First of all! Love the podcast Jon and Collin, i’ve been watching the series along with your commentary to create a sort of “informational rifftrax” for season 5, the weakest Mitch has given us unfortunately. But more importantly, as i was listening to your episode reviewing Season 5 Episode 15 “Courting Disasters”, you almost revealed the truth of the series. Now as you may remember, back in season two were introduced for the first time to “Scandalmakers”, which has been shown to be an in-universe version of Arrested Development. This can be proven by one specific scene in which during the title sequence for “Scandalmakers” we can see not just any pictures, but the polaroids from the actual title sequence of arrested development for both Michael and Lucille. Not only this, but the countless fourth wall breaks during Seasons 1-3, and an interview with Hurwitz about Season 5, in which he admitted to originally planning to create the most intricate 4th wall breaking episode since Season 3 Episode 9’s “S.O.B.s”, where the cast of Arrested Development was going to perform in character live in front of Netflix execs, only to get upset and walk “off set”, further blurring the lines between show/documentary for the series, but once it came time to actually start filming Season 5, they did not have it fully written and ended up scrapping the plot line. This is why the season creates so many 4th wall breaks by Ron Howard, especially in the second half. Phew, i know it’s a lot, but this is an element of the show that many fans don’t talk about, haha! Keep up the good work guys!
