Review: Archer: Danger Island “A Discovery”

The Desolation of Fuchs.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The gang make their way to where the Mua Mua told them to find the idol, though Archer and Lana are already making deals to split it between the two of them. What the natives didn’t tell them, however, is that the idol is nestled in a temple in the middle of an active volcano. Getting inside doesn’t require much more than a little elbow grease and geeking out about the VERY RECENT release of The Hobbit book (at least they didn’t mention the movies), though they’re followed closely behind by the still living and still mechanized Fuchs.

The journey through the temple starts with the loss of Doudou (#ripdoudou) and the ever constant reminder that the volcano is overdue to erupt, but it doesn’t take long to arrive at the chamber of the idol, which is revealed to be a glowing green tiki head. This is, in fact, NOT precious emerald, but very radioactive uranium that the Mua Mua put there to lure white travelers and then kill them with the radiation if the search for the idol didn’t do them in first. This is made worse by Fuchs arriving and having them at gunpoint, but not bad enough for Archer to not flirt with Lana. Eventually, the temple begins collapsing, leading to a Mount Doom (wait, that’s LOTR, not Hobbit) style struggle for the idol over a river of lava, forcing Archer to sacrifice himself to kill Fuchs and save Pam. And he was this close to banging Lana.

In the far future, the M/V Seamus boots up and begins awakening its crew from hypersleep. Archer awakens in a pod and recognizes the nagging AI in front of him as his mother.

OUR TAKE

WELL, they were right: it wasn’t a monkey. Still, I did not see Uranium coming as what the idol was made of, though I guess there were some signs. Lana’s father mentioned it had great power that they couldn’t let the Germans have, but I guess the go-to prediction for that was magic. So, kudos on that initial twist to lead us into the fact that the whole Danger Island “world” is now dead.

I remember Dreamland having at least a wrap up for its versions of the characters, though that’s probably because Archer didn’t die in that story, and it cannot be stressed enough that these past two seasons have been in his head. Thus, it’s no surprise that Archer biting it upon taking a lava bath means the world ends instantly. Kind of a shame, since I would’ve at least liked a resolution to where everyone ended up going in this odd version of the mid-30’s. Did Pam take over Archer airlines? Did Lana go back and at least apologize to her father? Did Charlotte become the new goddess of the Mua Mua? This and more will have to just be left to speculation now that we’ve shut the book on this timeline, at least as far as we know.

And of course, we have to talk about those last few minutes. People not super thrilled about these dream seasons have been hoping Archer would wake up for what was originally considered to be the show’s final season, which will air next year. Now, apparently that ending is not as concrete as it used to be, but then why have the start of a new dream right at the end of this one? Me occasionally being an optimist, I’d like to think this long drawn out reference to the original Alien movie is an indication that we are indeed back in the real world, and the (possibly) final season of the show will be taking place in space, similar to how Regular Show did its own final season, with A.I. Malory and probably Krieger as the Bishop-type robot. Right now, though, it’s hard to say for sure. It’s a bit of ambiguous note to end on, and hopefully, we get a clearer explanation at Comic-Con or something soon, but this is what we will have to savor as the end of Danger Island. Before we look to the future of possible face huggers and chest bursters and the hopeful return of “Phrasing!”, let’s look back on how this season stacks up on its own when we review it as a whole next week.