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A New Attitude

"A New Attitude"
Directors: Mitch Hurwitz & Troy Miller — Writer: Mitch Hurwitz & Jim Vallely — Aired: May 26, 2013 — Icon-image      


"A New Attitude" is the eleventh episode of Arrested Development's fourth season.

G.O.B. accepts a job from his brother but is distracted by a scheme of his own.

Synopsis

At the model home G.O.B. and Michael talk about G.O.B.'s foiled Jesus' crucifixion illusion and how G.O.B. thinks it was Tony Wonder. G.O.B. plans to retaliate and ruin Tony's "gay magic" career. Michael offers G.O.B. a job of selling Sudden Valley homes and also gets his film rights.

4x11 A New Attitude (16)

G.O.B. kisses George Michael.

G.O.B. lures George Michael to the Gothic Castle on gay night under the pretense of wanting to share a message from his father. G.O.B. has his nephew unwittingly pose as his boyfriend in order to sneak into the stage so he can lock all trap doors and openings before Tony's show. The show begins and Tony pops out of a beanbag chair. Following the performance, G.O.B. and Tony talk and Tony reveals he uses a body double in a mask to perform the illusion. They enjoy each other's company and agree to see each other later.

At the model home, G.O.B. tells Tobias about his plan to get revenge on Tony Wonder, saying only that he is dating a celebrity. When he sells Tobias a Bluth home, Tobias tells him that other sex offenders need houses too, so G.O.B. fills all the Sudden Valley homes with registered sex offenders. G.O.B. receives a call from Lucille who wants him to help get construction started on the US/Mexico wall. Unable to talk any Mexicans into building the wall, G.O.B. goes to the border to put in some manual labor himself where he meets China Garden who offers to find a Chinese crew for him.

Meanwhile, Sally Sitwell shaves Tony Wonder's legs (meaning the two are seeing each other) and they talk about how they stole $10,000 from Lucille Austero's campaign to start Tony's gay magic career. Tony also explains how he wants to reveal G.O.B. as gay and destroy his Christian magic career. Tony calls G.O.B. and sets up a date at The Little Ballroom but G.O.B. goes to the similarly named children's playplace instead. Michael follows him there and they fight over Rebel. G.O.B. finally convinces Michael that he is not seeing Rebel and tells him about the sex offenders. Michael then visits Lucille and rips up her film contract.

4x11 A New Attitude (71)

"Same!"

G.O.B. goes to Tony's house who is mad that G.O.B. stood him up. They make amends and flirt and bond as they drink wine and eat popcorn. For the first time in their lives they feel feelings so they decide to take things slow and agree to have sex on the night of Cinco de Cuatro. At Cinco, G.O.B. runs into Ann who had a child with Tony Wonder. Upset that he's not gay, G.O.B. recruits Ann to have revenge sex. At the model home, G.O.B. tells her to wear the G.O.B. mask and have sex with Tony. The straight video (taken using the cameras set up by John Beard) would prove he's not gay and he would lose his career. Ann suggests that G.O.B. wear the Tony mask and she wear the G.O.B. mask, and G.O.B. agrees.

Ann heads downstairs and convinces Tony to have sex with her while wearing the G.O.B. mask to out G.O.B. as gay, ruining his career as the Christian magician. Tony heads upstairs and the two presumably have sex. Later Michael arrives and sees Tony so G.O.B. forces a forget-me-now down his throat. The next morning Michael calls Lucille Austero and attempts to seduce her to get an extension on the loan. He then calls Rebel who tells him she has company, which turns out to be George Michael.

Appearances

Main Cast
Recurring
Guest
  • Telly Kousakis as Gay clerk
  • Adam Von Almen as Valet
  • Trevor Larcom as Gregory

Recurring themes

References

  • Julie Bowen - Michael and G.O.B. assume the other is dating actress Julie Bowen
  • House of Cards - Tony Wonder and Sally Sitwell plotting in bed, sharing a (very loud burning) cigarette just as the main two characters of House of Cards often do. Sally warns that it could all be a house of cards.
  • The Prestige - Tony Wonder's "Now Everybody's Gay!" illusion is an allusion to the original Transported Man as performed by Borden, which shares many similarities to G.O.B.'s "Free Chicken" illusion in "For British Eyes Only" and "Prison Break-In". The entire plotline of Tony and G.O.B., two rival magicians, ruthlessly attempting to destroy each other's magic careers parallels the plot of The Prestige.

Callbacks/Running Jokes

  • Cross necklace - G.O.B. calls a cross necklace a "t" necklace. Maeby does the same in "Motherboy XXX"
  • The still-frame images of G.O.B.'s evening with Tony Wonder mirror the images of G.O.B.'s first wedding and the experiences of G.O.B.'s ex-wife in the U.S. Army.
  • After Lucile tells G.O.B. to make it look like major construction had begun on the wall, G.O.B. visits the Dr. House Improvement Center, whose sign features a cartoon character that resembles Tobias, whose actor, David Cross, auditioned for Dr. House (a piece of trivia referenced previously in Arrested Development).
  • Whilst seen digging his mother's hole near the border of the U.S. and Mexico, G.O.B. says, "...show everyone that I'm not afraid of the sweet sting of sweat in my eyes." This is a reference to something Michael said in the pilot episode for Arrest - Buster! You can't do that on the balcony, buddy?
  • While conspiring with Sally Sitwell, Tony Wonder has a similar half-revelation to G.O.B., in that he's planning on destroying the life of someone he cares about, "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel plays, a running musical motif for G.O.B's sadness when facing his pathetic magician lifestyle.
  • Siri mispronounces G.O.B.'s name as "Gahb", something that G.O.B. has apparently given up caring about.
  • While finalizing his near-incomprehensible plan to frame Tony Wonder as a heterosexual, G.O.B. references the Straightbait films in a manner implying that he, like Tobias, had watched them.
  • Like just about everybody, when confronted by Ann in the model home, Tony Wonder forgets Ann's name. She responds, "It's Ann. Awfully funny time to be running into you." But he misunderstands her thinking she said, "It's an awfully funny time to be running into you." G.O.B. had previously mistaken Ann's attempt to inform him of her name as the word, "and".

Hidden/Background Jokes

  • Officer Taylor - The police officer in Tony's show turned out to be gay in "Hand to God". His two-time partner, Officer Carter, appears in the audience at the Gothic Castle sitting in front of G.O.B.'s table seat as the audience applauds for Wonder's illusion.
  • POOF'S WOOPS!
    • G.O.B.'s "magic smoke" referenced in "Colony Collapse" is causing his bees to drop like flies. Product Recalls lists "'China Wow! Smoke From Nowhere.' Not for use near rabbits, mice, bees, doves, or colonizing animals."
  • G.O.B.'s ad inviting sex offenders to move to Sudden Valley names him as both President of the GOB Bee Company and Vice President of the Michael B. Company.
  • The name of the knife store that Michael and G.O.B. crash through the wall of is called "Thin Wally's Knives"

Foreshadowing/Future References

  • Sex offenders - G.O.B. fills Sudden Valley with sex offenders, which concludes in "Blockheads".
  • In a flashback to when GOB was locked in the storage unit, it's implied GOB hallucinates and receives advice from a drinking bird toy, "You know if tomorrow you won't open up and let someone else in, then the treasures you have inside may never come out." In "Off the Hook," it's revealed the message actually comes from a man discussing the storage unit on the TV show "Locker Hawkers."
  • Sally has alopecia - During the scene where Sally and Tony discuss their schemes, it's revealed that Sally had never shaved her own legs and has a false eyebrow hinting at the possibility that she has alopecia like her father.

Quotes

  G.O.B.: What about you? I didn't hear from you for your entire childhood, and then thanks for the birthday card that I never got from you for the last 40 years.


  G.O.B.: If you insist on speaking to me like you're my wife, then don't be surprised to find my [bleep] in you and then you never hear from me again!


  Tony Wonder: A magician has many secrets, but there was one I was forced to keep... by society. "Don't talk to us," they said. "Keep your hands to yourself," they also said. Magic is only for straight men. I don't want to look at you, son. Just go to work. Why can't you be like your brother? There! Stay in there! We don't want you out here! Well, I'm here, I'm queer, and now I'm in a chair! Did somebody say Wonder?


  Tobias: I have a list of men who can fill every opening you have!


  G.O.B.: Who wants to help me build a wall to keep Mexicans out of America? All right, all right! Who wants to help me build a wall for no reason? It's a different wall!


  G.O.B.: I need the gayest little ballroom!


  G.O.B.: First of all, that's very dated of you, Michael. "He's" don't like to be called "she's" and I don't who this he-man is that you're referring to.


  G.O.B.: Yeah, damn it! I mean, I even helped fill his stupid homes with sex offenders, and yet he still hates me.


  G.O.B.: Same.


  Tony Wonder: Same.


  Narrator: The feeling was friendship, but neither of them had ever experienced it.


  Ann Veal: I just thought that if you had to have sex with a man, wouldn't it be more of a turn-on to have sex with someone who looks like you? Okay.Put these on, and then meet me in the bedroom in five minutes for some serious secular intercourse.


  G.O.B.: Bad example. If you were ashamed of being in love with a man, suddenly discovered these new feelings, something that you only allowed to happen because you thought he was gay and you were hoping to exact revenge, but then you found out he was straight, then you wanted to get even, so maybe you put a mask on someone and then tried to convince yourself that the sex you were about to have was with yourself, but it turned out to be him, and all you ended up doing was proving that your feelings were real then I might say something like, "Homo much?"


Notes

Images

→ See 108 pictures from A New Attitude at Images from A New Attitude.
SEASON FOUR EPISODES

1. "Flight of the Phoenix"
2. "Borderline Personalities"
3. "Indian Takers"
4. "The B. Team"
5. "A New Start"

6. "Double Crossers"
7. "Colony Collapse"
8. "Red Hairing"
9. "Smashed"
10. "Queen B."

11. "A New Attitude"
12. "Señoritis"
13. "It Gets Better"
14. "Off the Hook"
15. "Blockheads"

Season OneSeason TwoSeason ThreeSeason FourSeason Five
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