America is stuck in a state of Arrested Development

We adore the Bluth family because they are such a bizarre mess, much like our own relatives – and our country
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Arrested Development
The Bluth family, from left to right: George Michael, Lindsay, Michael, George Sr, Gob, Maeby, Buster, Tobias and Lucille.

America has finally admitted it made a huge mistake, and demanded that Arrested Development return from whence it came. Fans have swarmed the banana stand and writers heaped praise on the show's creator, Mitch Hurwitz, its writers, cast, and producer Ron Howard: it was brilliant, subversive, before its time, etc.

That's all true, but there's something else that accounts for the fervor over the show's resurrection: Americans should relate to nothing more than the story of an insane, self-absorbed family who thought they had it all, fell into a sinkhole of their own making, and now are working more than to dig themselves out by tooth and claw. The Bluth family is a portrait of modern America: fractured, more than a little delusional, and bound together by a whole lot of love.

As the Guardian has pointed out, times have changed since the Bluths went to Iraq to look for evidence of "light treason", but retrospect has only made the show's satire poignant. Take the Bluth Company, for instance, founded on an immigrant's stolen dream and transformed into a real estate corporation whose financial scheming and lack of foundation leads to total collapse. Shoddy mini-mansions built on shaky land are almost too-perfect a symbol for a country with a wildly misplaced sense of worth and wealth, especially in the lead up to 2008. The Bluths don't know how good they have it, and though their egos are deflated time and time again, they never see disaster until it hits them. Even then, they'd rather forget it now than confront it later.

Self-medication is the Bluth family's preferred solution, and America's – the land of rampant prescription drug abuse. The writers pull no punches on the pharmaceutical industry among any number of American institutions, ranging from the legal system to corporations to reality TV. The Bluths know drugs don't provide real happiness, but they insist it's better than what they've got.

So the Bluths love a good illusion, which they always distinguish from a trick, those being what they play on each other. Never has a more impotently devious family graced television: they scheme and meddle in each other's lives for fun, profit and spite. The patriarch and matriarch (if you will) circumvent the law, exploit the business and their kids, and leave the family in financial ruin. What's more, they do everything possible to escape with as much money as they can muster. By constantly conspiring, they prevent anyone else from accomplishing anything, causing dysfunction and paralysis. Congress is stuck in arrested development.

Only one of their children even tries to fix their problems, and he's stymied at every turn by the antics of his family members, each fumbling after the American dream as they see it. Gob's quest for fame stems from his need to feel loved, which overrides even his minor victories. Lindsay tries to buy happiness. Buster wants freedom (from his mother) but is terrified of its consequences. Michael is so intent on saving his family that he loses sight of his son. Tobias thinks being an actor – reinventing himself as something he's not – will save his marriage. Second chances and the quest for family, fame and fortune make up the basics of American mythology – but with the Bluths, it's an endless cycle of hope and disillusionment, and life lessons all over the place.

Because the Bluths are such a bizarre mess, much of the comedy seems to exist only within their closed universe. In a way, this is perfectly appropriate: how better to satirize self-centered Americans than a self-referential, almost hermetic show? These are people, after all, who can't name Britain's houses of parliament even when they're correcting each other, and whose impression of Iraq is skewed, to say the least.

But the show isn't closed off. The real world constantly juts in, making Arrested as political as The Daily Show, if much more subtle. The economy, politics and world events will suddenly interfere in characters' lives, yet like most Americans, the Bluths can't be bothered to read the Patriot Act or to pay attention enough to know there's a war on (I mean, come on).

No matter how vain any character is, however, they're forced to deal with each other, Orange County, America and the larger world. They thwart each other's plans, get called to the army, prison, court, and even a few auditions. It's a world where every small detail can have huge consequences, and a throwaway joke in one season could result in a beloved character and plot point in another (Steve Holt!). Repercussions might not be apparent till you've almost forgotten their causes, but that's how the world works.

The humor tends towards dark, but it's buoyed by the Bluths' greatest attribute: they are incorrigible. No matter how many times their dreams are dashed, the Bluths are pathologically incapable of giving up hope. For every disappointed walk to tune of Charlie Brown, there's a moment of manic joy in which a Bluth devises a half-baked plot. For every defeated scheme, there is a sacrifice, an unlikely alliance or one of the family's better parties. They're somewhere between the solipsists of Seinfeld, the absurdity of The Simpsons and the generous friends of Cheers – juiced with a weirdness those shows lacked. They're a family, whether they like it or not, and they have fun even as they frustrate each other. And with all the irony and sincerity it can muster, Arrested Development insists there's nothing more important than family (except maybe breakfast).

The fans, of course, have also become a family, with friendships born of obscure references ("Flashes of Quincy!") and bonded by love for wordplay, quirky details and meta-jokes and the recognition that a comment is no trick – it's an allusion!

Americans are together whether they like it or not, too, and Arrested is a fitting reflection of life in the 2000s. Old boundaries fell faster than the walls of Gob's hastily built model home: war, financial crises, political paralysis, the internet and the nation's new confusion about its place in the world, a problem it has tried to ignore, desperately. The show is at once a scathing satire and a self-sustaining engine of happy and absurd wit.

Like the Bluths, Americans never quite give up hope, and it turns out that not all our dreams are as impossible as they seem. That season four has arrived after almost seven long years is proof enough.

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