The Gob Moment On Arrested Development That Went Too Far
"Arrested Development" ran for five total seasons over a period of 16 years–three seasons on Fox from 2003 to 2006, and two more on Netflix in 2013 and 2019. As narrator Ron Howard says at the top of each episode, it's a story "about a wealthy family who lost everything and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together." In each episode, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) usually tries to do right by his family, while his family does everything possible to ruin his efforts.
Michael's brother Gob (Will Arnett) is a particular problem. As a character he's hilarious, but as a human being he's reprehensible. He's a wannabe alpha male doofus who thinks he can skate through life without consequences.
There are many strong candidates for the Gob moment that went too far. He's repeatedly abandoned his biological son Steve Holt (Justin Grant Wade). He's accidentally killed several small animals during his magic routines. He has wildly inappropriate, emotionally manipulative relationships with everyone from his mother's elderly neighbor Lucille II (Liza Minnelli) to his nephew George-Michael's (Michael-Cera) ex-girlfriend Ann (Mae Whitman). All of this behavior makes Gob sound like a monster, but somehow all of this is very funny.
However, this one habit of Gob's is especially disturbing, even for "Arrested Development."
Gob forcibly drugging people has dark implications
Really this is several moments throughout the course of the series, but it's the same gag each time. Early in the series, Gob reveals that he carries a bottle of pills in his pocket which he calls "Forget-Me-Nows" but are in fact roofies. Gob explains that he needs them to give to audience members at his shows who discover how he does his tricks, to make them forget his secrets. But he also uses them whenever he needs someone to forget something.
He gives one to Michael's short-term girlfriend Rita Leeds (Charlize Theron) after Buster accidentally attacks her inside their log cabin on wheels. He gives another to his brother Michael after Michael learns Gob and his rival magician Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller) have been in a relationship. Gob's pills also wind up in his niece Maeby's (Alia Shawkat) hands, and she uses them on Steve.
Obviously, forcibly drugging anyone is reprehensible. Even Gob's normally morally bankrupt family members tell him that his behavior is illegal. Still, each scenario is played for laughs. If there's anything salvaging all this, at least Gob is willing to use Forget-Me-Nows on himself when he wants to erase the memory of something he finds unpleasant, like a heart-to-heart chat with Steve.