Forget-Me-Now

"Forget-Me-Now" is the third episode of the third season of the American television satirical sitcom Arrested Development. It is the 43rd overall episode of the series, and was written by co-executive producer Tom Saunders and directed by supervising producer John Amodeo. It originally aired on Fox on October 3, 2005.^[1]

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, The family's new attorney works on George Sr.'s defense as he plans his escape. Michael tries to destroy all evidence of his family so he won't have to introduce them to Rita. Gob demonstrates his "Forget-me-now" pills.

Michael (Jason Bateman), Gob (Will Arnett), Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and Tobias (David Cross) meet with the family's new attorney, Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio) . George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), still under house arrest, sends Larry (Bob Einstein), a surrogate, in his place, wired up to repeat George Sr.'s words and to transmit video back to him. Maeby (Alia Shawkat) begins to date Steve Holt (Justin Grant Wade) to avoid her feelings for George Michael (Michael Cera). Michael meets up with Rita (Charlize Theron) in Wee Britain, but Michael is distracted by a looming Trevor (Dave Thomas). Michael tries to dissuade Rita from her wish to meet his family, and tells her that he doesn't have a family. Michael finds Gob shredding evidence at the office, and tells him to put the evidence somewhere that their father can't get to it, and Lucille (Jessica Walter) arrives at the office to go on a date with George Sr., as filtered through the surrogate. George Sr. formulates a plan for escaping the ankle monitor after seeing a bunch of balloons elevating a person on TV, while, Michael, thinking the model home will be empty, decides to bring Rita over.

Michael checks the house for absence of family members, and is frustrated to find Tobias (David Cross) and Buster (Tony Hale) still there and surrounded by the Bluth family evidence files. Maeby becomes slightly unnerved by the physical expectations of her faster moving relationship with Steve Holt, and tries to cancel their date, but ends up agreeing to him coming over, and George Michael tells Steve Holt that they are cousins. The family tries to help Michael by picking up Rita for their date, while Michael is back at the house trying to conceal the evidence. Lindsay and the cabin car are already on their way to picking up Rita from the school, and when Rita enters the cabin, she feels somewhat threatened by the sudden appearance of people introducing themselves as Michael's family, considering that she had been led to believe that they did not exist. Buster suddenly notices Rita's seal backpack, and the recollection of his seal attack leads him to knock Rita out. Gob drugs Rita with a rohypnol pill to make her forget what happened, and the family dumps her on the side of the road.

Michael prepares for his date with Rita, and dashes off to pick her up, leaving the prepared table. Steve Holt arrives just after Michael leaves, planning to end his relationship with his cousin, but he assumes Maeby prepared the table. Michael finds that he has missed Rita, but later finds a drowsy Rita on the bench, and picks her up. At Balboa Towers, the family greets Michael and shows him their hastily scrawled 'Family Love Michael' banner. Rita suddenly enters, and Buster tells them that he was unknowingly re-enrolled for army duty. As Michael admits his lie about his family to Rita, she leaves, and the family briefly feels superior, but Gob blurts out what happened with Rita and the rohypnol, and he tries to shove a pill down Michael's throat as a way of covering it up. Buster flings his army medal over the balcony, and it hits and sets fire to the balloon bundle that George Sr. is using to float down to the ground, who thuds to the ground and is swiftly caught by waiting police officers. George Michael finds that Maeby has drugged Steve Holt and is now preparing to convince him that they had sex. George Sr.'s crashing balloon fire had caught on to the files that Michael had hidden in the car, which had been parked outside. As Michael tries to reassemble the files, he makes up with Gob after finding out the good intentions behind the family's dealings with Rita.

Lindsay tries to work off a debt she had created with Bob Loblaw by becoming his personal maid, and Steve Holt goes to Gob for help, but Gob drugs himself with rohypnol.

"Forget-Me-Now" was directed by supervising producer John Amodeo and written by co-executive producer Tom Saunders. It was Amodeo's first and only directing credit and Saunder's first and only writing credit.^[2] It was the third episode of the season to be filmed.^[3]

The A.V. Club writer Noel Murray praised the episode, stating that it is "thick with new characters and new running jokes that are among the best-remembered in the series’ whole run."^[4] Brian Tallerico from Vulture ranked the episode 34th out of the whole series, saying that "Some of the Rita stuff is already a little silly at this point, but “Forget Me Now” is saved by some clever love-triangle material as Maeby is torn between George Michael and Steve Holt".^[5] In the United States, the episode was watched by 4.47 million viewers on its original broadcast.^[6]

• "Forget-Me-Now" at IMDb