'Arrested Development' Season 5: We don't need it, but we don't hate it

In Arrested Development Season 5, the Bluths can't get over their baggage.

That baggage is the events of Season 4 – which is much more digestible in its current, "remixed" format – a season which many fans disliked after its 2013 release, and a season which took some characters down unusually depressing paths from which they can't fully escape.

One could also point out the external baggage – a damning New York Times interview, outstanding allegations of sexual harassment against Jeffrey Tambor – which makes it discomfiting if not upsetting to watch the Bluths up to their usual shenanigans.

With all that, Arrested Development Season 5 (part 1) has still made its way into the world, and it is, for the most part, of the standard and sensibility that fans of the show would expect. It's not necessary, but it's not bad. All that remains to be seen is if the conversation outside drowns it out.

Season 5 finds our Bluths recovering from the events of Season 4 (which is recapped robustly in case you didn't bother with a rewatch). Lindsay (Portia di Rossi) is running for Congress; Gob (Will Arnett) is ashamed and confused by his affair with rival magician Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller), and Michael (Jason Bateman) and his son (Michael Cera) haven't seen each other since George Michael punched his father after learning they were seeing the same woman (Isla Fisher). Oh, and Buster (Tony Hale) is a person of interest regarding the disappearance of Lucille Austero (Liza Minelli).

Those are the variable Bluths, and then there are the constants: George (Tambor) and Lucille (Jessica Walter), acting as usual out of blind self-interest; Tobias (David Cross), desperate to save his long-dead marriage and D.O.A. acting career; Maeby (Alia Shawkat) trying to get the attention of her oblivious parents.

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Peppered throughout that are classic blink-and-you'll-miss-them AD bits (one involving Michael and his son saying "Ciao" got me every single time) and one-liners, along with old favorites (Henry Winkler once again reprises his role as the Bluths' hapless lawyer, Barry Zuckercorn). There are new faces, too, like Kyle Mooney in a bloated arc as Tobias's thespian protégé, Ron Howard plays himself once again; this time he brings along the whole family, which adds more fuel to the father-son fire blazing between Michael and George Michael.

As the central conflict carried over from Season 4, the strained father-son relationship is surprisingly painful for a show that laughs off all pain. When we met them 15 years ago, these two were huddled in the model home attic, intoning that family matters more than anything. Now they literally use martial arts on each other outside Lucille's penthouse.

The Bluths are creatures of habit, characters who we know and love because of their perpetual stasis (a rejected title for the show, perhaps). A few moments break the mold here and there; Cera, in one scene especially, shows flashes of a George Michael who might be an evil mastermind. He continues to date Rebel (Fisher) and compulsively lies as if genetically predisposed to it (and indeed, he might be).

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The Bluths are giving themselves the Family of the Year Award to earn some goodwill toward Lindsay's congressional run, but as usual, they behave just the opposite, and the family-on-family machinations are dizzying. Michael, now notorious for always coming back to save the family, decides to leave them alone and see what happens, yet finds himself at the epicenter of the insanity while trying to repair his relationship with his son.

At eight episodes, it's a quick binge. It's easier to lose sight of plot and purpose than in the original seasons, but we're here for the tomfoolery padding it. We're here for Tobias trying to impersonate every Bluth, for Maeby's "teeth guy," for the robotic remnants of his Army hand that have Buster feeling, once again, like a monster.

There's no reason for it to exist and it'll never be the original seasons, but AD5 is a suitable and adequate addition to this dysfunctional family. There is comfort, if fleeting, in the sight of these deceptive and deluded people muddling their way through life per usual – as are we all.

Arrested Development Season 5, part 1 is now on Netflix.