The truly despondent among the cult of Arrested Development might believe that — no matter how many interviews aired, on-set images shared, and concrete pieces of premiere information released — the promised return of their beloved would somehow fall apart before the Bluths could come tumbling back into their warm embrace. But here we are, just 13 days from Netflix multi-episode simul-launch, and all systems are go. I mean, look, a trailer!

Before settling in for a weekend spent watching Hemlock Grove, I read the New York Times's lukewarm review, which called it “a hybrid of Twin Peaks ... and CW teenage gothic” before going on to refer to its pace as pokey. This did not bode well, and I wandered into the Grove with adjusted expectations. Prior to reading the review, which was actually one of the more generous accounts of Hemlock Grove, I was psyching myself up for a highly enjoyable experience: how much would I have loved to permanently disfigure my sofa with my body’s imprint after a zillion hours spent consuming American Horror Story all at once? So much! How good was that teaser of the werewolf transformation? Pretty good! How long ago did Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II come out? Long enough that we’re over it now!

For 10 days, Grantland staff writer Rembert Browne is at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, collecting stories while trying not to die.

Beyond all the music shows, and film premieres, and obnoxious start-ups with their obnoxious apps and obnoxious vowel-less names and obnoxious T-shirts and obnoxious dreams of a cloud-based B2B push notification water filtration-augmented reality show, Austin's South by Southwest festival is really a giant exercise in colonization. There is nothing more precious in this town for 10 days than land. Because if you have land, as both Columbus and Trump have taught us, you can do whatever you want.

In the upcoming days, as the music crowd begins to take over Austin, outlets like Fader and Spin and Filter, as well as web entities like Spotify, will acquire spaces for multiple days at a time and proceed to throw events with the entertainers they enjoy, and people will stand in line for hours to finally get the opportunity to step foot on their land. And they will be happy.

One of the entities that will also do this through music, but got a head start during the Interactive portion, was Samsung. What did they decide to do with their land grab?

Invite Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz for a Sunday-brunch Q&A session, as well as actors Will Arnett and Jeffery Tambor.

We always knew the return of Arrested Development was like a rare bird, delicate, fragile, and wondrous to — just as the morning sun breaks, refracted, through the heavy, leafy canopy of the wild — behold. Ever since Netflix made the season pickup a reality, all principals involved have stressed how hard the reunion was to pull off. Because most of the cast, Funke and Bluth and Bluth-Funke alike, stays steady working post-AD, shoots had to be arranged around their days off. (Portia de Rossi mostly had to take days off from helping Ellen stare at Katy Perry's boobs, but don't laugh that off. Staring at Katy Perry's boobs is a herculean task of paramount importance.) And no one but Jason Bateman will appear in every one of the 14 new episodes. There's also been much, much chatter about this season working as a prequel/segue to an Arrested Development movie. Meaning: Weren't we all already assuming the Arrested Development return was a one-and-done deal? Regardless, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, via conference call with investors on Monday, all but confirmed that AD was only getting one season. And henceforth, many tears were spilled.

In the eyes of the law, Justin Drew Bieber — he turns 19 on March 1! — is a fullly grown man. In our eyes, though, he's something more akin to a baby duck, fresh out of a hatched egg. Sure, the duck crushed it inside the egg; he had teen girls shouting bloody murder while chasing him down the streets. Now that he's outside the egg, though, things are harder: There are different sorts of expectations, and all kinds of complications and demands, and some serious competition, out here in the non-egg world. In other words: It's time to check in on how Justin Bieber's Awkward Adult Transition is going!

House of Cards begins with a bang, followed immediately by a whimper. A hit-and-run has broken the smug, moneyed calm of an immaculate Georgetown street; an unseen dog lies on the curb, dying. From the low POV of the expiring pooch we see Kevin Spacey, natty in a tuxedo, emerge from a townhouse and address the camera. "There are two kinds of pain," he intones, fiddling with his cuff buttons. "The kind that makes you strong, and useless pain." Spacey's character, South Carolina Congressman Frank Underwood, has no time for the latter. We know this because he tells us directly: He's the rare sort of man willing to act, to "do the unpopular thing, the necessary thing." We also know it because in the midst of this monologue, he kneels and calmly smothers the dog to death with his bare hands.

As far as introductions go, it's a memorable one. But then Cards was constructed specifically to make a big impression. An adaptation of the highly regarded 1990 BBC miniseries of the same name, the project is the first original series to be bankrolled by Netflix. And, in order to draw your attention from midnight binge streams of Say Yes to the Dress and Cake Boss, the former envelope company backed up the Brinks truck to secure top-flight talent, including Spacey and executive producer David Fincher, who directed the first two episodes. Like a fish sidling up to a poker table full of whales, Netflix also had to pay a premium to snatch the project away from more established content farms like HBO and Showtime; it did so by guaranteeing, sight unseen, 26 episodes, spread out over two seasons, at a cost of over $100 million. (Netflix isn't exactly NPR, but it's hard not to feel like I had some financial stake in all this by letting those Eric Rohmer DVDs collect dust on my coffee table for the better part of 2010.) Beau Willimon, the one-time Howard Dean aide who transformed that idealism-crushing experience into a highly regarded play ("Farragut North" which was later Clooney-ized into the film The Ides of March), was drafted to Americanize the story of a scheming government minister who will stop at nothing to achieve power. Anyone who's glanced at Politico.com over the past four years — or watched The Ides of March on Netflix — could tell you that it can't have been too taxing an endeavor. The cynical Willimon probably had to resist the urge to have Underwood strangle a bald eagle.

Splitsider today points our attention to a neat little bit of promo: As an early plug for the mega-size 2013 return of Arrested Development, Netflix has thrown up a bunch of fake movie titles in their "New choices to Watch Instantly" department that riff off of AD. No, they're not in any way real (they just link to the show's Netflix page), but they have posters and taglines and everything! Like:

As Deadline reports, Arrested Development 2.0 — currently scheduled for a spring release via Netflix, that bastion of FNL episodes you've seen 1,000 times and John Malkovich movies you never knew existed — has ceased production. But with good reason! It turns out that, while filming the current 10-episode count, creator Mitch Hurwitz just had too many ideas. He shot more than he had planned to, and the result was story lines he hadn't previously thought of. So then he went to the Netflix people and said, "Hey, you guys like Arrested Development, right?" [Content murmurs.] "How about more of that good good?" [Ear-piercing shrieks.] Netflix signed off on new episodes, for a total of between 12 to 15, and then everyone went about making plans for that to happen. Says Deadline:

What It’s About: A rich dick convinces a college full of squares to loosen up by tricking them into drinking and having sex.

Who It’s For: Rich dicks.

I never saw Van Wilder or Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj, so it is perhaps unfair, or even immoral, for me to be reviewing the third installment in the series, called Van Wilder: Freshman Year. I meant to see the first two, but one night I caught a few minutes of the original on cable, and I was horrified to hear other characters calling Ryan Reynolds’s character “Van." Van? His name is Van? Then, and now, I can’t get over that Van Wilder is not his last name but his full name. I had just assumed that his first name was Josh or Cody or something, and that Van Wilder was what everyone called him, because it is cool when guys call each other by their last names, like they are in the military or something. “Van Wilder” sounded like an appropriately grandiose last name for an epically big man on campus. “My name is Baron Charles Van Wilder and I am the Duke of Partying!” Is Van Wilder a baron or a duke? What’s the difference? Is the right to call oneself that related to land ownership, or is the title passed down by blood? These are all questions I hoped to get answered in this Ryan Reynolds–less prequel, Van Wilder: Freshman Year.

What It’s About: Kel Mitchell is a dancer who can only do karate when music is playing, and he must use his awkward powers to win back his uncle’s club.

Who It’s For: Kenan Thompson.

Fans of comedy, art, auteurship, independent filmmaking, and sad masturbation jokes continually hold up FX’s Louie as the new paradigm under which future visionaries can operate, distributing their work to the masses on their own terms. I think it’s great that Louis C.K. gets to make his show just the way he wants to, and it’s clear that a lot of TV viewers and critics feel the same way. He’s making unpredictable television, which is increasingly rare, and comedy fans really enjoy rooting for the rich, wildly successful underdog with a record-breaking number of Emmy nominations. I hope he gets to do it forever. I hope he dies doing what he loves, during the show's 50th season, and that in his will he has instructions on how to edit the last episode just so, the final shot lingering on his own face a few seconds too long. God bless you, Louis. See you at the crossroads.

Every so often, Max Silvestri plunges into the depths of his Netflix queue, resurfacing with reports of the strange things he's found there. These movies are usually terrible, but he writes about them anyway.

What It’s About: The legendary Hercules, son of Zeus, wrestles and flexes better than anybody at Warrior Camp, but Hera has other plans, though those plans do not interfere with the wrestling and the flexing.

Who It’s For: Young children interested in learning about myths, classics scholars at small New England private schools, members of the Sigma Nu fraternity, and fans of pools.

Every so often, Max Silvestri plunges into the depths of his Netflix queue, resurfacing with reports of the strange things he's found there. These movies are usually terrible, but he writes about them anyway.

What It’s About: A recently paroled ex-con (Tim Allen) moves back in with his family and has to adjust to how sometimes life is crazy on the outside of jail, not just on the inside of jail, which is where we’d all assumed was the only place that was crazy.

Who It’s For:Anyone who’s ever had a sitcom based on his autobiographical stand-up act and then lucratively sold its syndication rights.

Shout-out to everyone attending the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas this week. I realize the fact that the city is not just a den of sin, but also a bustling business hub, is nothing new, but I still like to imagine that when you told your friends you were going to Vegas for work they were all like, "Hell yeah, you are gonna get some boobs up in your face and do mad yayo and rage it up!" and then you were like, "Ha ha, for sure, son, also definitely gonna check out some really informative panels about current developments and trends in the television industry, whuttt!" and then you guys all high-fived awkwardly. Kudos to you for remaining a professional while still enjoying a good time, theoretical NAB attendee.

ANYWAY: Tuesday at the NAB, the Netflix panel went down, and the news was dominated by the impending return of Arrested Development. Below are some pertinent details about what the new iteration will look like, but the major takeaway: Somehow, this long-desired AD revival continues to not be an elaborate and cruel hoax being perpetrated on a nation of eager comedy nerds.

What It’s About: A sheriff (Shaggy 2 Dope) and a crime lord (Violent J) battle for control of the Wild West town of Mud Bug. Also, many characters wear clown makeup.

Who It’s For: Fans of normal, classic Westerns, and also fans of people who wear clown makeup.

Big Money Rustlas is a comedy Western starring Insane Clown Posse’s Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J, and their label Psychopathic Records produced the film. Beyond laughing along with the rest of the Internet over viral ads for the Gathering, I was not especially familiar with the genre of clown music before I watched this film. It certainly seems weird on paper. An interest in looking like a mean clown is a pretty crazy unifying quality for a type of music, but maybe just crazy enough to work. (It doesn’t work.)