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Arrested Development

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 10, 2005

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Arrested Development, “Spring Breakout” (Season 2, Episode 17). [Watch on Netflix.]

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Particularly through its first two seasons, Arrested Development was such a consistently good comedy that it was hard to pick out the highlight episodes, but I think after eleven long years, I’m finally ready to make a call: seaosn 2’s “Spring Breakdown” is the best Arrested Development episode of all time. Or at the very least, it has the highest concentration of funny bits.

Let’s take an inventory:

Lucille’s “winking eye alcohol suggestion” (above), which has been a gift two Twitter gifs everywhere (and which is reprised in this episode by George to fantastic effect.
The first appearance of Lucille’s version of the chicken dance
The shoddy narration on Scandalmakers that so vexes our regular narrator, Ron Howard
Girls with Low Self Esteem and its Joe Francis-esque creator, played never-nudely by Zach Braff
Maeby’s job as a Hollywood executive, including the part where she tries to get a teenage boy to explain why he finds frozen bananas so funny
Kitty’s “say goodbye to these!” reprise, and her inclusion in the story in general
Buster being left alone at home and mistaking a box of wine for a juice box, in a montage that is scored initially by the “Motherboy” song and then by “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy

Of course, the highlight moment of the episode comes when Lucille, fresh out of rehab for problem drinking, is called upon to engage in a drinking contest with Kitty. As you can see, Kitty had no idea what she was in for.