There is an old Marx Brothers joke from the movie Duck Soup. Groucho is called upon to defend his brother Chico in a court of law and in the course of the chicanery and puns says, “Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

This same truth applies to the television series Arrested Development. That is, the show’s title refers to Freud’s theory of the stages of sexual development, it features several story arcs wherein family members either compete with one another sexually or harbor incestuous desire for one another, and the character Buster is clearly a victim of an Oedipus complex. He just can’t escape his mother’s clutches.

The show sounds Freudian and even acts Freudian. But, we shouldn’t let that fool us. It really is Freudian.

• Michael: Can’t a guy…