Lindsay Bluth Fünke is portrayed by Portia de Rossi and appears in 66 episodes of Arrested Development. She was last seen in "The Fallout" where she reconciles with her family,
About[]
Lindsay Bluth Fünke, born Nellie, is the older sister of Michael, G.O.B. and Buster Bluth, and the adopted and only daughter of Lucille and George Bluth. As an act of rebellion, Lindsay married Tobias Fünke with whom, and $130,000 in medical assistance, she had her daughter Maeby Fünke.
Lindsay and Tobias have a rocky relationship, partially due to Tobias' ambiguous sexuality and Lindsay's flippant attitude. Lindsay is an extremely hands-off mother to Maeby, often forgetting she exists. To fill her spare time, Lindsay enjoys shopping, frequenting upscale restaurants and bars, and hosting charity events.
Lindsay was adopted at the age of 3 and was raised believing she was Michael's twin sister. She was almost adopted by Stan Sitwell, but Lucille and George adopted her first "just to stick it to a competitor." In Season Five she learns that her biological mother was Mimi, making her Lucille's sister (half-sister, as Lucille points out). Being the only daughter, Lucille was extremely critical of Lindsay's appearance. George, being a hands-off parent himself, was only proud of her good looks. It's no surprise she developed a jaded personality. Her brother Michael was quick to console her, which may explain why out of her entire family she gets along with Michael the most. G.O.B. doesn't respect Lindsay, but then again he doesn't respect any women. Buster sees Lindsay as a mother figure, but then again he sees all women as potential mother figures.
After a critical childhood, Lindsay moved to Boston where she married Tobias Fünke — a man her parents would never accept — as an act of rebellion. Lindsay and Tobias struggled to conceive and used $130,000 of Bluth Company money to get Lindsay pregnant with Mae "Maeby" Fünke. Attempting to spare her daughter the rough childhood Lindsay endured, she took a 100% hands-off approach to raise Maeby, letting her self-manage.
After Tobias lost his medical license and her access to the Bluth Company credit card were cut off, Lindsay moved back to Newport Beach to be with the rest of the Bluth family.
Romantic history[]
Little is known about her romantic history before meeting Tobias. Her marriage to the analrapist could be described as anything but romantic. Tobias struggles with his own sexuality and Lindsay is not attracted to him in any way. They occasionally share moments of connection.
In 2004, Tobias and Lindsay attempt an open relationship "great experiment" to see if it could jump-start their stagnant marriage. They start to see it as a competition and lie to each other about their progress, while in reality they never follow through with other partners. That doesn't stop Lindsay from flirting, however. At various points in the experiment, Lindsay flirts with actor Tom Jane, high school student Steve Holt, bounty hunter Ice, and family lawyer Bob Loblaw.
Lindsay meets Marky Bark at the Garden Grove Methadone Clinic and during their double date at C.W. Swappigan's she and Marky abscound to live on his ostrich farm. ("Indian Takers") After years in the desert, living with ostriches and his awful mother, and his faceblindness, Lindsay craves someone who can appreciate her looks so she begins sleeping with Herbert Love ("Red Hairing") (while Maeby secretly collects money, acting as her pimp ("Señoritis"))
Work history[]
After growing up with a silver spoon in her mouth, Lindsay never learned the value of a hard day's work. After moving to Boston and living off her husband's therapist salary and paychecks from the Bluth Company, Lindsay began throwing charity fundraisers at her home. After Tobias lost his job and all Bluth assets were frozen, Lindsay struggled to adapt to a more domestic life. Never having developed a strong sense of business, Lindsay attempted to start a few businesses on a whim, including Mommy, What Will I Look Like?, Dip-A-Pet, and a beads (not bees) company. None succeeded.
Lindsay temporarily works as a secretary at the Bluth Company offices, as a spokeswoman for Cloudmir vodka, and as a saleswoman as a high-end fashion boutique.
Lindsay is now pursuing a career in politics, after she was inspired by the public support of her "put up the wall" speech in Herbert Love's absence. She is running for Congress on the Republican ticket. ("Red Hairing")
Character history[]
Season one[]
Lindsay visits Newport Beach for her father's retirement party. After he is arrested, she and her recently unemployed husband Tobias decide to move back to California. ("Pilot") Lindsay visits Tobias' Fire Sale audition but snags the role with her legitimate enthusiasm. She sleeps through the shoot and misses out. ("Top Banana") Lindsay buys a new dress and tries to find a loophole to keep it, but it is found by Tobias and given to Steve Holt to wear in a play. ("Bringing Up Buster") Lindsay tries to talk Johnny Bark out of a Bluth Company tree but gets trapped in the tree. She decides to save the tree until she leaves to sleep in her own bed. ("Key Decisions")
Lindsay challenges Michael to be more charitable and he does the same. She volunteers to help clean up the wetlands but finds herself in over her head. She then heads to the Save the Wetlands Bachelorette Auction. ("Charity Drive") Lindsay and Tobias visit marriage councilor Phil Gunty and although Tobias enjoys the roleplay, she hates it. ("Visiting Ours") Lucille tells Lindsay the only way to get money from Michael is to get him drunk. She does so and tells Michael about Tobias' Never Nude affliction and he agrees to give her money to pay off her bills. When they realize their mother has turned them against each other, they pool their money to get their dad out of prison to shame their mother on a date. ("In God We Trust") Lindsay visits her father in prison but turns no heads. She dresses more provocative and still turns no heads. She then wears a SLUT shirt and George tells her he's paying the inmates to not look at her. This pleases Lindsay. ("My Mother, the Car")
Lindsay tells Michael that she is anti-leather so Maeby buys an entire leather outfit, but Lindsay doesn't notice. ("Storming the Castle") Lindsay punished Maeby for poor grades and makes her spend time with Lucille. Maeby realizes that Lindsay had a rough childhood due to Lucille's harsh criticism. ("Pier Pressure") Lindsay gets a job representing Cloudmir vodka to improve the Bluth family image, but can't help but brawl with PR agent Jessie after she bad-talked her in the newspaper. ("Public Relations") Michael's Valentine's Day speech inspired Lindsay to get a divorce from Tobias, so she switches bedrooms to stay in the same room as Maeby. ("Marta Complex")
Lindsay and Tobias fight about his Never Nude affliction so Lindsay walks him slowly into intercourse to help him overcome the illness. ("Beef Consommé") George Michael tells Lindsay that he likes his teacher Beth Baerly but Lindsay tells Michael he wants her to be his new mother. ("Shock and Aww") Lindsay swings by the Bluth Company offices to pick up her paycheck and criticizes Michael during a staff meeting. She later tells the employees to go to lunch, but instead they get lost on Catalina Island. ("Staff Infection") Lindsay and Tobias take a hands-on approach to parenting: they pay George Michael to tutor her. ("Altar Egos")
Lindsay breaks a heel on The Ten Commandments outside the courthouse so she protests to have it removed. ("Justice Is Blind") Lindsay and Maeby track down their grandmother Nana to secure their name on her will, but find out she's been dead for a while. ("Missing Kitty") Lindsay, Tobias, and Maeby reunite Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution for a Wellness Convention and Lindsay resumes taking Teamocil to put up with her husband. ("Best Man for the Gob")
Lindsay, upset that her stylist Alex has been called to serve in Army, protests near Camp Pendleton but is caged in a Free speech zone. When locals spray her with a hose and play music to drown her out, she begins cage dancing for attention. ("Whistler's Mother") Lindsay gets a job at a high-end fashion store so she can afford to buy new clothes. She is ashamed by this so tells her family that she is a shoplifter. She loses her job when G.O.B. tries to shoplift. ("Not Without My Daughter") Lindsay decides to start a bead business but loses interest when Tobias comes into money from sales of The Man Inside Me. When she realizes his obliviousness she decides to leave him. ("Let 'Em Eat Cake")
Season two[]
Lindsay and Tobias decide to kickstart their marriage by experimenting with an open relationship. Lindsay watches EZ Keglin videos to prepare for finding another partner. She is legitimately worried when she arrives at the hospital when Tobias is hit by a car, but still tries to flirt with the doctor. ("The One Where Michael Leaves") Lindsay flirts with a rugged man who turns out to be homeless, who later turns out to be actor Tom Jane. ("The One Where They Build a House") Lindsay becomes attracted to the Bluth family bounty hunter Ice and feed him bad information so she can see him more often. ("¡Amigos!") Devastated by her father's death, she wears her SLUT shirt to attract Ice, out of respect for her late father's wish that she be with another man than Tobias. ("Good Grief")
Lindsay flirts with Steve Holt so Maeby convinces him that her mother is a transvestite. ("Sad Sack") Lindsay and George Michael sing "Afternoon Delight" to get petty revenge on Michael and Maeby who are bonding at the Bluth Company holiday party. ("Afternoon Delight") Lindsay begins taking Teamocil just for the side effect of a diminished sex drive. ("Switch Hitter") Lindsay wanted to sell her unfrozen Bluth Company shares for a Country Club membership, but Tobias wasted them on buying the Tobias is Queen Mary. ("Queen for a Day")
Attempting to woo celebrity gun advocate Moses Taylor, Lindsay wears a fur coat on a date. Tobias mistakes her for a loose wolf and shoots her with a tranquilizer gun so she is severely drugged at the bachelorette auction. ("Burning Love") Michael notices Lindsay took an interest in Dragon so he tricked her into a date with Uncle Jack. She realized and decided to be a team player, for the sake of the family. ("Ready, Aim, Marry Me") Lindsay and Tobias bond as they break into Maggie Lizer's house to determine if she is really pregnant. ("Out on a Limb") Their connection lasts and they get angry with Michael when he doubts the legitimacy of the baby. ("Hand to God")
Lindsay's interest in Tobias wanes again and she tells Michael she wants somebody authoritative like her father. When Tobias mimics George Bluth for his role in Scandalmakers she finds herself attracted to him again. ("Motherboy XXX") Lindsay gets grumpy when Michael makes her clean the model home. She tricks Lupe into cleaning the house, but later Mrs. Featherbottom takes over. ("The Immaculate Election") Lindsay begs Michael to give Tobias a job to get him out of the house, and later teaches George Michael how to drive the stair car. ("Sword of Destiny")
Lindsay encourages George Michael to follow his heart and get pre-engaged to Ann. ("Meat the Veals") Upset at the demeaning Girls with Low Self-Esteem series, Lindsay and Tobias set out to film Men with Low Self-Esteem after Phillip Litt ruins her "Girls with High Self-Esteem" protest. ("Spring Breakout") When Tobias decides to move to Las Vegas with Kitty, Lindsay becomes depressed and tries to convince him to stay, to no effect. ("Righteous Brothers")
Season three[]
After learning Tobias is living happily without her in Reno Lindsay decides to drive up and rekindle their marriage. Once she learns he's ready to move back she changes her mind. ("The Cabin Show") Lindsay and her parents mock how Michael is a chicken around women. She is later impressed when he lands Rita. ("For British Eyes Only") Lindsay takes an interest in the new Bluth family attorney Bob Loblaw and tries to start an affair with him. ("Forget-Me-Now") She signs Hope Loblaw up for the Miss Inner Beauty pageant at the Church and State Fair hoping it will impress Bob. ("Notapusy")
Lindsay meets with the family to discuss the mole named "Mr. F". ("Mr. F") She bonds with Rita when Michael and her get engaged. She is ready to be a bridesmaid in her wedding until her MRF secret is uncovered. ("The Ocean Walker") Lindsay stands by her husband's Graft Versus Host, hoping it will bring her a lot of attention and sympathy. ("Prison Break-In") She continues to flirt with Bob, who thinks he is representing her in her divorce hearings so he doesn't flirt back. She drops him as her attorney and finds out he is now representing Tobias. ("Making a Stand")
Lindsay discovers her inner domestic side and starts to "cook" and "clean" around the house, and for a short period of time acts motherly toward Buster. ("S.O.B.s") When Buster is admitted to the hospital for a light coma, she petitions to let him die so she can flirt with a fellow petitioner. While she and Tobias argue over the comatose Buster, he awakens and tells them to fake their love, for the sake of the family. ("Fakin' It")
Lindsay and Michael discuss the mysterious "Nellie" they find in old family scrapbooks (who later turns out to be Lindsay). She and her husband plan a night of intimacy in one month, but she still arranges a date with a bodybuilder named Michael. ("Family Ties") To avoid testifying at court, Lucille and Lindsay check into rehab. ("Exit Strategy") While attempting to sell her Bluth Company shares to Stan Sitwell she discovers she was adopted. She tries to flirt with Michael, now that she knows he's not her real brother. In the end, she and Tobias look at each other happily. ("Development Arrested")
Season four[]
Lindsay and Tobias decide that their relationship is doomed. Lindsay reads Eat, Pray, Love and goes to India to discover herself. She meets with a shaman who tells her that happiness is where she left it so she reunited with Tobias and they buy a mansion in California on a NINJA loan. The real estate market collapses so Lindsay needs cash and Lucille promises to pay if her testimony is believable. Tobias and Lindsay go to an "acting clinic" at the Methadone clinic where Lindsay runs away with environmentalist Marky Bark. ("Indian Takers")
They live on his ostrich farm for years before moving into Balboa Towers with Cindy the Ostrich. Lindsay visits her mother in prison and is appalled when she's told that she'll turn into her mother. A year later Marky tries to glitter bomb Herbert Love but Lindsay, wearing a red wig, flirts with Love. She sleeps with him for a few days until he calls it off on Cinco de Cuatro. (Unbeknownst to Lindsay, Maeby was acting as her pimp and collecting money from Love.) When Love disappears, Lindsay takes the mic to get ahead of the scandal sure to come from the photos Gene Parmesan acquired of her and Love. However, a Mongolian horde member rips off her necklace so she begins to chant "put up this wall" between the US and Mexico, taking one giant step to become just like her mother. ("Red Hairing")
Lindsay's focal episodes of Season Four are "Indian Takers" and "Red Hairing". She also appears in "A New Start", "Double Crossers", "Smashed", "Queen B.", "Señoritis", and "It Gets Better".
Season five[]
Lindsay Bluth Fünke appears in Season Five to run for Congress and build the wall. After going in Mexico she
returns to Newport Beach where she assumes Maeby as her campaign manager. She leaves after the Family of the Year Award ceremony to search for her biological mother. She returns in the finale, at the Fakeblock uneveiling after Maeby shows her Ron Howard's Making of Monster which reveals her real birth mother, Mimi, making Lucille her sister. She dressed up as a protester and repeatedly beats Tobias. When she reveals herself she hugs Lucille and reunites with the family. She is also willing to take Tobias back and they go back to being a family, with Maeby. She thinks that Michael will absolutely come back after hearing the news about his departure.
Trivia[]
- Lindsay probably celebrates her birthday on December 14, as this was given as Michael's birthday in "Fakin' It", when she believed they were twins, but since she was adopted and was actually three years older than Michael, her real birthday is unknown.
- Lindsay has had plastic surgery on her nose, and awkwardly covers her face when George Michael stares at it. ("The One Where Michael Leaves") Later, looking at a photo of herself as a child (not knowing it was her) she says "look at the beak on that bird." ("Family Ties")
- Lindsay appears in all 53 episodes of the first three seasons of Arrested Development. In Season Four, she appears in flashbacks in "Flight of the Phoenix", "Borderline Personalities", and "Colony Collapse". She does not appear in the episodes "The B. Team", "A New Attitude", "Off the Hook", and "Blockheads".
- In Season Five Lindsay doesn't appear in "An Old Start", "Emotional Baggage", "Premature Independence", "Unexpected Company", "Chain Migration", "Taste Makers", "Courting Disasters", "Checkmates" or "Saving for Arraignment Day." She appears only in a photo in "The Untethered Sole." She appears only in archival footage in "Rom-Traum."
Images[]
- → See 567 pictures of Lindsay Bluth Fünke at Images of Lindsay Bluth Fünke.
Videos[]
- → Watch more videos of Lindsay Bluth Fünke at Category:Videos of Lindsay Bluth Fünke
Main Arrested Development Characters |
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Buster • G.O.B. • George Michael • George • Lindsay • Lucille • Maeby • Michael • Tobias |
Ann • Annyong • Barry Zuckerkorn • John Beard • Kitty • Lucille 2 • Lupe • Mort Meyers • Oscar • Rebel • Steve Holt • Officer Taylor |
All characters |