Review: Archer ‘Arrivals/Departures’

 

Spoilers Below:

I don’t know if it’s the same schedule nationwide, but in my region, Step Brothers was the program that immediately preceded last night’s Archer season finale, so it basically couldn’t fail.

This episode didn’t need much help though, as the jokes flew, numerous storylines were tied up, and the episode ended without any sort of cliffhanger. In fact, it specifically set up the next season. It was basically the anti-cliffhanger.

The story picked up with Lana’s contractions beginning as she, Sterling, and Cherlene were having a revealing conversation with Agents Holly and Slater. But the discussion wasn’t just informative for the ISIS crew, but also Holly, as he wasn’t aware that Slater sold ISIS the weapons that were being sold to Calderon. This of course would be contrary to the goals of the CIA and their current support of the country’s rebels, which were also technically mercenaries from Honduras and Guatemala. Confused yet? I was too.

It turned out the CIA/US were actually prepping for an invasion of San Marcos, which was in a state of chaos due to the fact that the agency sold arms to both sides – arms that were purchased from Iran, using money generated from a CIA stockpile of cocaine, which was sold by…that’s right, our crack team (no pun intended) of former secret agents.

Meanwhile, Cyril’s reign ended about as quickly as it began, and he, Malory, and Pam decided to loot what they could and head to the airport, where they ran into the rest of the posse.

As the American fighters began to bomb the shit out of the city, Lana was ready to give birth. Malory took charge, with Pam assisting (“You know how many times I’ve helped a cow give birth in the barn? Plus, one time my sister Edie. Well, she couldn’t have it in the house. Long story. A long, racist story.”)

After the baby was born, all the agents fled the country via private jet, and Malory bartered a deal with the CIA. She asked for immunity from the plethora of laws that they broke, forgiveness for the loss of $50 million worth of government cocaine, and a space on the CIA’s payroll for ISIS to become a legitimate spy outfit – in exchange for a looted $40 million painting and Malory not putting a bullet in Agent Holly.

As the episode came to a close, Lana revealed to Sterling that she had stolen some of his frozen sperm from when he had cancer, and used that to make baby, making Archer the father.

Roll credits.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Cherlene’s best exchange of the episode came when the CIA temporarily considered killing the ISIS crew for knowing too much information. “Um, I don’t know anything,” she said. Agent Holly replied, “I believe that to literally be true.”

2) If you realized one of Cyril’s lines (“You just don’t turn it off! It wasn’t my war! You asked me, I didn’t ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn’t let us win!”) was a direct quote from something, and didn’t know what, the correct answer is the first installment of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo trilogy: 1982’s First Blood.

3) I had no idea what a “doula” is, and had to look it up. In case the word was a mystery to you as well, a doula is a nonmedical person who assists a woman before, during, and/or after childbirth. Relatively straightforward. Of course I got the Rambo reference but not the childbirth one. Tells you where my priorities are at this point in my life.

4) The face-slapping barrages from two weeks ago (“Palace Intrigue: Part II”) returned briefly for the finale, this time with Malory slapping Pam.

5) How random was the whole scene with the two fighter pilots talking? (“Is your Dad still into tapas?”)

6) “Will you guys come on?!” “On what?” – Best Pam line of the episode.

7) Lana really would have shot her Baby Daddy in the face?

8) From mother to daughter, Sterling passed along his signature line usually reserved for the mother: “Baby…? Baby…? BABY!!”

9) Sterling resurrected the name “Carol” several times, and it was weird.

There was a lot to like in this episode. The baby was (finally!) born, ending a pregnancy that lasted longer than it would in real life. Seriously. Last year’s finally aired on April 11th and this year’s was on April 21st. Hopefully you can all do that math on that (because I sure as hell can’t; I’m a writer, dammit, not a mathematician.)

We of course got some action in this episode too, with a great scene involving Lana forcefully acquiring an automatic weapon whilst pushing out a baby.

Also, for those of you that yearn for the show to return to its roots, this storyline was guaranteed to be resurrected following the deal made with the CIA. And as much as I enjoyed this drastic shift in plot during Season Five (something that I’ve harped on for twelve straight weeks prior to this article) it feels good to know this secret agent/spy show is going to return to having its main characters actually be secret agents and spies again.

However, the biggest strength of the episode (in this writer’s humble opinion) was Doctor Krieger. After having quite a dark episode last week, Krieger ended with one of his funniest installments of the season. He again alluded to not being the actual Krieger (he called Ray “Roy”), quoted a fantastic Edmund Burke line (“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”), was reminded that he is both a clone of Adolf Hitler and not an actual doctor, admitted to not putting any sort of microchip inside Cherlene’s brain to make her a successful country musician (“It was just the sticker off the backpack of a little LEGO spaceman”), and botched the handling of a giant canister of nerve gas throughout the entire episode – the funniest instance was when he didn’t secure it with seatbelts during the flight (“I thought it was just for takeoff and landing!”)

Altogether, this added up to a solid episode and a nice cherry on top of Season Five. It didn’t pack as many laughs as some of the funnier episodes, but with all the plot elements that needed to be addressed in a short, 22-minute runtime, this came as no surprise.

The only complaint I have, is that I think the ending was a bit too neat. I know cliffhangers can be frustrating, but they’re also a bit fun. Putting a nice little bow on a season is satisfying, and perfectly setting up the next makes for a bit of excitement for the return to normalcy, but I could’ve used a bit more mystery – aside from the question of how Sterling will handle his semi-fatherly role.

I actually think it would’ve been a spectacular ending if the episode closed at the part with the increasingly muffled sound of Lana’s voice telling Archer his is the father, with the high-pitched ringing growing louder as the camera zoomed in on Sterling’s blank expression.

Instead there were a few extra unnecessary lines afterward where Sterling questioned whether this was all a dream from when he drowned saving Lana eight months ago. It wasn’t.

Lana also divulged the baby’s name, and you know what, I didn’t even understand what the hell it was.

Still: bravo.