It’s Rumor Time: Arrested Development season 5 might be a serialized murder mystery

Weaving numerous callbacks into multiple storylines while setting up visual gags was something that Arrested Development seemed to do effortlessly, which is why the news that the fifth season will reportedly be a serialized murder mystery that also sends up Donald Trump sounds both too good to be true and entirely possible. But according to Deadline, creator Mitch Hurwitz recently discussed his true-crime designs for season five while at a party for the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Hurwitz claimed, in conversation with Deadline’s reporter, that plans to make the fifth season a serialized murder mystery have been rattling around in his head for a while, but ongoing negotiations with the show’s players has consumed a lot of his time and delayed production. He hasn’t been so distracted that he’s missed the fact that his season-four border wall and ridiculous Republican candidacy plots have informed real life, though. So while he continues to unravel the Gordian knot that is the Arrested Development cast’s schedules, he’s also disposing of storylines that are no longer timely or appropriate. For example, Hurwitz said he scrapped an idea to have George Bluth (Jeffrey Tambor) disguise himself as a woman to try to get closer to Michael (Jason Bateman) due to Tambor’s role in Transparent. But, just as sure as there’s money in the banana stand, Hurwitz and his writers should be able to find a way to mock a certain orange-faced blowhard for ripping off their show.