There is nothing officially on the table yet for a season five of Arrested Development, but given where season four left off — with countless open plotlines — it would be criminal if the series were not picked up for another season. There’s been reports that Netflix would be open to an additional season, while others have suggested that an Arrested Development movie would be necessary to close the loops. The cast, so far, has been relatively mum on the subject. I don’t know what the eventual future of the series is, but there has to be more. Not just because season four was outstanding but because we got no closure. We got the opposite of closure. There are more open questions about the series now than there were at the end of season three, and if Mitch Hurwitz and gang didn’t strongly anticipate a fifth season or a movie, leaving us hanging like this would’ve been supremely cruel.
So, looking ahead into a potential season five or a movie, here are several open questions that need to be addressed.
1. Foremost, I suppose, is the status of Ron Howard’s Arrested Development movie within the series. Clearly, there’s an in-joke here the perpetual status of the Arrested Development movie (a similar joke was made about the 40-years in the making Andy Griffith movie), but at this point, the status of the movie within the movie is unclear, except that Ron Howard has Buster’s life rights. Is that enough to make it the next Da Vinci Code (props to Howard and Grazer for conceding that Da Vinci was a sell-out movie in the series).
2. Who ends up with Rebel Alley? Last we left off, George Michael had left the apartment of Rebel Alley after sleeping with her, while Michael was on his way up to sleep with her. George Michael and Michael had a stand-off that would end with George Michael appropriately punching his Dad in the face. So, what happens next? Will George Michael end up with Rebel, instead of his one true love, Maeby? Or will Michael end up with the illegitimate daughter of Ron Howard? Or more likely, will they both be out of luck with a character that felt awfully similar to Don Draper in this week’s episode of Mad Men. The more you love her, the less she reciprocates. Maybe she goes back to her son’s father, Gerard Depardieu?
3. After trying to frame someone she thought was an undercover cop for statutory rape, it turned out the undercover cop was actually under age, and it was Maeby that was busted by the actual undercover cop for statutory rape. So, is Maeby the latest member of the Bluth/Funke family to be shipped off to jail?
4. Where the hell is Lucille 2? Is she dead? And if so, who killed her? Was it Sally Sitwell?
5. Will Buster be convicted of Lucille 2’s murder? Will he also end up in prison along with half the Bluths at this point?
6. Lindsay has been elevated to Herbert Love’s replacement candidate against Lucille 2’s replacement, Sally Sitwell, a rematch of their run for Student Council president in high school. Who will win that race? Or will they both be pulled from the race after Lucille 2 is discovered and/or Herbert Love wakes from his Buster-induced coma?
7. If Lucille is not dead, what will become of Michael’s debt to her? Will it become a debt to GOB, who it was suggested will take over the company?
8. What is the status of Tony Wonder and GOB’s “friendship”?
9. Will George and Oscar undo their Freaky Friday reversal, or will George, Sr. remain an unattractive woman?
10. The status of the wall on the Mexican border is still in question. George Sr. doesn’t own the land to build it on, he has no money with which to build it, GOB is in debt to a Mongolian horde that wants him dead, and Lindsay’s political campaign seems decidedly in favor of it now.
11. Will George, Sr. and Lucille follow through on their divorce? Or will Lucille run off with Oscar, who now has the confidence of George? Or will George Sr. and Oscar pee in a fountain at the same time and fix this whole mess?
12. Though I assume that it was George Michael who ruined GOB’s Jesus magic trick, we’re still uncertain who actually jammed the exit door.
13. What’s going on with Tobias, now that Debris has relapsed, and Lucille is about to boot him as a theralyst for the treatment center? Did Tobias kill Lucille?
14. Uh, George Michael still has Faceblock hovering over his head, lots of money coming in, and no privacy app to show for it.
15. What was Barry Zuckerkorn convicted of, and will he salvage his career? Or will Bob Loblaw have to be called in to replace him again? Will Saul Goodman have to be hired to save them both?
