I just received the season 4 DVD in the mail today, at once two weeks early, but way overdue. And one of the first episodes I chose to watch is Queen B., Lucille's episode in the new character-centric format.
Lucille is a great character, so if she's done right she should make for a great episode. Season 1's Lucille episodes, My Mother, the Car and Whistler's Mother, are classics, featuring her as the villainess, but clever, and with dimensions.
And much of that shines through here. We see her racial insensitivity- this time towards Asians, referring to a gang as tech support. We see her complex relationship with Buster- she smothers him, but there's conflict. There's her coldness to her family, brushing over a possibility that her schemes could get George executed. In this episode, more than any other, she wrestles with her identity and duality, and the vicious cycle she's in, feeling betrayed by her family because she's a villainess, and being a villainess because she's betrayed by her family. In the end, it comes to a breakthrough, with Tobias inadvertently opening her eyes to how she drives people away with "sneak attacks," in a clever comic book analogy.
There's much else good here. Those of us wondering after season 3 how Lucille could possibly survive in prison should be satisfied by seeing the country club prison, a joke which draws on white collar crime in real life. And a definite gain in having a season 4- that Gene Parmesan is no longer a one-episode character. His ineptitude and "disguises" are as good (bad?) as ever. When Arrested Development comes back (season 5? A film?), it'll be interesting to see if Lucille does break free of her cycle. If she does, and if the other characters change in ways their episodes suggest, hopefully we'll be blown away at what Arrested Development becomes.
Lucille is a great character, so if she's done right she should make for a great episode. Season 1's Lucille episodes, My Mother, the Car and Whistler's Mother, are classics, featuring her as the villainess, but clever, and with dimensions.
And much of that shines through here. We see her racial insensitivity- this time towards Asians, referring to a gang as tech support. We see her complex relationship with Buster- she smothers him, but there's conflict. There's her coldness to her family, brushing over a possibility that her schemes could get George executed. In this episode, more than any other, she wrestles with her identity and duality, and the vicious cycle she's in, feeling betrayed by her family because she's a villainess, and being a villainess because she's betrayed by her family. In the end, it comes to a breakthrough, with Tobias inadvertently opening her eyes to how she drives people away with "sneak attacks," in a clever comic book analogy.
There's much else good here. Those of us wondering after season 3 how Lucille could possibly survive in prison should be satisfied by seeing the country club prison, a joke which draws on white collar crime in real life. And a definite gain in having a season 4- that Gene Parmesan is no longer a one-episode character. His ineptitude and "disguises" are as good (bad?) as ever. When Arrested Development comes back (season 5? A film?), it'll be interesting to see if Lucille does break free of her cycle. If she does, and if the other characters change in ways their episodes suggest, hopefully we'll be blown away at what Arrested Development becomes.
