re: Official: Arrested Development Master Thread All Links Now Included

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I hope so, it was pretty obvious on the rewatch

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1. Tobias is an albino black man:

The Arrested Development writers were known for using a lot of foreshadowing (think of all the references to Buster losing his arm to a seal, none of which will be included here because they’re well-documented elsewhere). One such plot development that the writers started to foreshadow but never followed through on was about Tobias being revealed to be a black man with a rare skin condition.

Arrested Development star Alia Shawkiat spilled the beans in an interview, saying:

“[The writers have] gone on little tangents where you think they're going to start a storyline and they'll pull it back. I remember they were going to do one about Tobias actually being a rare black person, where he would have this rare disease and was actually black. It's these hysterical, crazy ideas that they could have continued on.”

Fox cutting the second and third seasons short might have had something to do with this plotline being dropped, but there are references to Tobias being a black man sprinkled throughout the show. Here are a few:

Tobias: I am surprised that she’s going after somebody so similar to my own type.
(in reference to Lindsay flirting with Ice the Bounty Hunter, from the episode “Good Grief”)

Lindsay: People hear the name Tobias, they think ‘big black guy.’
Tobias: Well, obviously, I’m not a big guy. I’m not a Carl Weathers, par example. (from the episode “Afternoon Delight”)
Lucille: Michael. I was almost attacked last night in my own home. I walk in and there’s a colored man in my kitchen.
Michael: “Colored?” What color was he exactly?
Lucille: Blue. (from the episode “Afternoon Delight”)

Lindsay (to Maeby): I don’t know where that hair of yours came from. (in reference to how Maeby’s frizzy hair hurt her chances in child beauty pageants, from the episode “Notapusy”)

And then, there’s the cover of Tobias’s book, The Man Inside Me:

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