Review: Archer “Live and Let Dine””

Spoilers Below

Archer, Lana, and Cyril are working undercover at a restaurant. Check that, they are working at a restaurant owned by renowned chef Lance Casteau. Check that again, this is all being filmed for a reality show! The name of the show is Bastard Chef and just in case if you thought Gordon Ramsay was all fun and games, Lance Casteau is going to shock the fuck out of you. Yea, he yells, and screams, and throws shit just like Gordon, but he’s also demeaning, nasty, and not up to health code. Despite all this his restaurant is booked up for the next ten months and he actually puts Lana in charge of thwarting customer call-ins for reservations while Archer stays in the kitchen as a Sous chef with Cyril mopping floors.

Turns out Archer is pretty good at being a chef and Lance seems to like him a lot…well a lot more than Lana of whom is just more concerned about the mission the agents are supposed to be on for ISIS. Speaking of ISIS, Pam and Cheryl have to do something because Fatty Mc Fat Fuck owes a bunch of people a lot of money. To be honest, I kind of wasn’t paying attention to this plot as I was still laughing hysterically at how great Anthony Bourdain is in this episode. Malory shows up just in time so she can watch her ISIS peeps keep a close eye on the safety for the Albanian ambassador.

None of that really matters though, because the said prime minister dies after ingesting poisonous wine…but who is the culprit?? Mr. Lance Casteau himself! That’s right it turns out Archer’s nemesis Barry Dillon paid Lance $6 mil to kill the ambassador only for Lance to swim with the fishes at the end. TWIST!

I really thought we were going to be out of bounds with this week’s episode as I really wanted to see more of the reality show format that the producers were working with here, but they stop it half-way thru. That said, Anthony Bourdain was comedy gold tonight and this is coming from a guy that has Gordon Ramsay matching socks. Seriously, he played his role as well as he could and then some and as a result catapults him to the Archer hall of fame for guest stars. Also, watching Sterling go through his mood swings dependent on his status as a chef working for the world known Lance Casteau was absolutely hysterical, especially when he keeps shitting on Cyril. The ‘B’ plot as mentioned in the recap was kinda bleh, and to be honest I thought the plot kinda went nowhere, but overall this was a good one and I definitely want more helpings of Bourdain.