Spring Breakout

"Spring Breakout" is the thirty-ninth episode aired of the TV comedy series Arrested Development.

Synopsis

The company has a meeting with Cal Cullen, who comments that the Bluths "did not come off well on last night's Scandalmakers." (Clips from Scandalmakers are then shown, including Tobias, as George Sr., giving away his hiding place.) Michael says that they are "scandal-free", at which point Lucille walks in drunk, having taken Buster's pain medication for a hangover, misreading an alcohol warning as an alcohol suggestion. Cullen refuses to do business with the Bluths, saying that he "couldn't afford to end up on Scandalmakers." Lucille passes out in her chair, and Michael ends the meeting.

Michael suggests to Lindsay that they hold an intervention for Lucille, but Lindsay resists, flashing back to another intervention the previous year. The family had gotten drunk themselves out of fear, and by the time Lucille had arrived, they were too intoxicated to be effective, and it had turned into a party. G.O.B. appears and suggests rehab instead. Michael asks where he was in the meeting, but he replies that he was off for spring break, even though his reputation has been ruined by "that jerk Phillip Litt" filming his seven flubs in a magic act. Tobias appears and complains about being panned for his performance as George Sr. Maeby is ordered to find out how teenagers actually talk and then revise the dialogue in The Young Man and the Beach.

Knowing that Lucille won't go to rehab willingly, Michael offers her a trip to Cal Cullen's spa. She cannot take Oscar, because his last pair of pants has fallen apart, so Michael decides to go with her instead. Upon arriving, Lucille realizes where she is and tries to flee, only to be subdued by the guards.

Kitty Sanchez finds George Sr. in the attic, clued in by Tobias's line in Scandalmakers ("perhaps an attic shall I seek.") Angry about being abandoned in Mexico, she kidnaps him, blackmailing him with a "cooler of evidence". Meanwhile, to get ideas for better dialogue, Maeby joins George Michael at the Banana Stand. A Freudian slip by George Michael reveals his persistent feelings for her. Phillip Litt is using the same lot to film his video, Girls With Low Self-Esteem, despite an ineffectual protest led by Lindsay.

Kitty takes George Sr. to a motel and screams that he owes her a child. George yearns for Lucille, as does Buster. Buster, unable to sleep, begins to drink from a large box of wine, mistaking it for a juicebox.

Michael meets with Cal Cullen again, and wins him over by pretending to have fond memories of Sugarfoot, despite the fact that it was off the air before he was born. However, Kitty interrupts, flashes her breasts, and threatens to "bring this corrupt company down" unless Lucille meets her in a certain bar.

While the family wonders how to get Lucille out of rehab, Lindsay complains that her brothers objectify women. She comes up with the idea for a competing video, Men With Low Self-Esteem. G.O.B. uses Oscar to distract the guards so that they can abduct Lucille, pretending that they're going for new pants. Kitty offers to trade her evidence for a sperm sample from George Sr., and Lucille puts it up to a drinking contest.

G.O.B. finds a cooler in the freezer that looks exactly like the evidence, and he and Michael plan to switch it with the evidence, despite knowing this to be ineffective. Maeby is frustrated by the immaturity of the teenagers at the Banana Stand. Nearby, her parents film Men With Low Self-Esteem, bringing them into competition with Phillip Litt. When Litt accuses Lindsay of being ashamed of her body, Tobias pulls down Litt's pants, exposing him as a never nude. Seeing this, Tobias takes off his own pants, revealing that he's "back in the cutoffs".

G.O.B., excited at the thought of spring break, performs a wolf call in the hotel hallway. This inadvertently sets off a response by George Sr., allowing them to find his room. G.O.B. tries to vomit up the handcuff key, while Michael forges the signature of Saddam Hussein on the cooler, promising to turn it in to the police. George Sr. tells Michael to turn it in, saying that the evidence exonerates him.

George Michael finds Maeby talking to a vapid boy. He says that she is like a "delicate flower" and that he doesn't "want her to be plucked by someone who doesn't even care that [she is] blossoming." Maeby says that this is just what she wanted to hear, and kisses George Michael on the cheek. George Michael takes this the wrong way, and calls up Ann, saying that they need to talk.

Lucille wins the drinking contest, despite drinking extra between rounds. She declines to have more, opting to go back to rehab instead. G.O.B. regains his self-confidence, but then falls into the pool, destroying the exonerating evidence. When Michael gets home, he finds out that the decoy cooler contained a sperm sample from George Sr.

Notes

References

• Girls with Low Self Esteem is a parody of Girls Gone Wild, with Zach Braff's character Phillip Litt representing Joe Francis.
• The intervention-turned-party scene (particularly the part with Buster playing the piano erratically) is reminiscent of one in the anti-drug film Reefer Madness.
• The cooler is signed "H MADDAS" ("SADDAM H" backwards).
• In the surveillance video of Shady Pines when Michael and G.O.B try to get their mother out of rehab, the woman attempting an escape and getting tackled by the guards is Diana Ross (judging by the large, curly hair, the white boots, and the instrumental version of "Can't Hurry Love" playing when she makes her escape).
• Shady Pines was the name of the retirement community in which Sophia Petrillo lived on The Golden Girls. Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz used to be a writer on The Golden Girls.
• The 'Senor Tadpole' bar is a reference to 'Senor Frog's', a popular chain of bars located in typical spring break locales (e.g. Cozumel, Puerto Vallerta, etc).

Hidden/background jokes

• Michael's hair Michael is wearing Franklin's wig in the "intervention" (see "Goofs").
• Buster's hand:
  • Buster "plays" the piano in the "intervention" with only his right hand.
  • Lucille uses Buster's hook to break a block of ice. Buster is seen shortly thereafter with a stub.
  • Buster carries around his prosthetic arm when he's drunk on box wine.
• Fourth wall The narrator breaks the fourth wall at the end of the episode, saying, "That's how you narrate a story." Earlier in the episode, when Kitty flashes her breasts, the camera operator quickly covers the lens with his hand.
• "I want to marry my mother" Buster picks up this magazine briefly when he's left home alone. In a later scene, Buster defends his mother when G.O.B comments that the escorts he dates are better looking than Lucille.
• When Tobias and Phillip Litt pull down their pants, a nearby girl looks at their legs and starts laughing.
• Flowers:
  • While drunk on box wine, Buster sings into a flower as he lays writhing on the dining room table. Later, when Buster accidentally hits himself on the head with a coconut after his comment on how Tobias "just wants to see boys' Linuses", there's a flower vase behind him.
  • Lucille's room at Shady Pines is filled with wilted flowers because the vases are filled with smuggled-in alcohol (a joke that's more obvious in the deleted scenes).
  • George Michael tells Maeby that she's like a flower and doesn't deserve to be "plucked" before she blossoms.
• The FOX Network: Fed up with an idiotic costumer who she is using as a way to get inspiration for her newest movie, Maeby remarks, "Why are we even going after this idiot demographic?", which mirrors one of the conflicts that the writers for Arrested Development had to endure with Fox.

Cameos

• Carl Weathers and Dave Attell can be seen in a flashback to the making of Scandalmakers.
• Zach Braff as Phillip Litt
• Dick Van Patten as Cal Cullen, the potential investor.

Goofs

• In the episode, it is stated that Sugarfoot ended twelve years before Michael was born. It actually aired from 1957 to 1961, making its end six years before Michael was born.
• The cooler from the banana stand containing George Sr.'s "specimen" would have been destroyed when the banana stand burned down in "Top Banana".
• The narrator mentions that the box of wine was the first taste of alcohol Buster had since he was breastfed as a baby, despite that:
  • a) Buster was drunk along with the rest of the family at the "intervention" that happened a year ago (a possible explanation for Buster's behavior back then was that he was drinking a lot of juice, which historically has been a serious vice of his).
  • b) A season one episode of Arrested Development revealed that Rosa (Lucille's housekeeper) breastfed Buster.
  • c) In "Altar Egos", Lucille claims she could not breastfeed the children due to George Sr.'s "tweaking."
• In the intervention/drunken party flashback, Michael is shown wearing Franklin the puppet's afro wig. When it cuts to Tobias crying and Buster struggling to play the piano as he sobers up, Franklin has his afro wig back on his head.

References

• The-OP.com