Doing Border Control Or Funding A Remodel?

Archer, S04E08

Archer, Lana, and Cyril were assigned to catch a famous coyote on the Texas border, but things went wrong when Archer decided to help their target escape and left his comrades knocked out on the side of the road.  While traveling with so many Mexicans in the back of his car, Archer easily caught the attention of the border control cops and ended up getting shot in the process.

I enjoyed the development of this story. I mean, it started typical enough for Archer where he's busy acting like an asshole while the others are trying to do their job properly.  However, instead of Archer's overly casual attitude about their mission screwing things up, it was Archer's fondness for the target.  Archer getting distracted by a set of boobs, also isn't something untypical for him, but it's not often that he basically throws his friends and the mission aside just so he can get some.  When you toss in all of the illegal immigrants by his side, it turned out to be a really strange way to hook up.  Obviously, if she was in jail he couldn't get with her, but to run off with her with all of those other people, I don't know how Archer could have thought that would work out.

I thought maybe eventually they'd toss Archer somewhere and continue their escape or Archer would grasp that getting with the woman he just met was more complicated than it was worth.  Nope.  Archer just ended up getting shot in the back when he was kissing (a kiss I found to be a little strange since it was the old woman in the back who shot the cop car) the girl.  It was ridiculous that he let himself get so seriously injured all for the sake of sex.  Like, why is Archer so pressed for sex?  He didn't even stop hitting on her when he was coughing up blood.  I almost wish he had been a bit successful with all that mess he had to go through.  Damn.

One specific thing I liked in the story was all of the jokes about Archer possibly being autistic.  I don't know how serious that Lana was that he could possibly have some form of it, but Archer kept pointing out moments that supported that theory (like counting all of those bullets that where shot in and near him).  Archer definitely has some issues with understanding social cues, but it would be too easy to excuse his behavior as some kind of mental condition.  I'd rather just think that Archer is insane, but I like how he was offended Lana had said those things about him, yet it got him thinking about himself.

I also liked when Mallory asked this one guy to find Archer's station wagon.  Mallory didn't yet see the futility in searching for such a common car in a large area until he kept pulling up results of similar cars on the road.  Mallory got so pissed when he kept asking "Is that it?" over and over again.  I loved it, even if the poor guy got hit so hard by Mallory that he fell over from possibly a heart attack.  Which, ironically, made him pull up the exact image of Archer's car.  But by then, everyone had left the room.

The ending, although good because Archer managed to not die in the back of a car full of people, shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.  I can't believe this was all Mallory's doing again!  When is everyone going to catch on before Mallory gets her way?  Just when I thought that ISIS might be doing something sort of to the betterment of other people or for some cause, it turns out to be the opposite.  Mallory is one sick person to make her employees run around like her lab rats while she collects money to redecorate her room.  I'm sure she didn't expect Archer to run off and get shot like he did, but it had to be part of her plan for him to get seduced and be part of the distraction for border control.  It's a bit frightening how good she is at manipulating people and situations for her own needs.  It's good that Archer, with his personality, didn't quite inherit that knack for using people as his pawns. 

I liked this episode just because of Archer's random involvement with a woman smuggling in people into Texas.  It was strange that he had to get shot and run around with all of those people just so he could get rejected by the woman and find out that it was all part of his mother's plan.  I guess rather than be surprised that their seemingly failed missions are exactly what Mallory intended for them to do, I should now expect that when ISIS looks like they're screwing up, Mallory is behind it all.  Mallory is some kind of mastermind.  It's lucky for mankind that she's not using her skills to plan terrorist attack or steal millions of dollars.  She'd be scarily good at those things.