Arrested Development Season 5 Review: 6 Ups And 3 Downs

Ups...

6. The Bluths (Mostly) Back Together

Arrested DevelopmentSeason 5
Netflix

The biggest problem with Season 4 was a fairly simple one: the Bluths weren't together. Due, in part, to scheduling conflicts, along with Hurtwitz's attempts to play to a streaming audience that they perhaps didn't fully understand yet, the family were off on their own stories that intersected with one another but rarely allowed them to appear together.

Season 5, then, feels like a direct attempt to address that. While there are times when characters are split up, they're usually at least in sub-groups of two or three, and there are plenty of moments in this first half where all of them are together in the same room, whether it's for Lindsay's Congress run or just some typical argument.

The show is never better than when it has the dysfunctional family together on screen, and the way they bounce off each other in this season is as good as ever.

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Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.