| Series: | Arrested Development |
| Season: | 3 |
| Episode: | 8 |
| Director: | Peter Lauer |
| Photographer: | Greg Harrington |
| Editor: | Richard Candib |
| Production: | 3AJD07 |
| Length: | 22 minutes |
| Guests: |
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| Prev: | Prison Break-In |
| Next: | S.O.B.s |
| Season Article: | Arrested Development season 3 |
| Episode List: | List of Arrested Development episodes |
"Making a Stand" is the eighth episode of the third season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It is the 48th overall episode of the series, and was written by series creator Mitchell Hurwitz and co-executive producer Chuck Tatham, and directed by Peter Lauer. It originally aired on Fox on December 12, 2005. The episode is Hurwitz's joint-favorite episode, the other being "Pier Pressure",[1] while also making the Parents Television Council's Worst Primetime TV Show of the Week list for the first week of 2006 due to its "graphic violence and dysfunction."[2]
The series, narrated by Ron Howard, follows the Bluths, a formerly wealthy, dysfunctional family, who made their money from property development. The Bluth family consists of Michael, his twin sister Lindsay, his older brother Gob, his younger brother Buster, their mother Lucille and father George Sr., as well as Michael's son George Michael, and Lindsay and her husband Tobias' daughter Maeby. In the episode, after yet another instance of George Sr. pitting Michael and Gob against each other, Michael decides to teach his father a lesson.
Gob (Will Arnett) tries to introduce his new business idea of selling the Bluth Company blueprints to Columbians, but is shot down by Michael (Jason Bateman). Lucille (Jessica Walter) has enlisted painters to give the apartment a new paint job while she recuperates from her upcoming cosmetic surgery in the model home. Michael finds out that Gob's Colombian plan had been instigated by their father, and feels that his father is still trying to create tension between Michael and his brother. Buster (Tony Hale) gets a job at an Iraqi toy shop, but upon finding out that the toy shop owner wanted to employ him to use his lack of a hand to scare off shoplifters, Buster had quit. At a test screening of the studio's new horror movie, Maeby (Alia Shawkat) sees that the audience finds the horror aspects laughable, and her boss Mort Meyers (Jeff Garlin) tells her that she has a week to fix the problem. Michael suggests that Gob opens a banana stand of his own, and George Michael (Michael Cera) calls Michael to inform him that Gob and Steve Holt (Justin Wade Grant) have set up the new banana stand a short distance from the original banana stand, in order to be a competitor.
Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio) introduces a young inexperienced attorney to Lindsay to act as her new representative, and Lindsay finds out that Loblaw has defected over to Tobias (David Cross)'s side as his attorney. Buster brings a post-operation Lucille, who is covered in bandages and unable to speak properly, to the model home, and tells Michael that he saw J. Walter Weatherman (Steve Ryan). Michael and George Michael, the latter in a banana-suit, visit Gob's stand. In the middle of the night, Maeby is surprised by the red, blistered, and bruised face of a post-facelift Lucille, she screams and realises that she has found the face of the monster to save her horror movie. At the banana stands, Michael and Gob are embroiled in competition using increasingly desperate tactics. Michael finds out that George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) was behind the banana stand idea as a way of laundering money for the Colombian deal, and formulates a plan for the two brothers to get their own back on their father. Gob and Michael decide to include J. Walter Weatherman in their plan, and tell their father that they had put a stop to the Colombian deal. They warn him that the Colombians may have reason for revenge, and Michael asks the painters working in the apartment to help out with the plan by posing as kidnappers while Gob tells his father that Michael is planning to fake a kidnapping to scare him.
Bob Loblaw using his knowledge of Lindsay's flirtation with him as evidence in trying to win the case for Tobias. Maeby's scary photograph of Lucille is met with approval from Mort, and George Sr. is felled into a metal trunk by one of his disgruntled disguised employees. While he is trapped, Michael and Gob set about re-building Gob's banana stand, to stand in as a South American hut, inside the apartment. Once George Sr. is released from the trunk inside the fake hut, he is greeted by Gob, Michael and the painters, disguised in balaclavas, who then attempt to threaten and frighten him. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, George Sr. grabs a gun and starts shooting. Just after a man's arm flies off, Michael realises that it was J. Walter Weatherman, and that George Sr. had set them up. As Gob and Michael start to fight because Gob had spoiled the plan, they roll out of the hut and Michael appears to have fallen over the balcony. Michael reappears, unhurt, having made his own lesson towards his father. Buster has picked up a gun, and is targeted by policemen wielding guns themselves. The policemen shoot when Buster does not drop the weapon as ordered and his hand flies off, spurting blood, causing Gob, Michael and George Sr. to panic. Michael quickly realises that it was Buster's fake hand that was shot off, and that Buster was teaching them a lesson.
Maeby uses Lucille's facelifted face for her horror film, which is called Gangy, and Mort suggests starting production on Gangy 2.
"Making a Stand" was directed by Peter Lauer, and written by series creator Mitchell Hurwitz and co-executive producer Chuck Tatham. It was Lauer's third and final directing credit, Hurwitz's 17th writing credit and Tatham's first writing credit.[3] It was the seventh episode of the season to be filmed.[4]
In the United States, the episode was watched by 4.14 million viewers on its original broadcast.[5]
The A.V. Club writer Noel Murray commented that "while “Making A Stand” isn’t as good as “Pier Pressure,” that’s mainly because “Pier Pressure” is one of the funniest TV episodes of all time." Murray then stated that "The whole lesson-teaching enterprise culminates in one of Arrested Development’s best farcical set-pieces," and that it is "one of the best at showing GOB in all of his arrogance, ignorance and insecurity".[6]
Brian Tallerico from Vulture ranked the episode 29th out of the whole series, saying that "After hitting a typical midpoint sag, “Making a Stand” was the bounce-back episode of season three".[7] Series creator Mitchell Hurwitz ranked "Making a Stand" as his joint-favorite episode of the show with "Pier Pressure". In contrast, the episode also made the Parents Television Council's Worst Primetime TV Show of the Week list for the first week of 2006 due to its "graphic violence and dysfunction."