Questions about Season 4

by Cress221

Summary:

These are my notes on the season four timeline on Netflix, so this will obviously contain MAJOR SPOILERS for all the plots. So please don't read this if you haven't seen all the episodes. This is intended for people who did watch the whole season, but were still left confused afterward by the chronology.

Notes:

I disagree with the Narrator several times, as shown in my story Dirty Little Secret, so I thought I'd post my reasoning for my plot decisions. I also disagree with other timelines posted on the internet, which often assume that the Narrator is right that only "one year" passes when Lindsay and Marky live in the penthouse, or "one year" when Lucille wouldn't let Buster visit her in prison. Those years cannot be possible except in magic time, and the whole timeline is fucked up. Some comments in bold or parentheses point out the contradictions that don't make sense.

As fucked up as it is, I loved season four for how ambitious it was. It might have worked if they'd changed some of the narration.

Chapter 1: Before Michael Quits

Continuing from season 3, everyone attends the Queen Mary party on Feb 10, 2006 (when Development Arrested aired during the Olympics opening ceremony).

1. At the sight of police boats, Stan Sitwell calls Lucille 2 and sells her all his Bluth Company shares. Lucille 2 calls Lucille and fights with her, then Lucille decides to turn the ship around so she can go flip off Lucille 2 in person. The ship crashes into a jetty and flips onto its side, getting many passengers wet.
2. Meanwhile, Michael discovers George on the yacht, and George talks him into returning to the family. They and George Michael arrive at the Coast Guard station where the others are gathered. (Other timelines call this place the "harbormaster's lodge" but Lucille said that was some place else that Barry Zuckerkorn went to.)
3. For an alibi, Lucille considers claiming that she was helping the gay sailors get married at sea, but Lindsay points out her anti-gay record (the magazine cover with Buster), so Lucille claims that they took it for a "joy ride" instead. The magazine cover references Proposition 8, which passed in the 2008 election, two years in the future.
4. A coast guard officer tells George "you're lucky we didn't have an autumn" implying that this is late 2006. If they had "a fourth season" the water would have been colder.
5. Gob's animals for his planned magic show all drowned when the Queen Mary flipped over. When GM arrives at the station, Gob pesters him into saying "yes we are good" but then gets depressed with "The Sound of Silence" music.
6. On a gurney, Maeby fake coughs hoping to get attention from her parents, then talks to George Michael about being just cousins. They also discuss their upcoming high school graduation, and Maeby says "I've got two whole months to flunk," implying that this is March 2006 rather than autumn 2006. Which is it?
7. By the "victims" area, Lindsay talks to Tobias, saying that her life is a fallacy. Mentioning the running joke about Tobias being gay, she thinks that they should give up the sham marriage and move on. (Tobias quickly mentions the names of the Hot Cops: Kenny, Chet, Curtis, Mike, Bix, and Gator.) Giving Tobias the cold shoulder, Lindsay sits on the victim side, while he sits next to Gob, who's depressed. "You look like I feel." "Gay?"
8. Barry tells Lucille and George that he can get the SEC charges dropped, but pirating the Queen Mary falls under maritime law. There will be a hearing in 3 months. (In 1982, Barry was the one to suggest that they could escape any crime by going out to sea. He had just finished 3 years of law school in the Virgin Islands.)
9. Buster complains that he fell off the ship, and Lucille didn't come to rescue him. She latches onto that as a cover story for her crime, claiming that she did try to rescue Buster. He doesn't understand Lucille's hinting, though, and she gets dragged away by the Coast Guard.
10. Michael tells Buster that there's 400 witnesses to the shipjacking, and that he can't do anything for their mother. Buster whimpers.
11. To get money to pay for Lucille's legal fees, George tries to sell his Bluth Company shares to Stan Sitwell, who refuses. But he brags about having a new government project, and they fight over their hair. With his phone, George takes a picture of a building plan with a wall and bushes; later he shows it to Lucille while she is detained at the Coast Guard station. Lucille believes that Sitwell's plan is a wall on the border between the US and Mexico, to keep out immigrants. (A close up of Sitwell's building plans shows the date "printed 8/13/2012", which is frankly impossible and wrong.)
12. George runs into Oscar at the Balboa country club and meets his maca obsessed friends Dr. Norman, China Garden, and Heartfire. Hearing that Oscar squats on land at the border, George visits it and offers to buy the land so that they won't get kicked off.
13. Gob ends up getting engaged, and but he knows he's made a huge mistake.
14. With no Lucille, Lupe, or George around, Buster is alone at the penthouse for two days and doesn't know how to cook. He just makes dozens of drinks for Lucille and goes stir-crazy. Using the sewing machine pretty well despite his hook, he makes a fake Lucille and dresses her up. He's collapsed with it on the couch when Lucille comes home.
15. Lucille is under house arrest at the penthouse, and new waterproof security cameras are installed. A bedroom door is damaged, which will be fixed three months later during the family meeting/congratulations party. (Unless that's the remodeling of Buster's room that he mentions at the party.)
16. George tells Lucille about buying the 4000 acres of land, and they plot to sell the land to the government, while also getting paid to build the wall on it. They decide to pretend that they are divorcing, and George will live on the desert land with Oscar and his friends.
17. George wonders if Lucille will be okay living alone with Buster. She says she'll be fine and will make him go on the balcony if he's annoying. So during the first three months alone, they play "guess my fur" six times a day and she uses Buster as a loophole so that she can smoke without triggering her ankle bracelet by approaching the balcony. Lupe is never seen again.
18. Meanwhile, Maeby hires Kitty to work for her at Imagine Entertainment (they must have hired Maeby from Tantamount after the movie pitch to Ron Howard) to help her on the film about her family. Maeby is also 17 and hoping Kitty will buy her beer.
19. At the model home, Lindsay reads Eat, Pray, Love, then packs to go to India. She uses Tobias's matching circular suitcase, but tosses out Maeby's photos. Tobias also reads the book and packs for India, then fights with Lindsay about "a new start" saying he just bought a new license plate. That's why she doesn't recognize it when she's in a cab behind his car. Tobias drives erratically because he dressed in a sheet, and it blows in the wind. The car is a dark red Volkswagon Cabriolet convertible, with the "ANUSTART" license plate.
20. It's now high school graduation time (May 2006?), and Maeby discovers that her parents have left town. Rather than go to the ceremony, she leaves for India to film Gangie 5 on the Ganges, apparently on the same flight with her parents. While she's gone, Kitty puts the movie about the Bluths on hold, telling someone on the phone that Maeby didn't even get her family to sign releases for the rights to the story. But wait, if graduation is two months after the Queen Mary boat party, then why are Lindsay and Tobias both still living in the model home? Didn't Lindsay want to leave Tobias immediately after the Queen Mary? Or did she have to stay because she had no money for a divorce?
21. On the flight to India, Tobias keeps getting stuff spilled on his sheet. He goes into the bathroom to clean it, then gets stuck trying to retie his sheet. When he gets back to his seat, he keeps pushing hard against the digital display of Lindsay's seat back (the narrator says that he did it for four hours), so she shoves back hard.
22. Lindsay accidentally takes Tobias's suitcase at the airport, then gets on a shuttle bus to the hotel. The bus hits Tobias right outside the airport, and he spends two weeks in the hospital with the Literal Doctor, who is training the staff. Tobias's skull gets broken in more places from falling off the gurney and bed.
23. When Lindsay discovers that she has the wrong suitcase, she does not recognize Tobias's pirate shirt (which used to be her own shirt in the pilot). She wears the shirt to go shopping on the mall mountain and buys knockoffs. Back at the hotel, Maeby spots Lindsay in the lobby and gets into disguise as a shaman. She pesters her mom to remember her and go home. Lindsay finally does recall that she has a daughter, but she somehow believes that Maeby is away at boarding school in England. Lindsay thinks "love is where you left it" must refer to Tobias.
24. The hotel throws Lindsay out because her credit card is maxed out. An ostrich appears in the courtyard. Lindsay calls Lucille, who will pay her money if she testifies that Lucille is a good mother at her trial. So Lindsay goes home, but she must have stayed two weeks, for she came back on the same plane with Tobias. He gets hit by her chair at the same time that she is making a phone call to reconcile with him. He is unable to move for hours afterward.
25. Home in America, Lindsay gets back together with Tobias, apparently having seen the credit card statements about their trip to India. Tobias says it was their Mastercard bill, while the hotel mentioned Lindsay's American Express card. Perhaps she maxed out the Amex on her shopping spree on the mountain. They still don't know that Maeby was there in India.