[Now the rest of seasons 2 and 3, to catch us up to season 4.]
Feeling brotherly again, Michael went out of his way on Spring Break to support Gob about his magic, while they rescued their father from Kitty. Gob unfortunately lost the cooler of evidence, but Michael volunteered to tell Lucille the bad news. To his surprise, she was more concerned about losing the other cooler from the banana stand; she strangled him as she told him that it had contained the frozen sperm specimen. Michael also had to go on a spa weekend with her, and for this extraordinary amount of suffering, Gob made a Franklin CD to thank him.
Michael had been too annoyed at first to listen to the music, but once he did, he started to realize that Gob was trying to speak indirectly to him again. He wondered what the card with his face on it said. Hopefully Gob had not written anything incriminating that the police might read. By the time they got the CD back and left the courthouse, Lindsay and the kids had temporarily moved into the penthouse with Lucille. The sinkhole had worsened and the city inspector red-tagged the house, declaring it uninhabitable.
Michael checked into a hotel room with Gob, who gave him the CD and forced him to listen to the whole thing that night. Michael did so and also read the card. "For my hermano, for always being there for me. You're still my best man."
Gob always seemed to know just what to say. Michael sighed and realized that he was falling in love with his brother again. He didn't want to. He was afraid they'd just return to their old patterns of behavior, with the lying and the fighting and the cheating. Their strange relationship was almost the same as it was before they had sex, only with a new layer of betrayal each time they lied to each other, or a new layer of seduction whenever Gob tried to charm Michael into giving him some favor.
"Mikey," Gob moved closer and kissed him, clearly wanting to resume their affair.
Michael gave in to him for one last night, but told him that they couldn't continue this, what with the sinkhole under the model home and the need to find a place to stay for a couple of months. Gob agreed that it would be difficult to sneak around if there were workers trying to repair the house. The only rent-free place that Gob had left was the Seaward boat, and he knew that Michael got seasick.
"But you'll think about me while I'm gone?" Gob asked. "You'll listen to the CD?"
Michael nodded, not sure why Gob ran so hot and cold with his emotions. One minute he was clingy, another he was all bravado, pretending he didn't care about anybody but himself. And now Gob apparently just wanted the reassurance that Michael loved him, even if they couldn't be together.
So two months went by before the model home was fixed enough that the city allowed people to return. Michael, Lindsay, and the kids moved back in, though there was still caution tape around the sunken living room.
Gob came by the model home to ask for a hotel rendezvous, now that Michael wasn't short of funds. Surely a "Don't Buy" was worth some sort of celebration? But Lucille had arrived first, and Gob learned from eavesdropping that there was a cabin at Lake Tahoe that he never knew about. This upset him enough that Michael invited him to go camping there. However, Michael changed his mind out of guilt because George Michael had been sleeping in the staircar; how could he do something frivolous and foolish like resume their affair, when his son needed him? Gob was disappointed.
Then Michael discovered that Oscar was in prison instead of George, and Gob went to the S.A.D meeting in the park, only to be disappointed by his dad as well. He met that kid Steve Holt, though, and they decided to go camping. While they got a car to drive to Lake Tahoe, Gob called Michael to meet him in Reno and bring the keys to the cabin.
Michael asked, "What, you're going camping with some kid? Who is he?"
"Steve Holt. I met him in the park. It's just a son and son thing, 'cause our dads abandoned us. You wouldn't understand, you robot."
Michael could tell that Gob was still resentful about the canceled camping trip, and he did vaguely remember that Steve Holt was a high school kid, though far older than his classmates. Steve had mentioned looking for his father in his campaign video, so maybe Gob really was bonding with him about that. Or else this was some roundabout way of Gob to get revenge and explore his gayness while still in denial. Michael had to get off the phone so the plane could take off, so he just agreed to meet Gob, and he decided they could talk in Reno.
When they did talk in Reno, Michael read the S.A.D. letter and told Gob that Steve Holt was his kid. Why Steve Holt hadn't said so was strange, but he was a recovering alcoholic, and possibly his memory was as bad as Gob's. Michael tried to stop Gob from running away from his kid, only to be distracted by seeing George Michael in the staircar.
So Michael abandoned his search for George Sr., and drove his son to the cabin in Lake Tahoe. He could at least be a better father than Gob, and try to make time for his son for once. They found that half of the cabin was gone already and it was loaded on a truck, but they camped there anyway. George Michael wanted to discuss a girl problem with him, so Michael agreed to do so in the morning.
As he lay on the floor trying to fall asleep, he thought about what George Michael had said about "a problem without an answer." That was his relationship with Gob in a nutshell. Not knowing how to be with him, not knowing how to let him go. Even if they did get back together, it would still be a dirty little secret, never out in the open. He doubted if Gob would ever say that he loved him directly, instead of in the songs from that CD.
In the morning Michael discovered that his father was driving the cabin away, and after a long argument, Michael turned George Sr. in so that the prison would release Oscar. This time George was placed under house arrest, but he didn't want to be with Lucille after all. Soon Michael was so busy investigating Dad's claims about being set up by the British, that he forgot about talking to his son about his girl problem.
Then he met Rita in Wee Britain. The whole family taunted him for being a chicken, so he eventually mustered up the courage to ask her out. He told her that he had no family, though, hoping this would simplify things. It didn't, especially when the family threw him a party and then kidnapped and drugged Rita.
Back at the model home, Michael was trying to salvage the evidence when Gob came in from the garage. Rather than be jealous or resentful, Gob told Michael to go after Rita again, saying that she'd be lucky to have him. This supportive gesture surprised Michael, and it almost felt like getting permission to move on, to look for someone to marry and be a new mother for George Michael. He thanked Gob, who then tried to cheer him up with Franklin, thankfully not singing one of the love songs from the CD. Gob could always make him laugh.
So Michael resumed dating Rita, and there was a kind of carefree innocence about their romance which he should have been suspicious about, but he was blind.
When Gob started seeing a Christian girlfriend (before Michael knew her identity), it seemed like Gob might be trying to move on too. Michael just encouraged him to bond with Steve Holt, and tried to act like a normal brother again. As if he could learn what normal was.
Michael almost married Rita, only to discover what a stupid fool he'd been to not realize her secret. Mom had been right-"People only see what they want to see." It was almost as if he was worse than Gob when it came to relationships. How depressing. Maybe he was the crazy one after all.
There was nothing he could do about it, and Gob was with somebody else. Surprisingly it had lasted for months, much like his previous relationship with Marta. Maybe Gob was right; he wasn't gay after all, and Michael was just a special case.
Michael didn't want to hear any details about Gob's evangelical Christian girlfriend; it would just remind him of how sinful and unnatural their affair had been. He just hoped Gob would never confess it to her, and would stick to the Bluth habit of lying.
Michael lay awake in his bedroom for many nights, and he hid the Franklin CD in the attic so he wouldn't be tempted to listen to it again. He needed to bury his jealousy and his feelings and be the robot he was so often accused of being. He needed to pretend that his heart wasn't broken, and that he didn't need Gob now more than ever.
As George's trial came up, Michael discovered an N. Bluth on the witness list and a secret room in the model home. He looked for this sister Nellie, but got no help from his parents, so he had to look in the old company computers. He never noticed the typo about Nellie the "conslutant", and remained blind to her profession when he met with her.
He hired Nellie to work at the Bluth Company and got excited about having a new sibling. He could start over. It wouldn't be weird and warped and full of lies. He could have a new friend to hang out with and talk to, now that he could not bear being near Gob again.
Then she came onto him at the hotel. Then things went from bad to worse as he discovered that Gob was her pimp. Nellie was a hooker, and Gob said that he'd been with her. It was just so many levels of horrifying, as if Bluths were cursed to never have non-incestuous relationships. Nellie heard them and ran out in embarrassment. Michael told Gob that this was a sign from God that he needed to truly change, not just pay lip-service to his Christian girlfriend's teachings. Then Michael left, too upset to say more.
It wasn't until the next day that Michael could calm down enough to go confront his father about Nellie. Then George told him that Nellie wasn't his sister at all. The money was all gone and in a panic, Michael rushed to the office, only to find that Nellie had spent the money on the employees, as well as paying herself. She was honest, and clearly not a Bluth.
Michael invited her to stay and work at the Bluth Company, but she declined since she made so much more money as a hooker.
Later, Michael told Gob that Nellie wasn't their sister after all, and Gob was surprised. "Then why'd you say...?" Gob frowned. "I don't get you, Mikey. I don't know what you want now."
Michael didn't know either. Even though he should be horrified, he still wished that Gob would break up with his girlfriend and come back to him. It was wrong, of course. And if Gob had moved on, then he had no right to ask. "Just... be happy. I'm sorry that I..." He shook his head and whispered, "I'm sorry."
Then he left before he could change his mind or break down again. But at home he dug up the card with his face on it, and he stared at it for a long time.
Then the depositions for the trial began, and Gob told him he was going on a USO tour to Iraq so he could perform his Christian magic act. He insisted on going, and Michael worried, but guessed that Gob was that insistent because he wanted to get away from Michael. So he didn't stop him, and then Wayne Jarvis told him that Gob was in prison in Iraq.
Michael went with Buster to rescue Gob, and Gob hugged him emotionally. He criticized Michael for being a robot, then finally noticed Buster had come along. Michael was trying to be cautious and not get his hopes up, because he didn't expect Gob to be released immediately.
However Gob was released very easily, and Michael decided to investigate the Iraqi model homes that Gob said Dad had ordered him to torch. There they found the fake WMD and discovered the truth about Dad being set up to build the homes. Because of Buster's photos, the CIA agreed to let them live and get the treason charges against George Sr. dropped. It was a lucky escape.
Michael was glad to fly home, though he dared not do more than hold Gob's hand on the plane as they sat together. He told himself that this was all he could have with his brother now. He wondered if it would help if he went to therapy and tried to get over his feelings about Gob. But how could he explain everything to some stranger?
George Michael confessed to him about his cousin Maeby, and it hit Michael like a ton of bricks. The Bluth family curse had struck his son as well. He gave the only feeble advice he could give, but chickened out of confessing about his own, much worse transgression. Then at home, Lindsay confessed to him that she was adopted and came onto Michael too. She was the real Nellie Bluth all along. This would be funny if it wasn't so terrible too. Fuck. Why couldn't it have been Gob? Why couldn't Gob want him back? Why couldn't anything go right?
Then there was the Queen Mary boat party, and Gob told him about his girlfriend, and George Michael punching him. Michael rushed to the yacht, and tried to do right by his son. With Lucille fleeing from the S.E.C., maybe it was better that Michael leave too. Just take his son to Mexico so they could both try to forget the past.
But they never got far in their escape.
