Tanjoubi Omedetou, Archer!

This week's Archer was about the car he got for his birthday.  Well, it wasn't a bounty-hunting story, so I was happy enough.

I was surprised anyone even bothered to celebrate his day.  He's the king of assholes, but maybe he'd be so pissy and whiney about it that they figured it was easier to acknowledge his birth, rather than ignore it.  I almost thought Archer was going to be nice to Woodhouse for a change when he made him a special birthday breakfast.  Unfortunately, Archer went right back to being ungrateful after Woodhouse dropped confetti on top of the meal.  Oops...

So Mallory gets Archer an incredible car for his birthday.  Now wait a minute--isn't ISIS broke right now?  Where did that money come from?  No one brought it up in the episode, so I guess it was plausible that she could afford it.  Mallory warns him not to let it get stolen, but of course, it gets stolen as soon as Archer parks it.  He goes to Lana for help, and Pam and Cyril get involved too.  They plan to get information about his car by going to the Yakuza-run car races that Pam frequents.  Well, it's not that easy.  Not just because Archer thinks he can just go in there guns-a-blazing and get answers, but also because they don't steal cars like Archer's.  Oops again.

They get out alive, thanks to Pam's driving and some luck.  But Mallory shows up and lets Archer know that she was the one who stole his car to teach him a lesson.  This is the same lesson she taught him when Archer was a child and thought he had lost his bike she had given him.  Upon learning the truth, Archer seems to check out mentally and walks away from the group, singing to himself.  Wow.  We can hate Archer all we want, but Mallory does have a pretty big hand in creating that narcissistic, drunk bastard.  I felt bad for him, actually.  Mallory seemed like she beat him when he was younger for losing a bike she stole!  And she never returned it!  Geez, lady...  Good thing Archer is an only child (as far as we know).

Oh, and gotta love George Takei.  That gave that episode a little extra kick.  I generally like anything that has to do with Japanese people or culture.  I especially liked that Pam's racing nickname was "Shiro Kabucha," or the "White Pumpkin."  She thought it meant the "White Shadow."  With stuff like Google Translate at our fingertips, there's no need to be so ignorant of such things.  Come on.  But it was good for a laugh.

I'd enjoy George Takei's character coming back to get Pam one day.  That'd be cool.  Mallory shot at him, but we didn't actually see him die, so it's possible.  This is the 3rd Adam Reed show I've watched, so with him, you never know how the overall storyline will go.  Just going to have to see what happens next week.