I just want my hand back.
Dec. 23rd, 2008 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spatchI'm going through the second season of Arrested Development again, and am amazed at the sheer amount of foreshadowing thrown in the episodes leading up to Buster's seal attack. (That's where he goes swimming in the ocean to spite his mother Lucille, and a loose seal with a taste for blood attacks him and bites off his hand.) The references start in the first episode, for crying out loud.
And the best part is, it's all so wonderfully subtle. The FOX anchorman gives a "next, a seal attack scares local swimmer" teaser after reporting on another Bluth disaster, for instance. And he says it way too early in the season for anybody to have realized it was important. When Buster finds his old big red hand chair in Lupe's house (the maid had always been taking stuff from Lucille on the sly) he marvels "Gee, I never thought I'd ever miss a hand so much!" Both those lines sound like throwaway gags on first viewing. But no.
At the same time, the show intentionally overplays the "Could Oscar be Buster's father?" foreshadowing to the point of ludicrousness. It's all a brilliant mix. We won't even begin to get into the "loose seal" pun, either.
I do consider AD to have been one of the best written television shows ever but the more I watch, the more I really believe it.
And the best part is, it's all so wonderfully subtle. The FOX anchorman gives a "next, a seal attack scares local swimmer" teaser after reporting on another Bluth disaster, for instance. And he says it way too early in the season for anybody to have realized it was important. When Buster finds his old big red hand chair in Lupe's house (the maid had always been taking stuff from Lucille on the sly) he marvels "Gee, I never thought I'd ever miss a hand so much!" Both those lines sound like throwaway gags on first viewing. But no.
At the same time, the show intentionally overplays the "Could Oscar be Buster's father?" foreshadowing to the point of ludicrousness. It's all a brilliant mix. We won't even begin to get into the "loose seal" pun, either.
I do consider AD to have been one of the best written television shows ever but the more I watch, the more I really believe it.