Forget-Me-Now

"Forget-Me-Now" is the third episode of the third season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It was written by co-executive producer Tom Saunders and directed by supervising producer John Amodeo. It originally aired on the Fox Network in the United Statss on October 3, 2005.

"Forget-Me-Now"
Arrested Development episode
The family (from left to right; Michael, Lindsay, Lucille, George Sr., and Gob) surprises Michael with a party.
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 3
Directed by	John Amodeo
Written by	Tom Saunders
Cinematography by	Greg Harrington
Editing by	Richard Candib
Production code	3AJD03
Original air date	October 3, 2005 (2005-10-03)
Running time	22 minutes
Guest appearances
Charlize Theron as Rita Dave Thomas as Trevor Justin Grant Wade as Steve Holt Bob Einstein as Larry Scott Baio as Bob Loblaw
Episode chronology
List of episodes

The series, narrated by Ron Howard, follows the Bluths, a formerly wealthy, dysfunctional family, who made their money from property development. In the episode, the family's new attorney (Scott Baio) works on George Sr.'s (Jeffrey Tambor) defense as he plans his escape his confinement by an ankle bracelet. Michael (Jason Bateman) attempts to destroy all evidence of his family's existence so he won't have to introduce them to Rita (Charlize Theron), and Gob (Will Arnett), after a mishap involving Rita, makes use of his "forget-me-now" pills. Concurrently, Steve Holt (Justin Grant Wade), informed by George Michael (Michael Cera) that his girlfriend (Alia Shawkat) is actually his cousin, intends to break up with her.

The episode contains the first appearance of Bob Loblaw, a character created in order to replace Henry Winkler's character Barry Zuckerkorn, a similar situation to what happened to Winkler's character of Fonzie on Happy Days. Bob Loblaw was partially named after a chain of supermarkets frequented by co-executive producer Chuck Tatham in his childhood. The episode's captioning was unusual, requiring a much more lengthy process to do so than usual.

"Forget-Me-Now" received positive reviews from critics, with praise going towards its humor and content; and has been featured on several lists detailing the finest episodes of Arrested Development. Since airing, the episode has received academic analysis from both scholars and critics.

Plot

The family meets with their new attorney, Bob Loblaw, to discuss their current situation. Patriarch George Sr., under house arrest, sends Larry (Bob Einstein), a surrogate, in his place, wired up to transmit video to him. Maeby has begun dating Steve Holt to avoid her feelings for her cousin, George Michael. Michael meets up with his girlfriend Rita, who wishes to meet his family; he lies, telling her that he doesn't have one. The family's matriarch Lucille (Jessica Walter) arrives at the office to go on a date with George Sr., who formulates a plan to escape his confinement after seeing balloons elevating a person on TV. Michael, thinking the model home will be empty, decides to bring Rita over; he eventually finds his brother-in-law Tobias (David Cross) and brother Buster (Tony Hale) in the house, surrounded by the evidence files he previously told his brother Gob to shred.

George Michael, jealous of Steve and Maeby's relationship, reveals to Steve that Maeby is his cousin. The family tries to help Michael by picking up Rita, but she is confused upon meeting them, still assuming Michael has no family. Buster unintentionally knocks Rita out, and, upon waking up, Gob drugs her with a rohypnol pill—which he calls a "forget-me-now"—and the family dumps her onto the side of the road. Michael leaves to pick up Rita, and Steve arrives at the house, planning to end his relationship with Maeby. While waiting, Michael finds a drowsy Rita on a bench. At the house, the family greets Michael and presents him with a quickly thrown together party.

Rita suddenly enters, and Michael admits his lie about his family to her; she leaves, and Gob blurts out that he drugged her and unsuccessfully tries to force-feed Michael a forget-me-now. An overwhelmed Buster flings his new army medal over the balcony, and it hits the balloon bundle that George Sr. is using to float down to the ground, who falls and is swiftly caught by waiting police officers. George Michael finds Maeby and a pantless Steve, assuming they had sex, and he reveals that Steve is her cousin. George Sr.'s crashing balloon fire catches on to the evidence that Michael had hidden in his nearby car, destroying it. As Michael tries to reassemble the files, he makes up with a remorseful Gob.

Production

"Forget-Me-Now" was directed by supervising producer John Amodeo and written by co-executive producer Tom Saunders.^[1] It was Saunder's first and only writing credit for the series,^[2] and was the third episode of the season to be filmed.^[3]

Scott Baio (left, 1982) was brought on as Bob Loblaw in Arrested Development in order to replace Henry Winkler's (right, 1977) character Barry Zuckerkorn.

The episode contains the first appearance of Scott Baio's character on the series, lawyer Bob Loblaw,^[4] who was created as a way to replace Barry Zuckerkorn, portrayed by Henry Winkler.^[5] Baio notes that this mirrored what happened behind the scenes of Happy Days, where he was brought on to replace Winkler.^[6] He was given the role in the series through his agent, who was asked if he wanted to appear on the series; he enjoyed the script given to him, and said yes.^[7] In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Baio said that, when he was approached with the idea of appearing on Arrested Development by the series' producers, he suggested that his character could be first introduced randomly in Lucille's bedroom, or be tied up in her closet.^[8]

The writers were conflicted on what to title Baio's character, noting that they wanted to give him an "idiotic" name. Co-executive producer Chuck Tatham wrote "Bob Loblaw" on a blank whiteboard, named after a chain of supermarkets Tatham frequented during his childhood in Canada. His father would often joke about a man named Bob Loblaw—a pun on "blah blah blah"—and Tatham, remembering the name, mentioned it to series creator Mitchell Hurwitz, who found it humorous. Writers Richard Day and Jim Vallely continued to add on to the joke, and they settled on him owning a law blog entitled "Bob Loblaw's Law Blog".^[6] During the documentary fan-film The Arrested Development Documentary Project, Baio revealed that, due to his New York accent, he over-pronounced the "aw" part of Bob Loblaw's name on the first day of filming,^[7] causing him to be unable to tell that the name was a play on words.^[9] The episode's reenlistment scene involving Larry—containing words from George Sr. coming out of a garbled sound machine attached to Larry—proved unusual to translate into closed captioning for its television broadcast, requiring the editors to go into Audacity—an audio editor—and create the sound wave for the incomprehensible lines, which made them comprehensible. It was then imported into Photoshop and every word of the now understandable script was translated into text.^[10]

"Forget-Me-Now" was first released on home video in the United States on August 29, 2006, in the Complete Third Season DVD box set. The set includes audio commentary for the episode from Hurwitz, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, Alia Shawkat and Jessica Walter.^[11]

Themes

Christopher C. Kirby, Jonathan Hillard, and Matthew Holmes, writing for a section in the book Arrested Development and Philosophy: They've Made a Huge Mistake, argue that the episode features Gob's only genuine moment of character growth in the series—when he admits to Steve Holt that he is his father, and the two embrace. They note that this moment carries deeper emotional weight because of how poorly Gob has been treated by George Sr. throughout his life, making the scene both sincere and unaffected by irony.^[12] Despite this growth, Gob remains selfish in the episode, going to great lengths to conceal his mistakes—including drugging himself with his own "forget-me-now" pill just to forget his embrace with Steve.^[13] Author Lauren Bratslavsky describes the episode as an example of "Hurwitz toying with the audience's expectations" regarding the show's incest themes, revealing that Steve is Gob's son and retroactively adding an incestuous element to Steve and Maeby's previously normal relationship.^[14] The episode also marks a point where the series becomes less subtle in foreshadowing Rita's later-revealed intellectual disability; she sits on a bench whose obscured sign reads "Wee Brain".^[15]

The episode's titular forget-me-now pills have been compared to aspects of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit.

Philosopher Michael Cholbi references the episode heavily in his diagnosis of Gob with bipolar disorder, citing his compulsive use of the "forget-me-now" pill and self-loathing as indicators of depressive tendencies.^[16] Similarly, Matthew Gannon interprets "Forget-Me-Now" as a reflection of the show's broader theme of family—how, despite their flaws and often poor judgment, the Bluths care for Michael and shape his personality and values.^[17] Throughout Arrested Development, Tobias frequently speaks in innuendos alluding to his closeted homosexuality. As author Navid Sabet observes, the episode is unusually direct in that regard: Tobias tells the family he used to be both an analyst and a therapist, revealing a business card that combines the two profession titles into "analrapist".^[18] The episode holds strong parallels with the book Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, as does a majority of season three, according to scholar Clayton Carlyle Tarr. He likens the forget-me-now pills to the message inscribed inside of the watch found in Little Dorrit, which reads "Do Not Forget". Tarr notes that the forget-me-now pills and the watch's message also hold a seemingly purposeful difference, as the pills are not as mysterious as the message, which is treated as a bigger revelation; he also finds irony in the fact that Little Dorrit places emphasis on the act of remembrance, where "Forget-Me-Now" has a common theme of forgetting past events.^[19]

The episode's unorthodox use of cross-dressing further highlights Tobias's gender confusion when he dresses as Lucille. Unlike most portrayals that use cross-dressing as a comedic stand-in for homosexuality, the series instead presents it ambiguously—Tobias is performing rather than embodying the role—leaving interpretation up to the audience and not taking any stance in the matter.^[20] Larry's role as a surrogate—being passed between different people who control him—has been compared to the idea of "switching souls" between individuals by author Kristopher Phillips. Despite this, his demeanor remains consistent regardless of who is in control, and he stays fully conscious throughout these switches, rarely taking the time to speak his mind. Phillips also likens Larry to ideas of personal identity asserted by philosopher René Descartes, as he exhibits clear unhappiness from spending time with others throughout the episode, yet still does his job as a surrogate and let others speak their own minds through him.^[21] While "Forget-Me-Now" is incongruous with the rest of Arrested Development for many factors, critic Chad Collins felt the darker humor outweighed any other inconsistency, making it's approach to comedy unique for the series.^[22]

Reception

Viewers

In the United States, the episode was watched by 4.47 million viewers on its original broadcast on October 3, 2005. It received a 1.6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, meaning that it was seen by 1.6% of all households in that demographic.^[23] It marked an increase in viewership from the previous episode, "For British Eyes Only", which had earned a 1.4% rating and drew in 4.02 million viewers.^[24]

Critical reception

"While it's incongruous with most of the series, it's a remarkable standalone, an episode abounding with stellar character work and some of the best acting the cast has ever put in. It's not quite a classic, but it's far from forgettable."

Chad Collins,
SlashFilm^[22]

The A.V. Club writer Noel Murray praised the episode, reacting positively to its introduction of new characters and meta humor. Murray felt the episode lacked a coherent narrative, but claimed the humor saved it from mediocrity.^[25] Brian Tallerico from Vulture placed the episode 34th in his ranking of the whole series, criticizing the overuse of Rita by this point in the season, but finding amusement from the storyline between George Michael, Maeby, and Steve Holt.^[26] Joe George of y!entertainment listed it as one of the series' funniest, highlighting a line from Lucille as the best moment of the episode. He notes that the storyline of Michael and Rita doesn't work until the twist-ending of "The Ocean Walker", yet he felt that the episode was salvaged by the other sub-plots.^[1] Chad Collins of SlashFilm gave the episode a positive review, calling it one of Arrested Development's most underrated episodes, praising the acting and its emphasis on black comedy. However, Collins went on to criticize the episode for being inconsistent with the rest of the series in how it portrays the Bluth family's immoral tendencies, and how far it is willing to go with said tendencies.^[22]

Television writer Erin Mallory Long listed George Michael's line, "What a fun, sexy time for you" as her favorite moment from the series, noting its line delivery, humorous context, and odd wording as her reason for enjoying it. Similarly, Diana McCorry, another writer, wrote that the episode's introduction of Bob Loblaw was her favorite, finding the character's name to be "stupid", yet "brilliant".^[27] IndieWire's Steve Greene called the episode one of the show's best, saying that, while it does not contain the best use of Rita's character, the British stereotypes are a highlight. He states that the episode has one of Gob's highlight moments from the series in which Gob, saying goodbye to Steve, says "I will" multiple times, calling it an example of his "tragicomic sweet spot".^[4] Matt Fowler of IGN also listed "Forget-Me-Now" as one of the series' finest episodes, calling it "fully loaded" in terms of overall content.^[28]