Buster fails to show for his own prison release party. Michael examines company financial records. George-Michael seeks Anonymous help to deceive Rebel.
Wordplay and character quirks sustain a mid-tier episode struggling for impact momentum.
Directed by Troy Miller · Written by Hallie Cantor
WAR
165
Wins Above Replacement
“Unexpected Company” ranks #26 of 84 Arrested Development episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 96.5 — Elite. The episode packs 100 scored jokes at 2.9 per minute, averaging 7.7 on craft and 7.6 on impact, with Gob landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
George Sr. · Lucille: I'm alive. / Only because Michael drives an electric car.
Adhir · Gob: Those places don't work. There's no such thing as a program that can change someone. It's a way for hypocrites to try to convince the world that they're now straight. / Without using magic.
Adhir Gob Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Lucille: Yeah, once I learned how to do it with my parents, it was easy with everyone else. It's like a heart switch. Click. I love you. Click. I love you not.
Lucille Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Rebel · George Michael: Oh, my goodness. Fakeblock is so impressive. / Yeah. / I mean, Fakeblock's incredible. / Fakeblock is... / Yeah, Fakeblock is real.
Michael · Adhir: And does Gob know that we're copresidents? / Gob doesn't know that there's a B in the word 'debt.'
All Jokes — 100 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Lucille · George Sr.: Why do we have to have a party every time someone in this family is released from prison? / Tradition.
Lucille · George Sr.: Like that god-awful thing you used to make me do on your birthday. / Cook?
Lucille · Michael: Not in front of the grandkids. I don't want them to know about the shady business scams that go on in this family. / We lied to investors, so we have no product and we're two million dollars in debt.
Michael · Lucille: The next welcome home party's gonna be for us. / Oh, don't be ridiculous. My name isn't on anything.
Rebel: Know what? I've never been attracted to handsome men.
Rebel Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement George Michael: We've just been busy with all our coding and all the goddamn... coding and, um... also programming.
Lucille · George Michael: So stop having feelings for her. / What? Is that something you can do with people?
Lucille: Yeah, once I learned how to do it with my parents, it was easy with everyone else. It's like a heart switch. Click. I love you. Click. I love you not.
Lucille Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch George Michael: No, but in my defense, I'm not a sociopath.
George Sr.: Click. [George Sr. turns off feelings for George Michael]
Narrator: Gob still had a very uncomfortable 'heart on' for his friend Tony.
Narrator Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Gob: I mean, if he really is gay, he can try to hide it, but trust me, it will come out in the most unexpected balls.
Gob Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy ★ Rewatch George Michael · Gob: Excuse me, 'balls'? You realize you just said 'balls'? / But you said balls. / Oh, well, that's three times I'm hearing balls now.
George Michael: That's the sign of a healthy business. It's closed in the middle of a Tuesday, and the owner's locked out.
George Michael · Narrator: Oh, shit. That's who the note was from.
David · David's Mom: Mom, don't say my name! [David/Anonymous member breaks cover]
Anonymous member: I understand you've ignored my cousin Kevin's... I mean, Anonymous' other warning.
Gob: Hey, that's perfect. Those guys will ruin your life. Hey, where did you find those guys?
Gob Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm George Michael: Gay Gob's funny.
Gob: You bet your balls I can get you some Guy Fawkeses. / Don't hold your balls. I would not hold my balls on that one.
Gob Running Gag Wordplay/Pun Callback Lucille: Oh, speaking of maniacs, let's watch this again.
Lucille Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Lucille: Well, it's not you! [responding to 'Is that Oscar?']
Lucille Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Oscar: Buster's in jail? My boy. My boy.
Oscar Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Michael: So they escaped from prison a half hour before he was gonna be legally released?
Michael Observational Deadpan/Understatement Lucille: He's got a lot of spunk. I like that on a guy.
Lucille Character Comedy Wordplay/Pun Lucille: Or worse, she could come back, and they would charge us with embezzlement.
Lucille Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch George Sr.: And perhaps we will find each other along the way.
George Sr.: Just as I found my son, I lost him. And just as I lost my wife, I found my replacement wife, but then I lost her. I have nobody.
Maeby · George Sr.: Well, you got me, Dad. / Not now, Maeby. / I have... what? Like, one person.
Narrator: Click. [Second callback to the heart switch]
Narrator Callback Running Gag ★ Rewatch Callback Adhir · Michael: We forgot the debt. / Basically, what we did was we absorbed everything, including you.
Michael · Adhir: And does Gob know that we're copresidents? / Gob doesn't know that there's a B in the word 'debt.'
Tobias · Family in attic: I've got slices of stale gummy bear, hard candies and a spare rib. / Could I have the spare rib? / Just joshing. It's stale gummy bear.
Tobias: It takes a lot out of me, but they like to look at me as the sticky white glue that holds the family together.
Tobias Character Comedy Wordplay/Pun ★ Rewatch Callback Tobias: I promise... nay, vow that you will always have a roof over... Ow! / Roof balls!
Tobias Physical/Slapstick Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Tobias · family: Just until I can support us on my actor salary. / Oh... / Quiet. You can be excited, but quietly.
Oscar · Buster: I probably shouldn't have chained us together. / No, no, I should've brought a key.
Oscar · Buster: Keystone Cops would've made a meal out of this. / Yeah.
Oscar · Buster: Wait a minute. It's a fake hand. How can it hurt? / No, it's a rental from prison, and Mother said my next hand is gonna be out of my own pocket.
Oscar Buster Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Callback Oscar · Buster · Narrator: Left, right. Left, right... So we always start with left. Smooth and easy. Lemon squeezy. And... left... It wasn't a good system.
George Sr.: Wha... No, I didn't know it was on. I mean, I would never purposefully run a car with the garage door closed with the family in crisis.
Michael: You know, Dad, this is an electric car. So, the only thing you're killing is my battery.
Michael Setup/Punchline Deadpan/Understatement George Sr.: Is that funny? I... Oh, God, I can't get anything right.
Michael: Meanwhile, your mother is banging every beach rat that ever dropped out of a race.
Michael Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Dusty: Care to join me for a glass of breakfast wine?
Dusty Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Michael: Or Uncle Oscar did, I don't know. I lost the thread on that one.
Michael Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Michael · Narrator: Boy, you have to have balls of steel to survive in a hole like that. / And the same could be said for prison.
Adhir · Gob: K means thousand. / Can you believe Adhir just expected me to know that? I must've told him K times, 'You gotta help me with these things.'
Adhir Gob Character Comedy Wordplay/Pun ★ Rewatch Michael · Adhir · Gob: And $10,000 for a printer? / 10K. / Good Gob. Good K.
Gob · Michael: Well, to be fair, it's a 3-D printer. / Why do we need a 3-D printer? / Well, to be fair, it's a 3-D dental printer. / But they're worth twice what I got them to leave them here for... what do we care if it takes two and a half hours to print some molars?
Michael · Gob: Can you just get me a copy of the receipt? / Hey, you want to spend a couple hundred bucks on a 3-D receipt, I'll have it printed and in your mouth before sunset.
Michael Gob Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Michael · Gob: Where are you getting your capital? / Capital money.
Adhir · Gob: Well, I can only look at the Bluth books. / The Austero books are for British eyes only, as they say. / ♪ For British eyes only ♪
Gob: There's only room at this company for one copresident. What's next? You're gonna want one of my parking spaces, Michael?
Gob Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Michael · Gob: I'm just here to help. I'm not going to trump you. / Oh, well, Michael, don't worry, 'cause I already went there. / ♪ Balls in the air... ♪
Adhir: Would you be terribly offended if I offered you a candy?
Adhir Character Comedy Reaction Beat Adhir: And your mother has my passport, so why don't we say that I was never here? An absolute professional pleasure to have met you.
Adhir Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Michael · Gob: You know, the easy choice would be to quit. / There it is. / We've got an opportunity to save the company... / I quit.
Michael Gob Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Gob: They think I'm too stupid to... [pause, candy] Help yourself. / Yeah. You know what's funny? They think that I'm too stup... [longer pause, still eating candy]
Gob Physical/Slapstick Character Comedy Callback Michael: I shouldn't have called it the easy choice.
Michael Deadpan/Understatement Reaction Beat Callback Oscar · Buster: Now, we cannot draw attention to ourselves. / I'm just a guy fixing a broken hand. / Right. And I'm... I'm just a guy who's wearing a blue hat. / Nothing to see here, folks.
Oscar: I think I saw William Shatner wearing this while riding a bicycle once.
Oscar Absurdist Character Comedy Buster: It sort of reminds me of Mother's hand, except it's less veiny and warmer.
Buster Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Callback Narrator: Meanwhile, Gob was preparing to walk out of a job he'd put over eight hours of his life into.
Narrator Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Gob: This is just as tough for you as it is for me. Tougher, maybe. Man without a king.
Gob Character Comedy Absurdist Gob: I'm gonna miss this view. / Rite Aid roof as far as you can see.
Gob Visual Gag Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Gob · Adhir: He should've thought of that before he fired me. / You do know that Michael didn't fire you, you quit. / As any proud gay man would do in the face of such bigotry.
Gob: But I guess I don't need to tell that to a little Indian guy, huh? Michael's not your friend either. / You should've seen the look on his face when I do my impression of you. You know... 'What's the problem with Apu?'
Gob Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Adhir · Gob: Just one more thing before I have security drag you out. Why are you claiming that the closet conversion company was a religious write-off? / Because I went there to become straight.
Adhir · Gob: Those places don't work. There's no such thing as a program that can change someone. It's a way for hypocrites to try to convince the world that they're now straight. / Without using magic.
Adhir Gob Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Gob: So I just tell the world that I'm gay, and that I'm going to one of those? And then I come out straight.
Gob Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Callback Gob: I didn't understand a word you just said, little guy.
Gob Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Rebel · George Michael: You know Betty White has this same car? / You know Betty White? / We share a weed dealer.
Anonymous · George Michael: We are Anonymous. / Oh, shoot, not again.
George Michael · Rebel: Online hacking I can deal with, it's just the day that they show up in person that I'm dreading. / But you can't live in fear, so... let's go. Whatever happens, happens.
Stan Sitwell · Oscar · Buster: Oscar and Buster encounter Stan Sitwell in the hospital — Stan immediately says 'Please don't hurt me.'
Buster · Stan Sitwell · Oscar: Could we stay at your place? / You're taking me as a hostage in case the cops see us? / Hey, guy, I wouldn't know about that. / We can pretend we're cousins.
Buster: Right behind you, cousin-father.
Buster Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Callback George Michael · Rebel: You hired a bunch of foxy guys to protest me because I said I hated hot guys. / 'Rebel.' 'Unfair.' / I was reading that as rebel.
Protester · Rebel: I went as you for Halloween last year. / Yes, I went as you for Halloween last year. / Can we get a picture?
Rebel · George Michael: Oh, my goodness. Fakeblock is so impressive. / Yeah. / I mean, Fakeblock's incredible. / Fakeblock is... / Yeah, Fakeblock is real.
George Sr. · Lucille: Lucille, my lady, my love. Do you remember our first date, at that little Italian restaurant? / ♪ How did I ever find you? ♪ / You took me for Chinese. The Italian place was the first time I caught you with your secretary, and you asked, 'How did you ever find me?'
Lucille: That's it. All right. Get out. Go back to the Macaroni Grill.
Lucille Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Callback George Sr. · Lucille: I want you, Lucille. / In what way, George? / Sexually? / Yes. / Sexual-ish-ly.
George Sr. · Lucille: Look, here's the deal. I can't... get hard. I... / Live without me. / It's really getting hard, uh, to live without you.
George Sr. · Lucille · George Sr.: He didn't say a word until we fired the wet nurse. / He didn't stop talking about that for three years. / Until we caved.
Lucille · George Sr.: He better not have started talking. / No, I meant originally. Like, when he was three. / Five. / Five. / He didn't say a word until we fired the wet nurse. / He didn't stop talking about that for three years. / Until we caved.
Lucille · George Sr.: That makes life worth living? / I was actually gonna say that we should keep from the DA, but can you tell me why life is worth living again?
Lucille · George Sr.: He loves music, he plays me songs on the guitar. You know, hey, I just brought the assistant manager of the Macaroni Grill over here during his lunch shift. It set me back a sawbuck. It's a third of what you are giving me to live off these days.
Lucille · George Sr.: Yeah, that's another thing Dusty doesn't complain about, his allowance. / You give him an allowance? / He doesn't get one. He's very wealthy. He made a lot of money in his law career. And he's fun. He surfs.
George Sr. · Lucille: I'm alive. / Only because Michael drives an electric car.
Lucille: Trust me, the whole 'trying to kill yourself' thing, turn off.
Lucille Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Callback George Sr.: I think I need to show you that I am a fun guy who likes to laugh and is open to not killing himself.
George Sr.: I think I need to show you that I am a fun guy who likes to laugh and is open to not killing himself.
George Sr. · Lucille: I don't call it that, I call it 'a cry for help,' but I think help has just arrived and it's saying, 'Cry for fun!' / Don't cry at all. / Don't cry. Don't die. And have some fun.
Narrator: Hurt people, hurt people.
Narrator Wordplay/Pun Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch George Sr. · Beach vendor: NEXT: George Sr. at the beach — 'I would like an hour on the funnest thing you have.' / 'We got a tandem bike.' / 'Unless you're alone, then it's the saddest thing.' / 'Second-funnest thing you have.' / 'We got the ball.'
Narrator · George Sr. · Bystanders: And soon, finds himself having a ball. / Don't cry, don't die. Don't cry, don't die. / Help me. / Don't die! / It sounds like he said, 'Don't help me.' / I heard, 'Help me die.' / Either way, it looks like he's having fun.
Gob · Conversion Therapist · Gob · Gob · Gob · Conversion Therapist · Gob: Anyway, that's why I came here. I'm ready to convert. / Our church runs a program that sees confused men through a very difficult time. / Perfect. Sign me up for that. / This isn't one of those places where, like, they get you to quit smoking by making you smoke tons of cigarettes until you're like, 'Oh, no, no more...' You know what I mean? / I don't want you to think I'm a whore. / No one would suggest that. Um, shall we get on our knees? / Oh, are we starting?
Gob · Church counselor: Gob at the conversion therapy church: 'This isn't one of those places where, like, they get you to quit smoking by making you smoke tons of cigarettes until you're like, Oh, no, no more...' / 'I don't want you to think I'm a whore.' / 'No.' / 'Shall we get on our knees?' / 'Oh, are we starting?'
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