Netflix Portio de Rossi aka Lindsay on Arrested Development
Lindsay is conspicuously absent again in the second half of Arrested Development Season 5. Where is Portia de Rossi? Can we expect to see Lindsay again in Season 5? Read on for details. This post will have minor spoilers for Season 5 Part 2.
Not only did Lindsay not show up much in the first half of Season 5, but she’s even more conspicuously absent in the second half. And if you’re waiting in every episode to see if she shows up, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
Lindsay does not appear at all in Season 5 Part 2 until the very last episode. We see a younger version of Lindsay earlier, but Portia de Rossi doesn’t return until the Season 5 finale. We won’t reveal any more details than that, so you’re not spoiled.
So why isn’t she around? Portia De Rossi had already retired from acting by the time season 5 was being filmed. That’s why she looked like she was on green screens at times during Season 5 Part 1. She filmed most of her scenes separately from the cast. She did come back for the finale though.
Five episodes into the new season of #ArrestedDevelopment and I’m finally realizing Portia de Rossi was clearly not filming with everyone else
De Rossi, 45, had agreed to come back to the show after she had retired, but only in a limited fashion. She told Mitch Hurwitz that she had no intention of doing a new season of Arrested Development. But he wrote her into five episodes anyway. After this season, she said she’s officially done with all acting and will be focusing on her business, General Public (an art curation and publishing company based on 3D technology.) This will also allow her to focus more on her art, since she’s an artist too.
As for her character, Lindsay, her absence was also kind of explained in Season 5 Part 1. Season 5 Part 2 seems to just ignore that she’s not around, except for a side comment by Michael in Episode 16 about how he “can’t keep Lindsay around,” which you might have missed if you coughed or sneezed.
In the show’s storyline for Season 5, Lindsay decided she was no longer interested in running for office and she took off. She decided this when Lucille stole Maeby’s speech and Lindsay heard the words from her mom that she had always wanted to hear. Only, she suddenly realized that she didn’t need those words like she thought she did. The words weren’t as liberating for her as she thought they would be. That’s when she decided she was done with the campaign and took off, announcing that she was off to find her real family and her birth mother.
We’ve known for some time that Lindsay is not Lucille and George Sr.’s biological daughter. She was adopted at the age of three and grew up believing that she was Michael’s twin sister. (She’s actually three years older than Michael.) In fact, Stan Sitwell almost adopted her, but Lucille and George adopted her first just to be competitive. Her biological mother’s identity has been a mystery.
There’s more to Lindsay’s story that we learn this season, but we’re leaving that out of this article so as not to spoil fans about major plot points.