Arrested Development: Season 1, Episode 9 "Storming the Castle"

Arrested Development: Season 1, Episode 9 "Storming the Castle"

January 04, 2004


This ninth episode of Arrested Development when paired up with the next episode, makes for two of the funnier episodes this season. There is much to like here, and a lot to think about. The show mainly focuses on GOB’s life as a (failed) magician, and this is what I was looking forward to seeing. What also intrigued me here is seeing Michael portrayed as a bad guy (after all, he is a Bluth). Up to this point, Michael has been made out as a sympathetic character despite his shortcomings, but here we see a more treacherous side of him. He takes an office chair home from work (which George-Michael points out as stealing), and he schemes away to take Marta from GOB once and for all. It was funny seeing this side of him. There were also B-storylines concerning Maeby’s interest in leather and Buster continuing his relationship with Lucille Austero. These storylines were solid and provided laughs but stay to watch GOB try his magic skills. I must point out that this episode introduces GOB’s famed intro song, “The Final Countdown” by 80’s hairband Europe. Go ahead, sing this tune because I truly love this song!



In this episode, “Storming the Castle,” Michael is stopped by a man named Rollo while riding his bike. Rollo happens to be a member of the Magician’s Alliance and he tells Michael to tell GOB, “say goodbye to his legs.” Apparently, legs refer to the bottom portion of the “saw-in-half” trick. Michael believes that GOB is having an affair. Michael talks with Rollo and gets GOB a gig at a place named Gothic Castle. Michael invites Marta to be the top part of GOB’s trick so she can see the affair for herself and would leave him-leaving her for Michael. Meanwhile, Maeby attempts to annoy Lindsay by purchasing a leather outfit after Lindsay was complaining about killing cows. Tobias attempts to connect with Maeby by purchasing leather himself, and of course ends up at the gay bar. Also, Lucille is attempting to have Buster break up with Lucille 2.



Overall, this is a funny, funny episode. There were some big laughs watching everything unfold. It was quite fun to see a different side of Michael, and Tobias being Tobias is always amusing. This is definitely the episode to keep an eye out for!



My Grade: A


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Image
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Ah, wise words from our new young friend, Ferris Bueller. In John Hughes’s 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , all Ferris wants to do is take a day and have fun. That is the most simplistic theme the movie has. You can go deeper, but the main takeaway is that it is okay to have fun. That is a motto I have taken to heart. I really loved the film. People consider The Breakfast Club to be Hughes’s best and most important movie. That’s a fine statement to make, but I would personally rank the film number two behind this particular one. The teen characters are instantly relatable, it has a memorable antagonist for the children, and this is basically a thirty-year-old travel guide for Chicago. Just how Woody Allen creates his movies as love letters for New York, this is applicable for John Hughes. A Chicago love letter!   Like all of his films, Hughes wrote...
Read more

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Image
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) The James Bond franchise is one of those franchises that will never die. It has been going strong since the first movie rolled out in the early 1960’s, and new James Bond movies are still produced today. What makes this series unique is they use multiple actors to play the titular character over the years. They all bring their own gravitas to the role, and each Bond is a different man when compared to each other (although the martini, shaken not stirred and the beautiful women among other things remain a constant.) So my first James Bond review for this blog is 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. This wasn’t my first look at the series, but it was my first look at the older movies. I really liked what I saw. This is an old-fashioned story that combines a spy drama and an action-packed war movie into one package. Like many of the older Bond movies, the story can get borderline preposterous. The cheesiness of the plot did come to grow on me after awhile, even...
Read more

Table for Five (1983)

Image
Table for Five (1983) I can guarantee that ninety percent of my readers here have not seen this tear-jerking melodrama 1983’s Table for Five , yet alone heard of it. Hopefully after reading my kind words, you will be somewhat intrigued by this movie. When doing my research for the film, I was shocked to see how vastly underrated the movie is. There are only a few reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, hardly any information on Wikipedia or Google-hardly anything out there in this vast Internet landscape. Then, why on earth is this movie so good? Sure, maybe some folks will say the movie is just a predictable Lifetime TV movie, but honestly it is much more than that. There are some elements that makes this film seem destined for the television at times, but to me it is much more than that. I consider the movie to be an honest, emotional portrayal about fatherhood and family. Directed by Robert Lieberman, this film is about a man named J.P Tannen (Jon Voight) who fails at being fathe...
Read more