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child’s enjoyment of his mother’s affection.9 Because of this resentment, the boy wishes his father would disappear. But the father steps in and prohibits anything from happening. The child would like to take the mother for his wife, but the father poses a daunting threat. This causes the child to repress or turn away from the Oedipus complex. In other words, the complex is pushed into the realm of the unconscious. The frustration toward the father and the affection toward his mother remain unknown to the child, that is, unless we’re talking about Buster Bluth—but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Ernest Jones, Freud’s official biographer, writes that a failed repression of the Oedipus complex might result in the boy being abnormally attached to his mother and therefore “unable to love any other woman.”10 Even if the boy could detach himself from the love for his mother, the weaning would always be incomplete and the boy would perpetually fall in love “only with women who in some way resemble the mother.”11 Buster’s relationship with Lucille Two is a perfect example of this: Not only is Lucille Two around Lucille One’s age, they also share the same name! Buster makes no bones about his relationship with Lucille Two in the episode “Marta Complex.”

Buster: Our relationship doesn’t work?

Lucille 2: No, not as long as you keep getting me all mixed up with your mother.

Buster: It is exactly the opposite. I’m leaving my mother for you. You’re replacing my mother.

George Sr. even needs to remind Buster of the father’s prohibition in the episode “Justice Is Blind.” Hours before his arrest, he says to Buster:

George Sr: No, no, no. Let me help you with that, son. Enjoy yourself tonight. Because you are out of here. I’m not going to spend my retirement watching you wipe your nose on your sleeve.

Buster: I can’t breathe, Dad.

George Sr: (Gritting his teeth) Neither can I!!

From Buster’s Motherboy mission “Operation Hot Mother” to calling his sister his new mother (“And is it just me, or is she looking hotter, too?”), most of Buster’s behavior exemplifies his failed repression of the Oedipus complex. Take, for instance, his picture with Lucille in the Balboa Bay Window magazine in the “Marta Complex” episode. Included in the magazine is an article written by a young Buster, titled “Why I Want to Marry My Mother.” This same article causes Stan Sitwell to comment later in the episode, “You know, it could be worse. He could want to marry your mother. (Laughs.) Oh, I’m sorry. Is your family not laughing at that yet?”

Totem . . . : Boyfights

Looking for the origin of the totem animal, an object of worship that watches over the tribe or clan, Freud examined primitive culture using psychoanalysis in his book Totem and Taboo. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) inspired Freud’s answer: the primal horde. Darwin proposed that at one point, humanity was similar to bands of gorillas. One older male would live among many females and would drive out the younger males, much like the prohibitive father in the Oedipus complex. According to Darwin, this would prevent “interbreeding within the limits of the same family.”12 According to Freud, this angered the young males—so they devised a plot to unite and eat the tyrannical father after killing him. Sounds little like the sibling rivalry on Arrested Development. The plot of the episode “Making a Stand” echoes the unification of the brothers against the tyrannical father. Of course, instead of killing and eating George Sr., Gob and Michael hire J. Walter Weatherman (George Sr.’s one armed “scare-toy”) to teach George Sr. a “lesson” about pitting them against each other.

According to Freud, with the obstacle to sexual desires gone, the brothers become divided. Such desires do not unite men—they divide men.13 Each of the brothers wished to possess all of the females, as the murdered tyrannical father once did. Think of Marta from the “Marta Complex” episode—Gob, Michael, and even Buster (“Will somebody please punch me in the face?”) fight over Marta. Sexual desires