An Unexpected development

Will Arnett And Mitch hurwitz reunite for netflix’s new serio-comedy Flaked

If Arrested Development — yes, even the somewhat patchy fourth season — taught us anything, it’s that if you throw Will Arnett (who played Gob Bluth) and Mitchell Hurwitz (who created the show) together, laughs are pretty much guaranteed. Even their short-lived Fox sitcom, Running Wilde, had its moments. So their reunion on new Netflix show Flaked is surely a cause for celebration. Polish those funny bones, people, you’re going to need them.

“This show’s been much more dramatic than anything I’ve ever done,” says Arnett. Wait, what? “Flaked is not just a lighthearted comedy,” adds co-star Ruth Kearney. “There’s also this sad and serious backdrop.” Huh? What gives? Did we tell people to polish their funny bones for nothing?

Turns out that although Flaked is a comedy, it’s ‘serio-comic’, and Arnett and Hurwitz had loftier goals than making a fiendishly complex laughfest. “We wanted to reflect how we use comedy in our real lives,” says Arnett. “There’s a certain drama that we all carry within us in our lives.”

Arnett, who co-created and co-wrote the show with Mark Chappell (Hurwitz serves here as executive producer), plays Chip, a furniture-store owner and self-confessed guru who gets tangled in a web of lies. “He’s like an unofficial mayor of Venice, he knows everybody, and everybody loves him.” Arnett used to live in the famously ramshackle LA

neighbourhood. “It’s changed a lot since I moved there 15 years ago,” he adds. “Venice is all about reinvention, and the show is about that: reinvention and change.”

Over Flaked’s eight binge-ready episodes, Chip’s world will unravel in a whirlwind of intrigue, deceit and baggage from his less-than-pristine past. There will be opportunities for change, plenty of reinvention, and an honestto-goodness plot driving things along. “With Arrested Development, there was always a bigger story,” says Arnett. “The jokes here aren’t just throwaway bullshit. They’re about something. I think ultimately that’s what people will always really want — a real story.”

FLAKED IS ON NETFLIX FROM MARCH 11.