Flight of the Phoenix (Arrested Development)

"Flight of the Phoenix" is the first episode of the fourth season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It is the 54th overall episode of the series, and was written by series creator Mitchell Hurwitz, and directed by Hurwitz and executive producer Troy Miller. It originally released on May 26, 2013 with the rest of the season, and was distributed by Netflix.

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 adopted 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. Each episode of the season follows a different character, with this episode focusing on Michael as he moves in with George-Michael at UC Irvine.

Thirty years ago, in retaliation for their maid taking a day off for Cinco de Mayo, Lucille (Kristen Wiig) and George Bluth, Sr. (Seth Rogen) started "Cinco de Cuatro", to take place on the eve of Cinco de Mayo in order to deplete stocks used for celebrations. In the present day, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), drunk and indebted to "Lucille 2" Austero (Liza Minnelli), offers to have sex with her in a desperate bid to have his debt remitted. Unsuccessful, Michael returns to the model home in Sudden Valley, where he runs into his brother, Gob (Will Arnett), and reacts with shock when he sees that Gob had sex with a person whose identity is deliberately not revealed to the viewer. Gob panics, overpowers Michael, and forces him to take a rohypnol pill.

Five years ago, after the disastrous boat party, Michael returns to the family following his mother's arrest. But when he learns that his parents had received economic stimulus money, and once again embezzled it instead of investing it in the Bluth company, Michael attempts to finally disassociate himself from the family by selling his stock to Lucille 2. He also decides to build houses at Sudden Valley under his own company, Michael B., despite the lack of roads leading into the complex. Having no immediate buyers, Michael again approaches Lucille 2 to secure a loan of $700,000 until residents move in. But due to the 2007 housing bubble, all chances of getting any houses sold evaporate and Michael winds up living in a ghost town. When the mailman, Pete, his only link to the outside world, dies from a heart attack one morning, Michael moves in with his son, George-Michael (Michael Cera), at UC Irvine.

George-Michael is occupied with the development of "Fakeblock", a piece of privacy-enforcing and anti-piracy software, along with his roommate, Paul "P-Hound" Huan (Richard Jin Namkung). Trying to carve his own path in the world, he is uncomfortable with the presence of his father, and his loss of privacy, and he tries repeatedly to imply to Michael that he should move out. Mistakenly, Michael thinks that George-Michael is trying to get rid of P-Hound, and arranges a four-person silent vote including George-Michael, a visiting Maeby (Alia Shawkat), P-Hound, and himself to decide who must leave the dorm. But Michael is shocked to discover that he has been unanimously voted out. Crushed by his son's rejection, Michael tries to take solace in being featured in an issue of Altitude, Outwest Airlines' in-flight magazine in which he appears in a column of. The staff at the counter (Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson and Anders Holm) refuse to give him a copy of the magazine, which is reserved for passengers. Michael then purchases a plane ticket to Phoenix, Arizona.

Michael arrives in Phoenix, and returns to Orange Country to squat in his parents' penthouse, but finds the apartment completely trashed. Michael is attacked by an ostrich.

"Flight of the Phoenix" was directed by series creator Mitchell Hurwitz and executive producer Troy Miller, and written by Hurwitz. It was Hurwitz's first directing credit and 19th writing credit, and Miller's first directing credit.^[1]

The season's format is different compared to previous seasons, as each of the 15 episodes focus on one individual character, with every episode happening at the same time within the show's universe, showing the character's activities since the conclusion of the third season. "Flight of the Phoenix" was the first episode of the season to be filmed, and the first of two focusing on Michael.^[2]

Eric Goldman of IGN gave the episode a 7.8 out of 10, saying that while it was nice to see the characters again after this amount of time, the episode, particularly the dorm storyline, felt overly long and lost steam toward the end of the episode.^[3] The Guardian's Hadley Freeman called the episode "a rather depressing kick-off", referring to Michael Bluth's desolate state throughout the episode, but noticed that it was "extraordinary how much Hurwitz packs into each 30 minute episode."^[4] Noel Murray of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B+" grade, calling the dorm vote sequence "the funniest in the whole of Arrested Development to date", and opined that the relaunched show "is a sitcom that’s still pretty much clicking."^[5] In 2019, Brian Tallerico from Vulture ranked the episode 43rd out of the whole series.^[6]

For the 65th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, "Flight of the Phoenix" was honored with two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. Additionally, for the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, Jason Bateman was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for this episode.^[7] Kabir Akhtar and A.J. Dickerson were also nominated for Best Edited Half-Hour Series for Television at the 2014 American Cinema Editors Award for this episode.^[8] Jason Tregoe Newman was nominated for Best Sound Editing in Television – Short Form: Music at the 2014 Golden Reel Award.^[9]

• "Flight of the Phoenix" at IMDb