Every Arrested Development Episode Ranked Worst To Best

When "Arrested Development" hit the FOX airwaves in 2003, there had never been anything like it on television. Created by Mitchell Hurwitz, the series revolved around the riches-to-rags story of the Bluth family, whose patriarch's dirty dealings landed him in prison with all of their assets frozen. During its original three-year run, the series would garner a rabid cult fandom thanks to its absurd interwoven plots, running gags, brilliant use of visual and self-referential humor, and offbeat style.

Rather than a traditional sitcom format, the series was told through a quirky mix of archival footage and images, voiceovers, snarky narration (via Ron Howard), and various other commentary. Over the course of its original run, the series was critically acclaimed and racked up its fair share of awards, eventually getting picked up for two more Netflix-bankrolled seasons five years after ending. From Lucilles to loose seals and C-words to seawards, the series elevated the pun in a way few knew was possible. 

In the interest of a final countdown, here's a of ranking every "Arrested Development" episode from worst to best.

"Chain Migration" may be one of the weakest episodes in the series, but as one Redditor mused, even the worst "Arrested Development" episodes are still better than most TV. Nonetheless, the episode seems to spend more time asking viewers to remember the show's golden age than giving viewers more of the freshness that made its golden age golden.

Like the rest of Season 5, "Chain Migration" is all over the place, with George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) trying to win back Lucille (Jessica Walter), Gob (Will Arnett) working for the Gay Mafia, and Buster (Tony Hale) and Oscar (also Tambor) bonding in the weirdest ways possible. The episode sees Tobias (David Cross) return to an old friend — Mrs. Featherbottom — for help moving into the Spotted Palm Retirement Community. Although the series has always been good about bringing in clever callbacks, this episode is so packed with them that there's precious little substance otherwise, and viewers found it exhausting.

Things go from bad to worse for Buster in "The Untethered Sole," as he is seemingly caught red-handed on the news dumping a body, and with all of the evidence stacked against him, it doesn't look good despite Lucille Austero supposedly being alive and well. The Bluths hire a team of Netflix lawyers to represent Buster and try to work out their Fakeblock and wall problems all at once. The episode was universally considered one of the biggest flops of the season and series, with reviewers on IMDb scolding that "Arrested Development" seems "completely lost at this point" and "Ron Howard should know better than to even narrate that garbage!"

"Family Leave" picks up where Michael (Jason Bateman) and George Michael (Michael Cera) landed after the events of Season 4, and it's a tangled mess of backstory and exposition. While long-suffering fans who stayed the course through an exposition-laden first half of Season 4 enjoyed the payoff, it's frustrating to be back in the same place again. 

Many lamented that the spark that made the show work before seems to be absent entirely from Season 5's pilot, with IMDb reviewers roasting it as "jumbled" and "incoherent." Den of Geek found the "narrative hand holding and frequent plot reminders" aimed at helping the TV audience keep up did not play well on Netflix, instead coming across as "tiresome."

"Taste Makers" finds George Michael finally confiding in his dad about his Fakeblock debt out of desperation, while Tobias and his homeless Family Mark II bounce around from the model home attic to the Bluth company break room to a tent city. George Michael scrambles to find a hapless dupe to put in charge of Fakeblock, landing on Gob. Meanwhile, Gob has his first encounter with the Gay Mafia, who force him to dispose of a body that is implied to be Tony Wonder's after the parade accident. Fans continued to find the storyline meandering, with one reviewer calling the episode "low effort" and remarking it "feels like a chore at this point" to keep watching.

"Self-Deportation" may not be a stellar episode, but it does get to take full advantage of the show's new home on Netflix with the first "Arrested Development"  unbleeped use of the s-word. Other than that note of interest, though, it's a fairly meh installment in the final season. 

The episode finds most of the Bluth family heading to Mexico for an assortment of reasons, all of which feel fairly pointless. While the three cousins joining up for a Mexico adventure is sort of fun, the Gob-George Sr. road trip makes little sense and drags on for far too long. Many viewers also lamented the overuse of narration, with one IMDb reviewer saying the show should "dial back on the Ron Howard narration" which seemed at times to overshadow the story.

"Flight of the Phoenix" kicks off the fourth season with an origin story for Cinco De Cuatro, and like all things "Arrested Development," it begins with Bluth family greed. 

With years having passed since what was originally the series finale, the episode has its work cut out for it exposition-wise. In the interim, Michael built the poorly-planned housing community Sudden Valley just in time for the 2007 housing bubble crash, and the whole mess pushes the family back together once more. While the episode left many fans wondering if the old magic would return at some point during this season, it did earn the show two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.

At this point in Season 5, viewers would be well in their rights to wonder if the titles — "An Old Start," "Sinking Feelings," "Everyone Gets Atrophy" — aren't some kind of coded cry for help from the writers, secretly telegraphing their desperation to just be done with their contracts and move on with their lives. 

Perhaps the anchor is the ultimate Easter egg, a fitting symbol for a series that seems doomed to Davy Jones' locker by now. Most of the episode's energy is focused on the Bluth award ceremony, which is marred by pointless interactions between Lucille and Lindsay, the appearance of Tobias in a banana suit, and an exhaustingly overplayed subplot about Maeby (Alia Shawkat) and meth teeth. Redditors also lamented the continued, off-putting jammed-in Lindsay moments, which seems to be the best fans can hope for in the final season of "Arrested Development."

"Everyone Gets Atrophy" finds the Bluth family, back from their various Mexico adventures, preparing to win a "Family of the Year" award they're essentially giving themselves, via The Bluth Company. There's a clear parallel to current events of the time with Lindsay's congressional campaign, where she continues to gain popularity despite being (and indeed because she is) offensive. 

The episode also includes more of the Rebel-father-son love triangle drama that was never great, but is frankly wearing a bit thin at this point. Due to scheduling issues with Portia di Rossi, Lindsay was green screened into the Balboa Towers scene, and it's painfully obvious, with Den of Geek musing that "the action and jokes within Lucille's apartment are so lifeless that it begs the question why any of this was necessary."

"Check Mates" finds the elder Bluths trying to solve the family's wall problems with Chinese investors, while Maeby manages to inadvertently solve her Stan Sitwell problems with Tobias' other family, whose presence in the retirement community inspire him to move out. 

In a prescient moment considering Jason Bateman's role on "Ozark," Michael purchased Fakeblock using a shell company. The episode ends with Buster's re-arrest, thanks to the stair car the cops found at the police station. Reviewers on IMDb and Reddit praised the episode as a marked improvement over much of the season, especially the big Michael Cera moments.

"Emotional Baggage" continues the dragging Rebel Alley plot ad nauseum, along with even more Ron Howard-based humor, and there seems to be little humor left to milk from those stories at this point. Besides the Howard family cookout dominating a fair chunk of the episode, there's an uncomfortable sub-plot that sees Maeby's alter-ego sorta-dating Stan Sitwell, and the Gob-Tony storyline is present, if stuck in quicksand. 

In her review of the episode, Set the Tape's Wendy Attwell commented that "Arrested Development" seems to be more work than payoff these days, calling it a "muddled mess."

"The B. Team" is a marked improvement from the earlier Season 4 episodes, but much like the rest of the revival, is decidedly written for die-hard fans of the series. Grantland called the episode "the most self-aware and meta episode thus far," but found it all of those callbacks and in-jokes hard to follow, calling the style "a form of postmodern Tourette's so severe I can't even imagine what a non-fan might make of it." 

The episode is so meta, in fact, that the plot revolves around Michael becoming a producer of a documentary about his family directed by actual "Arrested Development" narrator Ron Howard. Even if the show's absurdly Escher-esque tendencies make it far too abstruse for new viewers, the infusion marks a refreshing return to some of the more cerebral humor fans love about the series. Of course, the return of scandalmaker Carl Weathers is also more than welcome.

Perhaps because Tobias isn't truly a Bluth, he is sometimes easier to connect with than the rest of the family; accordingly, it's easy to get invested in his story, with "Smashed" being a perfect example of this. 

The episode circles Season 4 back to everyone's favorite never-nude, now working at the Austerity Clinic on his work release program as a sex offender, even though his sex offender offense was actually a "merry mix-up." Because it's "Arrested Development," he encounters Mark Cherry and DeBrie there, along with Emmett Richter (played by Andy Richter), who popped up during Season 3 and is in the clinic for hoarding issues. Keen to spark things up again with DeBrie, Tobias hatches a plot to put on a musical with the talents of Mark Cherry and DeBrie front and center. Even when his love ends up in a pile of debris and Tobias has once again blue himself, it's hard not to root for the guy.

Michael can't help falling in love with just about every pretty girl he meets, and that's exactly what happens yet again in "Burning Love" when he reunites with Sally Sitwell (Christine Taylor). Meanwhile, George Michael's relationship with Ann literally heats up when he's invited to a religious music bonfire, which he misunderstands to mean they'll be burning Christian music. 

On IMDb, one reviewer noted that this episode "is the closest AD ever comes to a bestiality joke," observing that despite the episode's sitcom energy, it was a solid "Arrested Development" entry overall.

"Whistler's Mother" finds Michael dealing with his grabby-fingered family all trying to get their hands on some recently unfrozen money while he deals with blackmail over the family's corruption from a board member at the same time. A bad lemon grove deal with George Sr.'s twin Oscar costs Tobias and Gob their plans to open a coffee shop under the name Gobias Industries, while Lindsay becomes an anti-war protestor after her hairdresser is deployed. 

Calling the main plot "not quite inspirational and a tad rote," one IMDb reviewer nonetheless agreed that overall "Whistler's Mother" is a "solid episode of Arrested Development."

"Bringing Up Buster" finds Buster, whose education funds are now cut off, driving Lucille bonkers, who sends him to spend time with Michael at the Bluth Company to hilarious ends. Meanwhile, the kids are auditioning for "Much Ado About Nothing," with George Michael hoping to kiss his cousin Maeby while she hopes to kiss Steve Holt, who will turn out to be her cousin in a later episode. 

AV Club praised the visual motif where the camera suddenly pans out to show there was an extra person in the scene all along, with Decider calling the early episode "flawless."

"My Mother, The Car" is overflowing with "Arrested Development" mayhem, from Lucille running over Michael on Gob's Segway, to the cousins watching a controversial R-rated French film about cousins getting sexy, to Buster dating Lucille Two and Lindsay desperately trying to get the prisoners' attention. 

When Lindsay's attempts to get noticed fail, she resorts to buying a "slut" shirt, telling us all we need to know about Lindsay. Fans praised Jessica Walter's performance and the writing of Lucille Bluth as a complex TV villain who manages to be completely controlling and yet unexpectedly sympathetic at the same time, even if not at all likable.

In an episode that finds Gob without a job after the softball tournament, "Queen for a Day" brings him back to begging Michael for work. Michael ends up buying a sports car, only to discover he isn't the only one who has been spending the unfrozen stock, and he scrambles to get everyone to stop spending. 

Meanwhile, Tobias, who has purchased a club he accidentally called Tobias is Queen Mary, has a run-in with the Hot Cops, who he hires. When the Hot Cops try to West Side Story a real gang, they predictably end up getting beaten up and shot. For a weaker episode, there's plenty of good stuff in this one.

"Visiting Ours" focuses on shenanigans surrounding George Sr.'s conjugal visit, from which we get the hilariously unfortunate phrase "Daddy horny, Michael."

George Sr. wants a little conjugal trailer hanky panky, but he doesn't want it from Lucille — he wants it from his mistress, Kitty (Judy Greer). Meanwhile, Tobias and Lindsay deal with their own marital issues, stemming largely from the fact that Tobias is a Never Nude. While overall a solid episode, AV Club noted that "Visiting Ours" was one of the first in the series to "show some seams" as a "less tightly woven" story. And it's surprisingly amusing to watch how ready Gob is to take one for the team by giving Kitty her own conjugal visit.

A comedy of errors, generally stemming from Michael's misinterpretation of words, actions, and events surrounding Wee Britain and Rita, this episode is a memorable one primarily for its English gags.

With the fair in town, various Bluths get caught up in a Father-Son-Triathlon and a Miss Inner Beauty Pageant, while George Sr. goes on the lam via the popemobile. The episode is rife with puns and humor about British speech, and the appearances of Steve Holt and Ann are welcome ones. 

Nonetheless, it is hardly one of the season's strongest episodes, with Vulture criticizing "Notapussy" for its "dwindling plots" and AV Club calling it "very loosely motivated" and "little more than a collection of gags and sketches."

"Staff Infection" finds Michael cracking down on the family getting paychecks from the Bluth Company without actually doing any work. Gob and Buster have it out at the construction site with a very slow game of bulldozer chicken, while Tobias makes a surprise visit to the prison. 

The episode introduces the amusing motif of Buster's fear of sheep, which comes back at the Bluth Company, where the sheeplike employees are herded around mindlessly. While noting that it's not a bad episode overall, Alternate Ending's Tim Brayton observes that the episode does seem a bit "more lazy and repetitive" than the rest of the season thus far.

"Señoritis" picks up with Maeby's abandonment by her self-absorbed parents, which, like everything the Bluth family does, would be horrifying if it happened in real life. After she is offered a lifetime achievement award, signaling that her career is over, she returns to high school in yet another vain attempt to get her parents' attention. 

After an encounter with George Michael where she learns about Fakeblock, a little light deception leads to a very Theranos plot where Maeby and George Michael end up helming a startup with no actual product. Many of the season's plots and jokes pop up or pay off in this gem of an episode, including the fact that Lindsay was mistaken for a sex worker because Maeby was pimping her out.

"Charity Drive" finds Lindsay volunteering to clean up the wetlands, Michael accidentally kidnapping a woman he thinks he's doing a favor, Buster accidentally bidding $10,000 on Lucille Austero at a charity auction, and Gob whistling hilariously due to an unfortunate caramel apple-related incident. 

One of the things that stands out about this episode is the interactions between the siblings, which are revealed to be at least somewhat caring in a Bluth way. It's also amusing to see Michael's accidental kidnapping victim escalate in her fear as she notices bones and red stains on the car while slowly being driven out of the wetlands by the insanely chipper Michael, who looks an awful lot like a serial killer from the passenger's seat.

When attorney Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) shows up almost nine months pregnant in "Out on a Limb," Michael finds himself in a tizzy, convinced that the child might be his. After Tobias and Lindsay break into her house and find a fake pregnancy belly, Michael accuses Maggie of lying, only to see her real pregnant belly and get slapped with a paternity suit. 

Meanwhile, George Michael and Maeby work on a Lucille-centric plan to get Ann out of the picture while Lucille prays to keep Buster out of the war zone, which is answered when a "loose seal" chomps his hand off. One IMDb reviewer expressed frustration at the return of Maggie, commenting that her return "is among AD's roughest stretches." Despite the weak Maggie storyline, Buster losing his hand to a loose seal because of Lucille has become a classic "Arrested Development" moment.

"For British Eyes Only" leads Michael to Wee Britain on an investigation of George Sr.'s claims that he was set up by the British in his treasonous Iraq doings. There, Michael encounters manic pixie dream girl Rita (Charlize Theron) and instantly falls head over heels. 

Since he can't access the records he needs because he isn't a British citizen, he hires Rita, hoping she can secure them for him. When he misunderstands a warning from Trevor (Dave Thomas), Michael believes he's stumbled onto something dire. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, creator Mitchell Hurwitz emphasized the importance of secrecy and layered storytelling to this storyline, something he hadn't been able to do as well at Fox, noting, "Every joke had to work on several levels to pay off later."

"Beef Consommé" finds the love triangle between the brothers and Marta (Patricia Velasquez) coming to a head in what AV Club calls a "damned funny episode." After Buster gets involved, turning the love triangle into a love square, all three end up vying for her affections. Buster hires a mariachi band to profess his love but ends up catching Michael kissing Marta, causing things between the three brothers to rapidly deteriorate, with Gob and Michael landing in a tangle of fisticuffs. Meanwhile, George Michael learns he may not be related to his cousin Maeby, while Tobias tries to work through his never-nudeness.

"Marta Complex" has Michael secretly crushing on Gob's girlfriend Marta while he obsesses over Marta's relationship with someone she calls "Hermano," not knowing it's just the Spanish word for "brother." Meanwhile, Carl Weathers' non-acting lessons keep coming for Tobias, and when Tobias demands his money back, Weathers gets him an acting gig. 

Unfortunately for Tobias, the role is set in the one place a never-nude fears most: the shower. While not one of the strongest episodes in "Arrested Development" history, "Marta Complex" was satisfying, with one IMDb reviewer calling it a "minor classic."

"Altar Egos" finds loverboy Michael having a one-night stand with attorney Maggie Lizer (Louis-Dreyfus), who he later learns is blind. Meanwhile, George Sr. turns down his plea bargain because he's learned that Cindi Lightballoon (Jane Lynch) is an FBI agent who is in love with him. Elsewhere, Gob marries a marine biologist (Amy Poehler) in a joke that's fairly meta since Poehler and Arnett were married in real life at the time. Finally, clever Maeby is paying her tutor to do her homework, which she is paying for with donations to Surely Fünke, a disabled student she has created as a secret identity.

"Sad Sack" is a hilarious episode that deals with several equally funny storylines. 

Michael is considering turning his father, who is still hiding in the model home attic, in for immunity, while Wayne Jarvis uncovers an image of an Iraqi landscape with WMDs that later turns out to just be Tobias' testicles. Meanwhile, Lindsay's flirting with Steve Holt lands her in hot water with Maeby. And then there's George Michael's indecision at the optometrists' office, causing him to end up with the wrong prescription, which is surely one of the most relatable things to ever air on television. 

Over in the army, Buster can't make it through his boot camp exercises because a recent lawsuit left the military unable to yell and berate their recruits, who leave him behind when they deploy to Iraq after WMDs were found. Alternate Ending noted the complexity of the episode, calling it one of the most "difficult" in that it "requires that you pay a lot of attention." But like most of "Arrested Development," there's a reward for all that effort.

"The Immaculate Election" is a middling episode that sees a kicked-out Tobias moving onto a TV show set, George Michael running for student body president, and Lindsay hiring a new maid, Mrs. Featherbottom, who is really just Tobias in a Mrs. Doubtfire costume (and everyone knows it but just doesn't care). The episode also contains the big reveal that Steve Holt is Gob's son, making him one of the Bluth cousins. This episode eagerly capitalizes on the misery of the Bluths to humorous ends, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

"Top Banana" is a gem, with Michael finally learning the meaning of the phrase "There's always money in the banana stand," albeit too late. 

After George Michael starts working at the banana stand to get away from cousin/crush Maeby, his dad hires her to work there. Because she is terrible at math, she convinces him to throw away bananas and keep a dollar for every one they toss, somehow thinking this would let them get away with taking money from the cash register. Once George Michael works out that they're in trouble, he plans to burn down the banana stand in desperation. When his dad Michael finds out, he helps to stick it to George Sr. — learning after it burns that the banana stand had $250,000 lining the walls and was not insured.

"Family Ties" continues the incestuous subtext of the series on a meta-level by bringing Jason Bateman's sister Justine Bateman onto the show as Nellie, who Michael believes might be his sister but turns out to be a sex worker who is actually attracted to him. Thankfully for Michael, Nellie uses her theft from the N. Bluth fund for the good of the Bluth Company and its employees, even if she refuses a job he offers her. An overall hilarious and well-paced episode, "Family Ties" (named for the 1982 — 1989 sitcom that made Justine Bateman a star) contains plenty of solid gags including a sacrilegious bit about a "Holy Trinity," which may or may not be a sex act.

AV Club called "Motherboy XXX" "one of the funniest and ballsiest episodes in the entire run of 'Arrested Development'" for good reason. 

In addition to the show's impressive ability to turn a Burger King advertisement into a running gag, the episode makes good use of its oddball family dynamics. "Motherboy XXX" also manages to tap into the unsettling vibe that marks some of the show's best episodes, from the discomforting Norman Bates-ian quality of Buster and Lucille's relationship to the fact that Buster makes light of his one-handedness after the Bluth siblings have spent their lives being terrorized by a one-armed man.

"Shock and Aww" finds the perpetually in love Michael falling once more, this time for George Michael's teacher, Miss Baerly (Heather Graham). Meanwhile, Gob sleeps with a number of women in a misplaced attempt to hurt Michael over losing Marta. But then, who won't Gob sleep with? Elsewhere, Lucille Bluth bonds with her replacement Buster, an adopted son (Justin Lee) she believes is named "Annyong," not realizing that it's just the word "hello" in Korean, thus creating what will end up being one of the show's better running jokes. The episode also gives audiences the gift of Jane Lynch as George Sr. fangirl Cindi Lightballoon.

The title of "The Ocean Walker" comes from a film Maeby is producing with the same name, which Rita was helpful enough to offer guidance. As Michael prepares for his wedding, he begins to feel concerned that Rita is only using him to get a green card since they haven't yet been intimate, nearly calling things off at one point before a romantic rescue changes his mind. 

Uncle Trevor reveals to the elder Bluths that Rita is wealthy and mentally challenged, motivating them to push the wedding through before Michael realizes the second part. Fortunately, Michael puts things together just in time. As AV Club points out, the wrap-up of this story arc isn't especially funny, and not just because of the sensitive subject matter, despite the episode's more humorous moments.

In "Justice is Blind," Michael becomes obsessed with proving that Maggie is faking her blindness in order to get George Sr.'s case thrown out. Unfortunately, just before he throws a bible at her face to prove she's a poser, the attorney is temporarily blinded by perfume in her eyes. 

Maeby's antics as Surely go further and further off the rails, with George Michael joining in, and Lindsay stages a protest to get the 10 Commandments statue removed from the courthouse after she breaks her heel on it. As one IMDb reviewer notes, the episode pairs "like a mini-movie" when watched along with "Altar Egos."

After losing Bob Loblaw as a lawyer, the Bluth family is left scrambling in "S.O.B.s," launching a very meta fundraising campaign called "Save Our Bluths" to pull together their defense fund. 

George Michael, who is exhibiting signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, gets enrolled at a hippie-dippy school called Openings where one of the Andy Richter quintuplet brothers works as a teacher. The episode is a bit of a wild ride through the land of self-referential humor and callbacks; as one Redditor put it, the episode was rife with "clear meta subplots going on around the whole thing with references to HBO." With cancellation nigh at this point and the season recently slashed in length, the writers seemed to be writing strictly for their core fan base, making it a ton of fun for that group and no one else.

"Sword of Destiny" is a Gob-centric episode that finds the illusionist, on the outs with the Magicians' Alliance, planning a magic trick with the Sword of Destiny he picked up at a store called Ancient Chinese Secret despite being warned against it. To get around the Alliance ban on him, he persuades Buster to register as a magician and use Gob as his assistant. 

Elsewhere, Michael experiences a run-in the actively malpracticing Dr. Stein. The episode makes good use of Job's favorite song "The Final Countdown" and his rivalry with Tony Wonder, and as a result it is one of the brighter spots in Season 2 of "Arrested Development."

The penultimate episode of Season 3 and the original series finale, "Exit Strategy" deals with the in-show and real-world exit strategy for "Arrested Development." Mistaking a deposition for an audition, Tobias prepares to hand over all of the family dirt he found in the secret room to the prosecutor. 

After the prosecutor insults his acting while offering him a deal, Tobias, still thinking it's an acting gig, turns down the job, only to sign up for a scrapbooking class that's actually a sting operation. The Bluth brothers head to Iraq for Operation Hot Brother despite their father's Iraq-related treason charges, where Gob's Christian-themed USO magic show accidentally turns into an anti-American rally thanks to the crowd chanting "Burn Bush!" It's an absolutely bonkers episode complete with a nuke and cousins rounding second base, with Alternate Ending calling it "an intermittently great and always good episode" even if it is "awfully plotty."

"Mr. F" finds Michael blowing off work yet again to be with his lady love, Rita, and the relationship seems to be getting her in trouble as well. Meanwhile, Tobias' hair plugs are not working out as planned, Maeby is having a tough time at work, and the Bluth Company development property has moles. 

Michael becomes convinced that Rita is a spy, leading to him breaking things off and then proposing marriage, unaware that the "Mr. F" on her bracelet refers to an intellectual disability. It's a story that already feels cringy and problematic by today's standards, but it's one of many in "Arrested Development." Taken with a grain of sensitivity salt, it's still an amusing episode overall, even if it is not one of the season's strongest.

"Afternoon Delight" finds the Bluth family preparing to celebrate the holidays with time-honored traditions like rebuilding the vandalized banana stand and attending the Bluth Company Christmas party. 

One of the best laughs in the episode comes when Maeby and Michael perform a karaoke number that they don't realize is inappropriate to a horrified crowd: Starland Vocal Band's 1976 hit "Afternoon Delight." Between this and the sexual harassment theme, Paste would call this entry "one of the dirtiest episodes the show ever did." 

Later, Buster takes his crane game skills to the next level, saving a banana-suited Gob from the wrecked banana stand and dropping him into the ocean, marking the first but not the final time Buster would dump a body in the ocean during the series.

When Ann wants to get pre-engaged to George Michael, Michael has had enough of her eggness in "Meat the Veals." But when he tries to put the Veal family off of the Bluths by inviting them to a Bluth party, the yoke's on him when the Bluths suddenly seem unusually normal. There's so much to love about this episode from the welcome presence of Alan Tudyk to Gob's puppet Franklin to all of the physical humor that anchors the episode. Many fans see "Meat the Veals" as the best episode in the series, with several reviewers on IMDb heaping praise for the Franklin and Featherbottom moments.

The original series finale before it would be picked up again years later by Netflix, "Development Arrested" is a lovingly written season finale that represents at least some of everything that works well in "Arrested Development." With all of George Sr.'s charges dropped, the family has nothing left to do but celebrate and figure out what comes next for them. 

George Michael and Maeby learn that they aren't really blood relatives, but Michael warns him that they're still family, and that's a line that shouldn't be crossed. With all of their storylines wrapped up, Michael and George Michael sail off into the sunset, leaving Maeby to work on her next movie.