Who is George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development?

Show

Arrested Development

Played by

Michael Cera

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired November 2, 2003

Role

Main cast

Network

FOX

Occupation

Banana stand manager, then college student

Show run

2003 to 2019Canceled by FOX in 2006, then revived by Netflix for seasons in 2013 and 2018 to 2019.

Also known as

George-Michael, George-Michael Bluth, Mister Manager

George Michael Bluth is the dutiful, nervous son of Michael Bluth and the proud Mister Manager of the family banana stand. Played by Michael Cera, he tries hard to be the good kid in a family of schemers, which turns out to be much harder than it sounds.

On Arrested Development, George Michael Bluth's story runs through Michael Bluth (Father), Maeby Funke (Cousin and Crush), Lucille Bluth (Grandmother), George Bluth Sr. (Grandfather), Gob Bluth (Uncle), and Buster Bluth (Uncle).

Who is George Michael Bluth?

George Michael is Michael's only child, a high school student in Newport Beach who moves into the Bluth model home with his father after the family's fortune collapses. Michael is raising him alone after the death of George Michael's mother, and the two are close, sometimes smotheringly so. He works at the family's frozen banana stand on the boardwalk, where he carries the title Mister Manager with total sincerity.

He is honest, polite, and eager to please, which makes him an outlier among the Bluths. His father often holds him up as proof that he is a good parent, and George Michael feels the weight of living up to that picture while the rest of the family keeps dragging him into their messes.

Personality and comedy

Much of George Michael's comedy lives in what he cannot quite say. He stammers, freezes, and talks himself into corners, and Michael Cera's quiet, flustered delivery can turn a simple "okay" into a punchline. He treats small jobs and small rules with enormous seriousness, which is how a banana stand starts to feel like a career.

The other engine of his story is his long, mortifying crush on his cousin Maeby, which begins when she kisses him in the pilot as a prank on their oblivious parents. The show treats his guilt and confusion as a running joke, and the narrator rarely misses a chance to point out how uncomfortable the whole thing is.

Key storylines

In the season one finale George Michael starts dating Ann Veal, a devout Christian classmate whom his father can barely stand, and in season two he finishes dead last in a race for class president after Gob makes him a nasty attack video aimed at Steve Holt. Season two ends with him and Maeby finally kissing, and season three keeps them awkwardly circling each other, including an accidental real marriage during what they thought was a pretend wedding in "Fakin' It."

The original run ends with the reveal that Lindsay was adopted, so he and Maeby are not related by blood after all, and George Michael and his father finally leave the family behind for Cabo. The Netflix revival finds him in college at UC Irvine with an app called Fakeblock that began as an electronic woodblock and, thanks to his own white lies, gets mistaken for powerful anti-piracy software. He dates Rebel Alley under the alias George Maharis, discovers that his father is dating her too, and their rift ends with a punch before the two finally reconcile in season five.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Michael Cera was among the very first actors cast in Arrested Development. He was found through an audition tape, flown in to read for Fox, and auditioned alongside Alia Shawkat, and the producers liked the pair right away. When Entertainment Weekly named the show the best of 2005, its review singled out Cera's stunned reactions, along with Jason Bateman's, as the best on TV.

In season four the name is styled with a hyphen, George-Michael, and the character, now in his early twenties, has shed some of his old meekness. Even so, the warm, awkward father and son relationship between George Michael and Michael remains the emotional anchor of the whole series.

George Michael Bluth: frequently asked questions

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