Meat the Veals

"Meat the Veals" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It is the 38th overall episode of the series, and was written by supervising producer Barbie Adler and co-executive producer Richard Rosenstock, and directed by Joe Russo. It originally aired on Fox on April 3, 2005.

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 twin 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. In the episode, Michael introduces the Bluths to Ann's conservative parents, hoping to turn them against George Michael and Ann's pre-engagement. Oscar throws Lucille an anniversary party.

Oscar (Jeffrey Tambor) wants to throw Lucille (Jessica Walter) a party to celebrate her wedding anniversary, who had gotten the idea from Buster (Tony Hale), who said that it would show how Oscar has been there for Lucille while George Sr. (Tambor) has been a fugitive. Upon hearing of the party, George Sr. concocts a plan to win back Lucille by renewing his vows, and enlists Gob (Will Arnett) to abduct her and take her to Church of the Good Shepherd. Tobias (David Cross) continues to disguise himself as Mrs. Featherbottom, unaware that everyone knows that it is him. The others are taking advantage of this, with Maeby (Alia Shawkat) getting her ironing done, and Lucille uses him for catering.

George Michael (Michael Cera) has decided to ask Ann if she will get pre-engaged to him, while Michael (Jason Bateman) is against the idea, and meets with Ann's parents, thinking that they will feel the same way. It turns out that they support the pre-engagement, so Michael invites the Veals to the engagement party, thinking that they will see how dysfunctional the Bluths are. However, at the party, the family is surprisingly normal, to Michael's annoyance. He convinces George Michael not to go through with the pre-engagement, but after Ann's mother (Ione Skye) starts kissing Michael on the balcony and George Michael sees this, he goes ahead with it.

George Sr. and Gob, using Franklin, Gob's black puppet, abduct Lucille and take her to the church in which Ann's father (Alan Tudyk), a pastor, is presiding. The whole family arrives at the church, and two fights ensue — one between Oscar and George Sr. over Lucille, and the other between Michael and Pastor Veal over Mrs. Veal. When the police arrive, George Sr. escapes wearing Tobias's Mrs. Featherbottom wig. George Michael talks Ann out of marrying him, however, Ann tries to convince George Michael to have sex together.

Buster's hook hand gets confiscated by the police after a drug dog pounces on him, resulting in Buster using Franklin the puppet as a temporary substitute, despite Lucille's objection.

"Meat the Veals" was directed by Joe Russo, and written by supervising producer Barbie Adler and co-executive producer Richard Rosenstock. It was Russo's tenth and final directing credit, Adler's sixth writing credit and Rosenstock's seventh writing credit.^[1] It was the fifteenth episode of the season to be filmed.^[2]

In the United States, the episode was watched by 5.33 million viewers on its original broadcast.^[3]

The A.V. Club writer Noel Murray called the episode "another late-season-two Arrested Development episode that spins out of control," but then says "who the hell cares?"^[4] Brian Tallerico from Vulture ranked the episode 26th out of the whole series.^[5]

• "Meat the Veals" at IMDb