Blockheads

"Blockheads"
Directors: Mitch Hurwitz & Troy Miller — Writer: Mitch Hurwitz & Jim Vallely — Aired: May 26, 2013 —    ◄   

"Blockheads" is the fifteenth and final episode of Arrested Development's fourth season.

George Michael tried to reconnect with his father but is finding himself overwhelmed by the responsibility of running his business.

Synopsis

After getting off of a vicious game of voicemail lie tag, George Michael meets back up with Rebel in The Ealing Club. They both see their fathers approaching so they duck into a photobooth and make out. The next day he attempts to play basketball but his nose gets broken. He calls his dad to make plans to make amends but Michael says no, planning on being with Rebel. George Michael then calls Rebel and she agrees to meetup. Rebel leaves the restaurant so Michael calls his son again, who in turn tells him he's already made plans. Rebel arrives and they make love and she tells him she's enamored by his careless ways and that he's smart enough to make Fakeblock. 

George Michael voted out of his own dorm room

George Michael is kicked out by P-Hound from his dorm room and G.O.B. happens across him, hoping to feed him a Forget-Me-Now (pill) to make him forget the events at the Gothic Castle. G.O.B. is unsuccessful, and instead he strikes up a conversation with his nephew, during which he mentions that he is selling properties in Sudden Valley, and George Michael decides to buy one in an attempt to make his father proud. As George Michael shows up in the neighborhood, all the registered sex offenders living there are thrilled to discover that he's 22 but looks 16 so they give him gifts and play football with him and throw him pool parties. Rebel visits with her son Lem and sees that his new house shows he's not as easy-going as she hoped he was. George Michael reveals the rocky truth of the relationship to Maeby, who he then fires for hyping Fakeblock too much. Out of spite, she tells Michael that Rebel was turned off from George Michael's pressure in their relationship. He gets her film rights and heads over to Rebel's apartment where he plays it cool and tries to push her away, which draws her to him. They make love and Michael steals a photobooth photo from her dresser but discovers that it is George Michael and Rebel in the photo.

Michael calls Maeby and tells her she's out of the movie then heads to Sudden Valley to fire G.O.B. He runs into George Michael, who just wants to impress his father and gives him a heartfelt thank-you for raising him. Michael tries to leave before George Michael changes the subject to talk about his new girlfriend and how things are rocky. George Michael asks his father how his love life and movie project are going. Michael, feeling sorry for his son, decides to back out of pursuing Rebel and answers that neither were meant to be. 

Michael and Rebel

At Cinco de Cuatro, G.O.B. is in negotiation with a Mongolian horde he hired to build the wall between Mexico and America and George Michael approaches, asking for help with Rebel. G.O.B. gives him horrible advice so George Michael decides to do the opposite. G.O.B. then tells George Sr. about the horde and George Sr. reveals that the family have no money for the project. G.O.B., in turn, breaks the news to the Mongolian horde that they won't get paid, leading them to plunder and ravage Cinco de Cuatro in retaliation, during the act of which they are mistaken for a group of rioting Latin-Americans. Michael meets with Lucille Austero and attempts to seduce her, but when she refuses he threatens her. George Michael, nearly ready to reveal the truth about Fakeblock, finds a note from the internet hacktivist group Anonymous threatening to "screw" him if goes forward with the plans to publicize Fakeblock, but, thinking the note is a booty call from Rebel, he decides to continue the lie and instead gives a short keynote speech about Fakeblock, claiming that it "is real". He then heads for Rebel's apartment and after showing her the note he found, which she mistakes as a booty call from him, they spend the night together.

Michael and George Michael square off.

The next morning, Michael, having been drugged with a forget-me-now the previous night, has forgotten the heartfelt conversation he had with George Michael yesterday and calls Rebel and tells her he wants to make things work with her so she tells him to come over later. George Michael drops his nonchalant act and tells Rebel that he cares about her and wants to make things work. She says yes and he leaves. Outside he runs into his amnesiac father who has a cactus with a note for Rebel. George Michael realizes that Michael is the other man and Michael, who already knew, plays it off until he blurts out that they were both in the photobooth separately with Rebel. Michael is unable to provide an answer when his son asks him about his mention of the photobooth and, angry that his father knowingly slept with Rebel behind his back, George Michael punches him the face. The episodes then ends on a tense, silent stare-off between father and son.

Epilogue

G.O.B. receives a call from his mother who informs him that he is the new Bluth Company president now that Lucille Austero has gone missing, but she also warns him to "keep his nose clean" and steer clear of any scandals. He then receives a voicemail from Tony Wonder, who took a Forget-Me-Now to forget their night of gay love, but G.O.B. remembers it clearly.

Police arrive at Lucille Austero's penthouse in Balboa Towers and arrest Buster for her murder. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer celebrate that they have the rights to his story and that the movie they make about him will be their next DaVinci Code.

Appearances

Main Cast

• Michael Cera as George Michael Bluth
• Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth
• Will Arnett as G.O.B.
• Alia Shawkat as Maeby Fünke
• Tony Hale as Buster Bluth
• Jeffrey Tambor as George Bluth
• Portia de Rossi as Lindsay Bluth Fünke (reused footage from Red Hairing)

Recurring

• Isla Fisher as Rebel Alley
• Ron Howard as Himself
• Jeff Garlin as Mort Meyers
• John Beard as Himself
• Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder
• Brian Grazer as Himself
• Liza Minnelli as Lucille Austero
• Richard Jin Namkung as Paul 'P-Hound' Huan
• John Yuan as Doug Fleer
• Matt Yuan as Dean Fleer
• Ithamar Enruquez as Carlos
• Tom Saunders as Tom
• Evan Gaustad as Terry
• Woon Young Park as Marauder
• Carter Hastings as Lem
• Jay Johnston as Officer Taylor

Guest

• Ben Harris as Ealing Club Waiter
• Beverly Palmer as Nurse
• Andrew Tsygan as Twin Andrew
• Keith and Kenneth Lucas as Lucas twins
• Allie Goertz as Reveler

Recurring themes

References

Anonymous

Zillow

• Peanuts - In the comic strip Peanuts Lucy often calls people "blockhead".
• Michael Cera's Film Career
  • Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - George Michael tells Rebel Alley that he will fight anyone he has to for her. This is a reference to the film which starred Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, trying to fight seven exes to win a woman's heart. The episode "It Gets Better" also references roles Cera played in Youth in Revolt and Juno.
• The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency - The t-shirt G.O.B. wears when meeting George Michael from the TV series version of The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency.
• Anonymous - The internet hacktivist group Anonymous wears Guy Fawkes masks when making public appearances.
• Zillow - The real estate website shows a listing for a Sudden Valley property. 
• Depardieu - Lem's last name is Depardieu and his father is an French actor. It may be a nod to Gérard Depardieu.
• Bender from Futurama  - When George Michael is voted out of his dorm, one vote is cast for Bender from Futurama. When he lost the Student Council election in "The Immaculate Election", 1% of votes were cast for Bart Simpson.

Callbacks/Running Jokes

• Sports - George Michael is terrible at sports, seen in "Notapusy".
• Abbreviated cursing - P-Hound says that George Michael has "effed" him with Fakeblock.
• "Love Each Other" - The phrase is how George Michael sums up the opposite of G.O.B.'s advice regarding Fakeblock and Rebel Alley and are the final words of Season Four as John Beard's sign off from ITV.
• Perfect rhythm - George Michael and his internal clock is referenced during his long pause with Rebel in the dorms. He whispers "twenty four" after Ron Howard's narration, but before replying to Rebel. 
• Punch - George Michael punches Michael for dating Rebel behind his back, just like he punched G.O.B. for dating Ann in "Development Arrested". 

  

• "[synonym for arrested] Development" - The headline of the report about Buster's arrest says "Arraigned Development".
• "NINJA please" - When George Michael tells his uncle he can't afford a new house, G.O.B. uses Tobias' "ninja please" reaction from "Indian Takers".
• "That was a freebie" - G.O.B. admits a freebie when George Michael admits he's homeless.
• Finger to lips - The twins and P-Hound hold their fingers to their lips when George Michael is kicked out of his dorm.
• "The Sound of Silence" - G.O.B. hears "The Sound of Silence" when George Michael talks about his relationship woes. The leader of the Mongol horde hears it when G.O.B. breaks the bad news about the lack of money.

  

• Mr. F - The theme from Mr. F plays when Michael reads the brochure for Tobias's (Mr. F himself) Fantastic Four musical.
• Homefill - George Michael says he will call the company that filled the original model home to furnish his new house.
• Opening bottles - George Michael breaks his counter when he opens a beer bottle like G.O.B. did in "Double Crossers".
• Serious(ly) - George Michael debates "I take things too serious" and "I take things too seriously". Grammatically speaking, both make sense. "Serious" is an adjective describing "it" and "seriously" is an adverb describing "take". Serioush is not a word. "Easily breezily" works best.
• Maeby has poor literacy skills - Maeby says "serioush" after George Michael debates between "serious" and "seriously," although she could have been making fun of him.
• Movie or series - When Maeby pitches the idea of a show about the Bluths to Ron Howard in "Development Arrested", he says, "I don’t see it as a series. Maybe a movie," a meta-comment on the show's possible future post-cancellation. Here, when Michael asks Maeby to sign away her rights for the movie, she says, "I think movies are dead. Maybe it's a TV show."
• Notes - Anonymous leaves George Michael a note on his microphone.
• "It sure is!" - Ron Howard's answer to Brian Grazer mimics The Narrator's reaction to Tobias' praise of Burger King in "Motherboy XXX".
• "You're mistaken!" - G.O.B. continues his pattern of dismissing people who call him by insisting they have the wrong person, as he did to Michael in A New Attitude. This is presumably because his trysts have left many people seeking him out.

Hidden/Background Jokes

• After Michael and George Michael end their phone call and the narrator says that they seem to be growing less alike every day, the split-screen shows them strike identical poses and then look down at their phones at the same time.
• When George Michael visits Maeby in her office there is a keypad on the wall. Next to the keypad on the wall there is a note reading, "Code 1-2-3-4".
• Fake blocks - The Fakeblock sign at Cinco is made out of fake blocks of stone.
• Backwards
  •  When George Michael leans on the piano, after having said "feels like it should be the other way around", and hits the low notes, the piano produces a high-pitched sound.
  • Rebel Alley tells George Michael (Maharis), "...you're asking Lem and me to move into this house, and it just, it seems all backwards." The floor plan used in George Michael's house is a mirror of the floor plan used in the original model home.
  • The refrigerator/freezer George Michael uses is backwards. The refrigerator is on the left and freezer is on the right. As George Michael pulls out a drink, he says, "Maybe it is backwards."
• The flyer Michael reads for the Fantastic Four musical misspells Tobias's surname as "Funkë" instead of "Fünke". Emmett Richter's face is pixelated on the actual printed flyer itself, rather than on-camera.
• The LEM - Ron Howard names each of his children after the place they were conceived. In The B. Team, he sits with Michael in the LEM. This implies that Rebel's son Lem was conceived in the LEM.

Foreshadowing/Future References

• Movie? Season Five? - Storylines not concluded in this episode and scenes in the "On the next... Arrested Development" segment tease what could happen in Season Five or a movie.

Quotes

P-Hound: You know what? This is no longer a peace pizza. That is a war pizza!

George Michael: Okay, that's fine. Do you want to take it back, or...?

P-Hound: No, I already ate. That, that's for you.

George Michael: Oh, thank you.

P-Hound: You're welcome. Enjoy your war pizza!  

George Michael: I take things... easily breezily.  

Music

• The final song of the season is "Boomerang" by Lucy Schwartz, daughter of Arrested Development composer David Schwartz.

Notes

• In the opening credits, despite this episode being centered around George Michael, all instruments used throughout the fourth season are played.
• The Zillow ad for George Michael's house in Sudden Valley reveals the following facts. It's a single-family three-bedroom two-bathroom structure. It was built in 2003 and sold in 2010. It has electric heating. It is located at 154 Tracey Lane and its purchase price was $475,000 before the worth sunk to $44,000.
• Tobias does not appear in this episode. Lindsay and Lucille appear briefly in reused footage from Red Hairing and Queen B., respectively.

Images

→ See 127 pictures from Blockheads at Images from Blockheads.

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 One • Season Two • Season Three • Season Four • Season Five