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My Review of the Second Half of Season Five of 'Arrested Development'

The conclusion of 'Arrested Development'— how did it go?

By Brian AnonymousPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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The last half of Arrested Development has finally come out on Netflix. It took them a long enough time to get this done. I know that there's been a lot of complaints about the seasons, after the show was taken off the air, and placed on Netflix. I didn't mind them that much, but there definitely was something weird about them.

This final half of season five is no different, and kind of makes it more obvious why the new seasons seemed so off. The Netflix Arrested Development episodes are blatantly self aware, and would make obvious jokes that poke fun at itself. I found that some of those self aware jokes were a little more subtle in the original seasons. Well maybe not that last season of the original season. I think they knew they were getting cancelled, and started making jokes about it close to the end. Characters continually got more over the top as the seasons progressed. These last few episodes it kind of seemed like the show kind of just gave up. You can tell in certain scenes, that some of the actors were just phoning it in, and not trying so much.

It's also pretty obvious how lazy some of the filming was. Maybe it could be timing and funding issues. Regardless, it was blatant in the last few episodes. I think they wanted it to seem blatant for comedy, but some of these lazy filming jokes didn't really turn out that well. For example there would be a spotlight on certain actors faces, so you couldn't see their faces, but it was obvious that they just took voice overs from the actor to make the scene. They did this in the first half of the season as well, with blankets over faces and stuff. I get it. Some of these actors are busy doing other things, and maybe Arrested Development doesn't have the budget to hire them on to do proper takes.

On the plus side, they did have more ensemble scenes. This was a complaint that some people had with the new Netflix series. You wouldn't see the Bluth family all together. Well this is the final season, so they better have them together in some scenes.

Also, there are a ton of cameos in these last few episodes too. You can see that someone making these last few episodes has a lot of influence in Hollywood. It's probably a labor of love that the creators just wanted to see through.

So how does it play out? There are a lot of funny concepts in the last few episodes, and they all tie up in the end. I was satisfied with the ending of this series. They did an okay job of finishing it off. The cleverness is still there, but it doesn't quite feel as fresh as it used to be. I started realizing why people don't like this series. It's basically about self absorbed, sociopath, morons interacting with one another. I still had some fun with the last few episodes though.

Overall, I would say this is a pretty weak season for them, but still entertaining. The series ended on a good note, and I like how they wrapped everything up. They make a few throwbacks from older episodes that I don't even remember. It's one of the drawbacks from spreading out your seasons so far apart. The audience doesn't really remember the past anymore. I think I'll give this last half of season five a 6.5 out of 10. There is still some entertainment for fans, but I don't think there will be repeat viewings of this season like there were for the original seasons.

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About the Creator

Brian Anonymous

I have tons of opinions that change constantly. I watch a lot of movies and play video games. There are some articles on my struggles with languages and dance as well.

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