Missing Kitty

"Missing Kitty"
Arrested Development episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 16
Directed by	Joe Russo
Written by	Mitchell Hurwitz John Levenstein
Production code	1AJD15
Original air date	March 28, 2004
Guest stars
BW Gonzalez as Lupe John Beard as Himself Judy Greer as Kitty Sanchez David Reynolds as White Power Bill James Lipton as Warden Stefan Gentles
Season 1 episodes
November 2003 – June 2004 Pilot Top Banana Bringing Up Buster Key Decisions Visiting Ours Charity Drive My Mother, the Car In God We Trust Storming the Castle Pier Pressure Public Relations Marta Complex Beef Consommé Shock and Aww Staff Infection Missing Kitty Altar Egos Justice Is Blind Best Man for the Gob Whistler's Mother Not Without My Daughter Let 'Em Eat Cake
All Arrested Development episodes

"Missing Kitty" is the sixteenth episode aired of TV comedy series Arrested Development.

Plot

The local colleges are on spring break and things are heating up in Newport Beach. Gob is teaching George Michael some (unsuccessful) magic tricks, to Michael's disapproval. He now plans to make the family yacht disappear with George Michael's help, and even suggests they might meet some co-eds along the way.

Michael and Lindsay discuss the office secretary, Kitty, who's been out with "a chest thing." Lindsay wonders why she hasn't gotten Maeby's annual birthday check from Nana, Lucille's mother (she says she's been investing them). She and Maeby go to Nana's home; the woman who lives there is not Nana, which they don't realize for some time. Meanwhile, Tobias is still researching his role of Frightened Inmate #2, George Sr. has just traded him to White Power Bill for a pack of cigarettes.

Michael arrives at work to find that Kitty's "chest thing" was breast implants. Kitty says she's taking a vacation week; Michael says she can't, and then fires her when she starts to walk out anyway. Later, Michael is called to the prison, where George Sr. tells him that he can't fire Kitty because he doesn't have hiring and firing power. Michael realizes that George Sr. paid for Kitty's new breasts. George tells Michael that he has been corrupted by power, as he himself once was (he even fired his own twin brother, (Oscar, once). And Kitty, who was sleeping with George Sr., has access to a lot of information, so George pleads with Michael to hire her back.

Lucille has decided to use new son Annyong as her purse. Lindsay consults her mother about Nana; Lucille says she's on a cruise. In fact, Lucille's mother had been dead for six months (Lucille fears that the family will come after the inheritance when they find out). Meanwhile, Gob is performing magic on the yacht with George Michael. Michael, looking for Kitty, sees that George Michael likes and admires his uncle. He suggests George Michael work for him at the office, then tells Gob to leave his son alone. Over at the prison, Tobias plays therapist to White Power Bill; he gets Bill to realize that he hates himself. Bill then commits suicide. The other inmates hail Tobias as "Dorothy," who killed the Wicked Witch. Michael tries to re-hire Kitty, but ends up re-firing her instead.

George Michael starts filling in for Kitty. Lindsay discusses Nana with Michael, fearing that Lucille has sent her to a retirement home. Maeby convinces George Michael find out how Gob makes the yacht disappear, but Gob (as instructed by Michael) sends him away. Tobias, now in a position of power at the prison, confronts George Sr. about his hatred for him. On the beach, Gob does indeed make the yacht disappear. After the show, he tells the family that he sank it, and now they can collect the insurance. Lucille suddenly announces Nana was on the yacht, but Lindsay says Nana has been dead for six months. For a minute everyone thinks George Michael had been on the yacht, but he wasn't. Kitty, however, was. The episode ends with her floating in the sea, clutching a cooler of evidence.

Episode Notes

• This was originally intended to be episode 16, instead of "Altar Egos," which aired before it. In this episode, Tobias is still practicing for his role as "Frightened Inmate #2," and there are no references to Gob's wife or Maggie Lizer.
• The titular “kitty” refers to both money and Ms. Sanchez.

Cultural references

• The DVD series Girls with Low Self Esteem is a satirical reference to the real-life series of DVDs titled Girls Gone Wild, in which a camera crew gets college-aged girls to expose themselves and sometimes perform sex acts on camera in exchange for a t-shirt.
• Warden Gentles states that the only man he has ever called a coward is Brian Doyle-Murray.
• "Dorothy": Tobias is called “Dorothy” after he “kills” White Power Bill, referring to The Wizard of Oz, in which the character of Dorothy kills the Wicked Witch. The expression "friend of Dorothy" is a slang term for homosexual. This is also a callback to the TV series about prison life called Oz which we learned in an earlier flashback had traumatized young George Michael (he thought it was the real Wizard of Oz). Tobias sings "somewhere over the rainbow, there's another rainbow," an incorrect rendition of the song in the film The Wizard Of Oz.

Foreshadowing/Future References

• Before his magic show, we can see Gob wiring the yacht with explosives.
  • At the beginning of the illusion, Gob says, "Anyone can make the Queen of Diamonds disappear..." and then sinks the yacht. In the series finale, Lucille tries to flee on the Queen Mary.
• When seen at the end of the episode with Kitty, the chest with confidential files is labeled "H. MADDAS," which is Saddam H. backwards. However, it can been seen earlier behind George Sr. and Kitty in bed as "H. MADDAZ," where the Z looks like an S in the mirror in the room. This will make sense after the revelations in "Let 'Em Eat Cake."
• Señor Tadpole's is the restaurant Kitty mentioned she went to. Kitty is wearing a Señor Tadpole's shirt in "The One Where They Build a House."
• In the "On the Next" tease it is revealed that Annyong is, in fact, 18 (he was supposed to be an orphan in need of adoption). It also connects with Lucille's remark that she has put a significant sum of money in a trust fund for him that she controls "until he is 18."
• The season 2 episode "Spring Breakout" is a continuation of "Missing Kitty":
  • Gob reveals that he hates spring break because his failed magic acts were shown on a Girls with Low Self-Esteem video; in "Missing Kitty," he tells Michael he loves spring break.

External links

• The-OP.com
• FOX
• Missing Kitty at the Internet Movie Database