There’s more than money in the banana stand, as Netflix has just green-lit a fifth season of Arrested Development. The new batch of episodes will be released in 2018, and, most importantly, the whole cast will return to play the Bluths, Fünkes, and Pop-Pop. In a statement released earlier today, creator Mitch Hurwitz thanked Netflix for providing a platform to showcase an “erratically behaving family in the building business—and their desperate abuses of power,” which are “really underrepresented on TV these day.” He then rattled off cast members’ names, including Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Alia Shawkat, as well as the names of the Trump kids, presumably ranked from most dangerous to easily forgotten (Tiffany).
Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos noted that the Netflix-based fourth season “marked the first foray by Netflix into original comedy programming and this time, the Bluths will collectively be spending more quality time with their millions of fans around the world.” There’s currently no word on whether that partial prequel news or murder mystery tease still holds water, but the joint statement (issued via press release) has finally put fans out of their speculative misery. In the years since the fourth season debuted, there have been regular non-updates about the simmering fifth season, which frequently asked viewers to adjust their expectations. There was also a lot of talk of scheduling trouble, with everyone from Bateman to Shawkat picking up projects elsewhere. But now everyone’s free to attempt to chicken dance in celebration.