Entertainment

'Arrested Development' Season 5 Is On The Way

by Allie Gemmill
Mike Yarish/Netflix

"Them?" Well, actually, the entire Bluth clan may be returning now that Arrested Development Season 5 is a-go. According to Uproxx, the reason the sitcom is most likely coming back comes down to one of the stars of the show, Jason Bateman, officially announcing his return for another series of misadventures as Michael Bluth. With Bateman's Twitter announcement probably giving fans Buster-Bluth-drinking-juice levels of excitement, will the rest of the Arrested Development cast return for Season 5 as well?

Let's go back to Bateman's Bluth-tastic news for a hot second. After Buster, the sweet, well-meaning Michael is my favorite Bluth child. As such, Bateman's return is reason enough for me to want to abandon the banana stand and drive my Stair Car hither and yon just to give the actor a huge hug. Speaking of Stair Cars, that's actually how Bateman alerted us to his Season 5 return. On Friday evening, Bateman tweeted out, "Look very probably I'm going to put some miles on the Stair Car this summer. Just officially signed on to more Arrested Development today." Boom. Just like that, he went and made this weekend an exciting one.

Bateman's return naturally makes me curious about the rest of the team. The Season 5 announcement is still pretty fresh, so there hasn't been any more news from the Arrested Development creators or the other cast members about who exactly is returning and in what capacity.

However, that certainly doesn't mean that other cast members haven't spoken about a Season 5 and their Arrested Development future before. Back in 2016, IndieWire quoted Jessica Walter, who plays boozy matriarch Lucille Bluth, on the possibility of the entire cast coming back for another season. "It’s looking real good," she said, simply. "I don’t have dates, but everybody is on board."

Sam Urdank/Netflix

It's been a hot, hot minute since Arrested Development was last in our TV landscape. The fourth season, complete with new story structure that polarized the hardcore fans, was streaming on Netflix back in 2013. The show should most likely rethink that structure, along with ensuring the entire core cast is coming back in order to make it just as anticipated as the fourth season was four years ago.

Despite Bateman's indication that Season 5's production could happen as early as this summer, it's tough to tell how this will pan out schedule-wise for everyone else. A cross-section of the cast reveals that it may be trickier than expected to get the gang back together. Tony Hale may still be on Veep duty, Jeffrey Tambor has a handful of films in post-production that could require his attention, and Will Arnett's knee-deep in reviving The Gong Show right now.

Sam Urdank/Netflix

For now, I'm just going to get my Cornballer and juice box stash outta my closet, because joyous news such as this requires appropriate celebratory snacks.