatest among all its many strengths, was always the way it took enormous risks and pushed the boundaries of what television comedy could be. The influence it’s had on shows like The Office and Modern Family is undeniable. It was a new way of storytelling at the time, and a new way of joketelling, and the strangeness of its initial inception is basically completely wiped from the cultural memory. It was a weird show at first. Watching Season 4 feels very much, almost eerily, like watching that first season a decade ago. Seemingly strange at first, then disappointing that it seems to have not lived up to its hype, then when it takes off, it’s irresistible and mind-boggling. We’re just starting to see the layers upon layers of jokes contained in the new season that surely will end up rivalling the best of the previous three. But the best feature of the season is the way it uses the new Netflix model to tell a completely fresh story in an innovative way, redefining what we think of as the way comedy and storytelling work. There’s no one way for these things to work, despite the insistence that the divergences the show makes from its previous incarnation weaken it. The only way it could have worked was by progressing the medium and taking risks. Like Michael finding the dead dove in the fridge, I guess I just don’t know what people were expecting.