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Not only is Arrested Development returning to Netflix for season five, it's planning to grab the news cycle by the throat and make us laugh at it.
Deadline reports that the comedy's fifth season — its second on the streaming service, which resurrected the cult favorite series in 2013 after it was canceled by Fox in 2006 — will be a serialized murder mystery. Season five will also follow up on a season four plot in which the narcissistic Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) proposed building an impenetrable wall along the Mexican border.
It's no surprise, then, that Deadline has summarized this news with the headline, "Arrested Development Season 5: Making A Murderer Meets Donald Trump."
However, series creator Mitch Hurwitz insists that the murder mystery element was already in play for season five, and that the recent surge of true crime productions like Making a Murderer, Serial, and The Jinx is just a bonus. And, to be fair, Lindsay's aggressive cure-all for US-Mexican border relations was, indeed, proposed before Donald Trump descended an escalator and launched his presidential campaign.
But Hurwitz is no fool, and undoubtedly knows the show will likely benefit from echoing these giant stories in the current pop culture consciousness. He therefore told Deadline that he wants to release Arrested Development season five before the presidential election in November.
The only problem with that plan? He hasn't even started scripting the episodes, thanks to complex, ongoing negotiations with the increasingly busy Arrested Development cast.
So by the time season five actually drops on Netflix, who knows what it will be? Depending on what happens over the next few months, maybe it will turn out to be less "Making a Murderer meets Donald Trump" and more "Empire meets Marco Rubio"; either way, it should be pretty damn interesting.
