Switch Hitter

This article is about the Arrested Development episode. For its use in baseball, see Switch hitter.

"Switch Hitter" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It is the 29th overall episode of the series, and was written by supervising producer Barbie Adler from a story by Courtney Lilly, and directed by Paul Feig. It originally aired on Fox on January 16, 2005.

"Switch Hitter"
Arrested Development episode
Lindsay (left) speaks with Michael (right) at the game
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 7
Directed by	Paul Feig
Story by	Courtney Lilly
Teleplay by	Barbie Adler
Cinematography by	Greg Harrington
Editing by	Robert Bramwell
Production code	2AJD07
Original air date	January 16, 2005 (2005-01-16)
Running time	22 minutes
Guest appearances
Ed Begley Jr. as Stan Sitwell Jeff Garlin as Mort Meyers Mo Collins as Starla Mae Whitman as Ann Veal J. K. Simmons as General Anderson
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. 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, armed with Michael's good ideas, Gob goes to work for their competitor, Stan Sitwell. George Sr. thinks Sitwell is just trying to win the company softball game.

Plot

Michael (Jason Bateman) schedules a meeting with Stan Sitwell (Ed Begley Jr.), president of a rival company. Maeby (Alia Shawkat) has a homework assignment on The Old Man and the Sea and tries to get George Michael (Michael Cera) to do it for her, but isn't able to get him to do it on time, so she decides to skip school and go along with Tobias (David Cross) as he auditions for the role of "Confidence Man #2". Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) has been taking Teamocil, mainly for the side effect of a decreased sex drive. When Stan arrives, he and Michael discuss a joint venture to build 450 homes, and he agrees on the condition that one of the homes is given to a disadvantaged family. Michael goes upstairs to run the deal through George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), who shoots him down, saying that Sitwell was just trying to figure out the batting order for the softball game. Stan hires Gob.

Michael regains being president at the Bluth Company, and George Michael visits him, suggesting that they use Ann (Mae Whitman) in the softball game since it's a league requirement to have women on the team. Michael says they should keep Ann as a backup, and Gob comes into Michael's office looking for his old job back since Sitwell started to ask him for work ideas. At the studio, Tobias is talking up the Fünke name around the water coolers while Maeby calls George Michael from a studio exec's office. While in the office, she is mistaken for a studio exec and passes off her homework to a studio reader. After Gob burns through all of Michael's ideas in a single meeting, Sitwell praises him and asks him to play on their softball team.

Michael is forced to put Ann on the team, and Lucille is forced to ask General Anderson (J. K. Simmons), whom she knew during the Vietnam War, to have Buster withdrawn from the army; he agrees after she sings "Downtown" to him. Michael meets Gob at his office and asks him to throw the game, explaining that Sitwell only hired Gob to win the game and make the Bluths look foolish. Back at the studio, Maeby is again mistaken for a studio exec by Mort Meyers (Jeff Garlin), gets her The Old Man and the Sea script looked at, and also gets Tobias a job at the studio. At the softball game, Gob throws the game until Sitwell gives him a heart-to-heart talk, making him decide to start playing better. Gob and Michael see that George Sr. is disguised as the umpire and trying to fix the game. Michael causes the Bluth Company to lose the game and tells his father that he's president whether George Sr. likes it or not.

On the next Arrested Development...

Maeby gets Tobias a job as a security job, and General Anderson tells Buster he will be joining him in shipping out after Buster gives him a shoulder massage.

Production

Ed Begley, Jr. (pictured) and Will Arnett had an unscripted moment in "Switch Hitter".

"Switch Hitter" was directed by Paul Feig.^[1] It was written as a teleplay by supervising producer Barbie Adler, adapted from a story by Courtney Lilly. It was Adler's fourth writing credit for the series.^[2] It was the seventh episode of the ordered season to be filmed.^[3]

During Stan and Gob's hugging scene, an unscripted moment where one of Stan's glued-on eyebrows stuck to Gob's wardrobe occurred. Arnett and Ed had to act professional and finish the take as directed, but both started laughing immediately after filming ending.^[4] The episode marks the beginning of the long-running storyline about Maeby becoming a movie executive.^[5] Craig Robinson, before he became popular with his role on The Office, made a minor guest appearance in the episode as a studio security guard.^[6] During Maeby's first visit to Tantamount Studios, a poster can be seen for the fictional film "Homeless Dad", which was produced in a previous episode and is referenced in other subsequent episodes.^[7]

"Switch Hitter" was first released on home video in the United States on October 11, 2005, in the Complete Second Season DVD box set.^[8] In 2013, a soundtrack compiling every song from the first four seasons of the series entitled "At Long Last...Music and Songs From Arrested Development" was released, including the song "Temocil" from the episode; the song was performed by Cross, de Rossi and Danielle Cipolla.^[9]

Analysis

The episode emphasizes George Sr.'s—and, by extension, the Bluth Company's—harsh business practices, which are often at the expense of helping them profit. Author Edwin Demper notes this occurring when George Sr. turns down Michael's suggestion to rename their poorly titled city; George Sr., after saying no to the idea, mumbles "That was a hard one to shoot down".^[10] Demper also uses the episode to prove his point that a common moral of Arrested Development is that good behavior often goes unrewarded. While Michael spends the majority of the series being a good-natured person, trying to steer his family away from immorality, Maeby, someone with no work ethic, is able to swindle her way into becoming a successful movie executive with no consequences whatsoever.^[11] Critic Joe George notes that the episode spotlights George Sr.'s pitting of Gob and Michael together, a plot point commonly seen throughout the series' run.^[1] A common theme of the series, including "Switch Hitter", is the idea that the Bluth family is inherently incestuous, particularly during the episode's scene of Lucille sleeping with Oscar, her brother-in-law, which sets off a storyline spanning throughout the entire second season.^[12]

Despite the series' more modern elements, it still adheres to the older television trope of a softball-themed episode, as noted by MLB journalist Michael Clair.^[13] The Bluths, despite living in luxury, feel adequate living in the company's disastrously-built model homes, which are known to have numerous safety violations and are not suitable for living; in the episode, Stan Sitwell mentions this, a rare event for the series, comparing the homes to a sinkhole, while George Michael, already used to these living conditions, optimistically likens the unsteadiness of the model homes to a salad dressing.^[14] Author Brett Gaul also shared a similar sentiment, finding the shoddy workmanship of the house—which is deliberately shown in the episode when the family repeatedly breaks pieces of furniture while trying to prove that the houses aren't poorly built—to be symbolic of how deceiving the family is, attempting to sell the unsafe homes to the public.^[15]

Reception

Viewers

In the United States, the episode was watched by 5.78 million viewers on its original broadcast.^[16]

Critical reception

The A.V. Club writer Noel Murray praised the episode, saying it "begins one of [his] favorite storylines in the entire run of Arrested Development".^[5] In 2019, Brian Tallerico from Vulture ranked the episode 52nd out of the whole series, saying it "stands poor at the center of season two’s mid-season sag."^[17] Tara Ariano of Cracked listed Lucille's "And a piece of toast" line as one of the 100 funniest television punchlines of all times.^[18] Yahoo Entertainment's Joe George praised "Switch Hitter", hailing it as one of the greatest episodes of Arrested Development. He found the softball game to produce many "great gags", particularly Ann knocking her opponents over.^[1] Brandon Stroud of Uproxx, in his list of the series' best sports-related episodes, called "Switch Hitter" it's best episode to include the sport of softballs. Stroud highlighted Ann's dialogue, a line about "candy beans", and Gob's chicken dance when on outfield.^[19]