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So there’s this basic hierarchy of the men within the family Gob feels safe being open with, whose opinions he values, and whose approval he seeks throughout the series.

In the beginning— pre-show— it’s clear that this started with his dad, but various flashbacks show that his dad became inaccessible fairly early on, so those feelings got transferred to his younger brother Michael. Now throughout much of their adulthood Michael becomes this weird vessel of both Gob’s need for approval from a father figure and a way to express his queerness in a “safe” way (it’s just a dove!)

Flash forward to S4, and Michael has suddenly become the inaccessible one to Gob. In addition to his physically distancing himself from the family, the few times he does talk to Gob he acts basically like George Sr. did— dismissive, despairing and deeply disapproving of Gob’s lifestyle, and Gob is again left without anybody to say “You’re essentially a good person and I love you unconditionally because we’re family.”

More simply, it’s the much-vaunted “YES” that Gob needs to hear.

Now the relationship between Gob and George Michael got touched on pretty briefly in the first series (I can only think of two episodes offhand where it was an actual plot point), but in S4 we get no less than three major scenes of the two interacting, and all of them center on Gob aggressively trying to endear himself to George Michael (one scene happening directly after a failed attempt to do the same to Michael) and George Michael squirming under Gob’s sudden oppressive clinginess towards him. Because Gob is treating him like he used to treat Michael.

So in S4, we have Gob treating his 20 year old nephew with the same reckless affection and need for approval that he used to try to get from George Sr., used to try to get from Michael, used to try to get from the Entourage, and that he finally gets in a healthy way for the first time in his life from Tony Wonder.

And that’s beautifully fucked up.

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Hidden Jokes | Foreshadowing of Buster losing his hand

S1E18 - Michael appeared in the school play The Trial of Captain Hook. Later in the episode Fakin’ It from season 3, Lucille refers to Buster as “Captain Hook.”

S1E20 - "This party is going to be off the hook."

S2E1 - When Lucille is watching the news, you can hear John Beard mentioning a surprise seal attack and then saying “meet one surprised bather, coming up.” The camera immediately moves to show Buster.

S2E3 - Buster arrives to Lupe’s house, sees the hand chair, and says “wow, i never thought I’d miss a hand so much.”

S2E6 - Buster is playing the claw machine and gets a toy seal. Later when he’s returning home, the narrator mentions that “Buster had gotten hooked playing” that game. 

S2E11- Lucille, Oscar and Buster and in the beach, and when they’re talking, the seal is seen in the background. Later, George Sr. says about Buster “what if i never get a chance to reach out and touch that hand of his again?” And of course, the bench that shows “arm off.” 

S2E12- When George Sr is at the car dealership, if you take a look at the inflatable doll/man in the back, you can see that it’s missing an arm. Also, when Gob is releasing the seal back into the wild, he says “you’re not going to be hand-fed anymore.”

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There are some clips from tomorrow’s ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ on Bravo’s website - including this one, where Mitch discusses how they asked permission to use Ben Stiller’s image as Tony Wonder before they ever approached him about actually being on the show (I always assumed that shot was dropped into Good Grief while Sword of Destiny was being filmed, but apparently not…)

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I’m continuing my random early-oughties nostalgia kick, and know I continuously compare Baby!Bluths to Malcolm in the Middle (with Yachts!), but I mostly can’t get over the fact that the dynamic of Malcolm/Reese and Michael/Gob are just so similar, right down to both Gob and Reese being bullies in baggy clothes who are pretty decidedly in the not-straight territory and taking it out via an unhealthy fixation on their next-down sibling. Both shows were on at the same time I guess there was just an ill-timed push to make “Emotionally needy occasionally incestuous older brother” a beloved stock character.

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i will never not be amused by george-michael bluth getting pumped over the lamest shit.

I mean

he got a fucking suit and quicken for his birthday and it’s like he just found out maeby’s not his cousin

and he gets a fucking pepsi with breakfast. look at the smile. he looks like he’s just been crowned king of his own country.

what a precious dork.

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Michael Bluth: Moment killer.

I just love how instantly guilty Michael makes Gob, and the fact that these two lines are delivered in essentially the same way really makes me want to think that Michael has a full-blown history of walking in on Gob in compromising situations with men that get quickly wrapped up with a flustered “…Michael,” but never with enough solid evidence until the Tony incident finally Seals the Deal.

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#...we're like twins!

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The fact that Lucille’s reaction to what she thinks is Michael threatening to have sex with Gob boils down to basically a mildly disturbed “Huh” says so much more about this family than I ever could.

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i just want to put side by side

the clip from the last day on the AD set in season three where Will wraps his filming and makes his lil mini speech about how much he loved working with everybody and he’s CHOKING UP because why wouldn’t you it’s uber sadness but THEN the clip from the first day of AD season four filming where he’s shouting at everybody “Hey guys! WE’RE FUCKING HERE! LET’S FUCKING—WE’RE HERE!! WE’RE DOING IT!” because baby

I should not be allowed to watch AD special features

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The truth is I couldn’t get Ben Stiller for the longest time. I just refused to rewrite the Tony Wonder story. We stopped shooting in December, and I don’t think we shot Ben until March, and it was just because I wouldn’t let it go. He was very busy and directing his own film. But I didn’t want to recast Tony and I didn’t want to create a new magician because then it’s just a magician joke and it’s not really about that. It’s about connecting. It’s about somebody else who has secrets. These two guys have been in the field where it’s all about secrets. You don’t connect to anybody.

(x) Mitch Hurwitz (via ivemadeahugeblunder)

Have I mentioned lately that, if I could sit down and have a drink with absolutely anybody in the world and just listen to them fucking talk about whatever they want to talk about at me, it would probably be Mitch Hurwitz? The guy is a fucking certifiable showrunning genius, determined to the core to get his vision out, and by all accounts he’s entirely humble and genuine, and just the love that goes into nearly every frame of S4 is a testament to all of that.

He refused to do a cheap cop-out with Tony Wonder. He could have made another character, he could have recast Tony Wonder and made up a story about botched plastic surgery, but of course he didn’t. Simply because that’s not how the story goes, and even if it was only by a small margin, it wouldn’t have meant as much if he’d settled for less than Ben Stiller. Mitch isn’t stupid or needlessly difficult; he knows when to pull back his punches and just make a funny reference to executive meddling or budget cuts (“I’ll sit across from you, so it doesn’t look bad!”), but even when another director might settle for less goddamn it Mitch knew that this was not one of those times.

Not because he was being irrationally stubborn, but because he had not yet exhausted all of his options to make his vision come to fruition, and even though that option turned out to be “sit on the footage for three months before we finish up the last two episodes,” well, that’s what it took to give us what is nearly unanimously agreed upon as the best plotline of Season 4.

(via lydiduh)

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Arrested Development S1E17 and Happy Days opening credits

Barry Zuckerkorn checks himself out in the mirror the same way Fonzie (also played by Henry Winkler) did in the Happy Days opening credits

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More discussion under the cut!

jenni-snake said:

Could it be to throw suspicion on him as the murderer? (I actually have not thought about this, it was just instinct…)

I especially love the black eye because there’s so much leadup to a Michael/Gob fight and then when it finally happens neither of them actually manage to hurt the other at all. …and that fight is entirely 100% Michael’s fault, so I love that he’s the only one who ends up injured afterward.

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oh-so-pleasant answered:

I think it was a mistake that can be explained away with “GOB is trying to one up his brother but it became conveniently true later on”

There’s also the fact that Gob could very well just be lying to make it seem like he’s doing better than he is.

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(6:53) it’s from “Ellen” and it reminded me sooo much of the blunder scene in Tony’s apartment

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It’s funny how you loved me

And forgot, so suddenly

It’s funny to everyone but me

This song plays over several points in S4, but maybe most prominently when Michael wakes up from being Forget-Me-Now’d the morning after Cinco and calls Rebel.

And for maximum feels, I like to think that it’s playing simultaneously with Gob waking up feeling good upstairs and then receiving a call that suggests that Tony has chosen to forget him.