Review - Arrested Development 4.12 "Señoritis"

I'm reviewing every episode of Arrested Development season 4 immediately after I see it for the first time -- so if you haven't seen the rest of the season yet, don't worry! You can check out my other episode reviews here.

We're in the final stretch of Arrested Development season 4: only three episodes are left after this one. The good news, though, is that the season seems to be getting better and better in this last run of episodes. "Queen B." and "A New Attitude" were both quite good entries into the Arrested Development canon, and episode twelve, "Señoritis," joins them as one of the season's best episodes.

Maeby was up to her old tricks in this episode -- both in trying to get her parents to notice her and in connivingly weaseling her way into entrepreneurship opportunities. This time, George Michael's program FakeBlock was her target (I've just noticed -- are they playing on Michael Cera's similarities to Jesse Eisenberg?) -- and she managed to be rather successful, if pushy. George Michael was probably right to fire her, but if Maeby could focus, she'd be a corporate force to reckon with. 

But before she did that, we watched her high-school hijinks, featuring yet another Andy Richter quadruplet -- disguised as another quadruplet. Maeby's misguided attempts to blackmail Perfecto by having sex with him was kind of funny, but was also a little creepy, making me wonder: can Maeby ever be in a normal, healthy relationship with someone? Probably not, which is sad news for Steve Holt, who she doesn't even recognize. What an awful birthday that guy is having.

Maeby didn't have Lucille or Tobias's grand moments of character growth (though I did love George Michael telling her that she was being immature), but it was fun to revisit the Bluth family's resident trickster. The fact that she's been missing for most of the season was a little sad at first (it looks like Buster's the only really underused one now), but the storyline worked.

But what was best about the episode was that it didn't feel stretched thin. Sure, it wasn't as quickly edited as the frantic older seasons, but it still didn't lag. In fact, it was probably the season's slimmest episode in terms of storyline: there just wasn't much excess. And, seeing as that has been Arrested Development's big problem with this season, I'd say that puts "Señoritis" right on top of the pile. 

What did you think? We'll move onto the next episode, "It Gets Better," but first, spare thoughts:

-- Is there a joke behind the parmesan cheese and mustard gag or is that it?

-- Nice to see Jeff Garlin back -- he's always great. The 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' homage was welcome, too, which makes me think: Larry David would be perfect in this show.

-- Maeby being the shaman was predictable, but the payoff later at Lucille's apartment ("That's my fault") was surprisingly hilarious. Maybe it was just Shawkat's delivery.

-- The cut to sliding into home was a great callback. Can anyone confirm if that was Pete Rose?

-- Shawkat's noticably older, and those post-Queen Mary scenes stretch belief a little bit. But that scene did provide us with a strange aside -- a diagram of George Michael's bad kissing. I wonder if that's important later, considering his relationship with Rebel?

-- It took me a while, but I'm finally picking up on the musical cues in the new title sequence. Maeby's was by far the most notable, and I kind of liked it.

-- Also, did the show just kill off Lucille 2? That's the big missing puzzle piece, it seems, but at least it's looking unlikely that Michael will have to prostitute himself to her again.

-- Speaking of Lucille 2, I really, really love the fact that George Michael had no idea who she was. It was a really nice touch -- and a testament to the show's meticulous canon -- for one major character, even after all that time, not to have any idea who another character was.