Arrested Development: Red Hairing, Review
A red herring is a logical fallacy intended to be misleading. A wild goose chase. The Cake is A LIE!!!
With so many levels going into every scene, and in some cases every line according to Jessica Walter, it’s not surprising that the Arrested Development writers drop a few subtle philosophy terms here and there just to keep us thinking. “Red Hairing” is a play on “red herring“, a logical fallacy in which a piece of information is intended to be misleading or distracting from the actual question or action. Portia de Rossi’s underwhelming performance in her first episode led us to believe that Lindsay is best suited to be supported by her all-star cast, rather than carry her own mini spin-off. Her second go-around suggests that Lindsay is more vital to the successful episode of Arrested Development than we realized. Maybe it was on purpose. If I remember my freshman year philosophy teacher correctly, they wrote Lindsay into one giant a red herring.Lindsay proclaims her life to be a fallacy in her first episode but moving to the desert to live on an ostrich farm with her activist boyfriend is one way for Lindsay to reassess the direction she is heading in. There can only be so much joy in Lindsay finding happiness in a relationship, so the destruction of her yearlong romance with Marky Bark is where we garner a lot of the humor in “Red Hairing”. Marky Bark displayed a ton of potential in “Indian Takers” and he came back with an even quirkier showing by flawlessly pulling off a slew of face blindness gags. His unruly behavior triggered some of the old Lindsay, as she begs for another man’s attention and realizes that as much as she wants to live the activist lifestyle, she’s an OC girl through and through.Guest star Terry Crews commands attention with every smooth line he drops as Herbert Love, an eccentric, sex-crazy republican politician. His fling with Lindsay, or her “throwback” alias ‘Cindy Featherbottom’, will unfortunately last only one episode, but it appears that his coma has created the best female political candidate since Sarah Palin. By the end of the episode, we see a stronger Lindsay than ever before. She got all the help she needed from an excellent crop of guest stars that pushed the character to commit “a random act of senseless non-violence”, and find out who is she really is. In her dinner scene with Michael, Rebel and Herbert, Lindsay has a revelation that leads her to choose between helping Marky or Herbert. In Lindsay fashion, she lets the rich politician dictate her choice until he breaks off their romance, which eventually leads her to rally support for building the wall.Her political aspirations set up an interesting storyline for future episodes and could be the fuel Lindsay needs to vault herself into the elite of this all-star cast. Lindsay proved that she can carry an episode at times, but even more encouraging are the interactions between Lindsay and the rest of the Bluth’s, which is a welcome sign that she has plenty of magic left.
Herbert Love’s Political Jargon:
“Is there anything better than the great American scallop?”
“That is one redhead I don’t want to have sexual relations with!”
“Here’s a severance package for servicing my package”
Den Of Geek Score: 3 Out Of 5 Stars
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Chris Longo is the director of editorial and partnerships for Den of Geek. His past work has appeared in USA Today, The Journal News, Metro New York, and AM…