Guns Are Great, But Fists Are Cooler

Archer, S04E09

Archer and Lana staked out a hotel to observe some North Koreans rumored to want to illegally buy some uranium, and she and Archer posed as a newlywed couple.   Cyril was convinced by Cheryl and Pam that he should go to the hotel too in order to keep tabs on Lana in case that she fall into bed with Archer again.

Although I understood that Lana would have rather pretended to do anything but be Archer's wife, she looked good in the bridal gown and hair accessories she was wearing at their check-in.  Archer was all too happy to play the role of her husband and enjoy the luxuries of their honeymoon suite instead of doing their actual job.  He made it seem like he'd be thrilled if he could call Lana his wife.  I felt bad for Lana who felt like she was getting a preview of her worst-scenario future (although, she could definitely do worse than Archer).  I can't foresee a marriage between them that Lana didn't regret, considering there are too many cons to even dating Archer (or casually sleeping with him).  They definitely have a mutual attraction and care about each others' safeties, but they are so terrible together.

I liked a lot of the action scenes in this story.  One of such was when Archer had to save Lana from falling off the building.  It was his fault, so I hope he would do everything in his power to keep her from being a splatter on the ground.  I just hate that he has to throw saving her life in her face.  It makes her seem like some kind of helpless woman who's prone to making simple mistakes that turn out to be deadly.  It's more like she gets distracted by Archer and unwittingly gets herself into trouble.

My favorite scene was when they saw their targets in the elevator.  Lana got kicked in the chest, but Archer pulled out some cool-looking moves when he like kicked the guy into the wall.  I feel like their haven't been a lot of good fighting scenes lately, and there were quite a few good ones in this story.  I even sort of liked when Cyril had smoked the room with the fire extinguisher and Lana and Archer were kicking butt among the chaos.  I'd rather see that than see Archer bugging Lana about the coat on his fingernails not being dried.

I wonder what Lana had decided when she was climbing the hotel, though.  Did she think that she was just going to settle down with Cyril after all and stop making herself semi-available to Archer?  I mean, she hasn't really been involved with anyone for a while, so perhaps Archer always thinks that one day she'll just come crawling back to him.  Cyril had blown things with her, but at least he's sort of a normal human being.  However, when Lana found out he was just spying on her, she threw out her decision.  I really would like to know what kind of conclusion she had arrived at before.

It's kind of funny that this time instead of Mallory being behind their mission, it was sort of Krieger.  He was the one trying to sell uranium.  I really think ISIS should concentrate on doing more shady things since they're already doing them.  Right now they're simply pretending that they're a do-gooder organization when they do more harm than good most of the time.

I think I liked this episode because it had pretty good fighting scenes.  It feels like they haven't had any hand-to-hand combat in a while.  There have been plenty of shootings and such, but sometimes I like to see close-range fights.  It was also interesting that Lana had so much to think about when she played Archer's wife and came to some unknown decision about her relationships.  However, Cyril's spying prevented us from knowing what that was.  Although I'm not hoping for Lana and Archer to get back together anytime soon, I feel like Lana's inability to escape her bond with Archer is going to make her walk down the aisle for him some day in the future.

A Journey Through Archer's Past

Archer, S04E06

Archer's snakebite caused him to have a dream where he was ushered through his memories by James Mason.  While Roy and Cyril were trying their best to get to safety and get him an antidote, Archer drew closer and closer to uncovering the mystery of who his father was.  Back at ISIS, Lana kept pestering Mallory about her being left out of the mission the boys were on.  Lana was taken back when Carol accurately diagnosed the reason why Lana chooses to stay with ISIS, despite all of her moral issues with their missions.

With the way Archer had prepared for their mission, like wanting to use the map as toilet paper and leaving behind a compass, I don't think that they would have succeeded even if Archer hadn't gotten bit by a snake.  It was sort of poetic justice that he did because he kept doing things to screw over Cyril and Ray at every turn, while not doing anything to improve their situation.  The snake's poison just did what his teammates were thinking every second they were with him.

It's interesting to note that Archer has killing Cyril on his bucket list of things.  Of all things he wants to do before he dies, his second most wanted thing is to see Cyril end his life.  I didn't know that he hated him so much.  Cyril and Archer might not be besties, but does he really have to wish him dead?  I wonder if it's just about how he came between him and Lana (not really because Archer screwed that up pretty badly himself).

The dream that Archer experienced while slowly heading toward death was the most interesting part of the story.  He met James Mason in this smoky place that seemed to be limbo, essentially, and he showed Archer a pivotal point in his life where a stalker shot him and cost him his future as a college lacrosse player.  That was a pretty disturbing scene seeing Archer getting shot by this demented woman.  It was really unexplainable and looked traumatic.  I wonder if there was ever a moment in Archer's life that was pleasant.  No wonder he didn't want Mason to show him anything about himself.

What I really loved was when Archer had to relive the moment where he was shot as teenager and he reminded Mason that he hadn't signed up for this journey through his past:

Yeah, so, I don't know if you're deaf or an asshole or both, but I'm pretty sure I said I didn't want to see this.

I liked that Mason didn't seem to listen to any of Archer's objections, nor really be listening to him in general.  I really wonder what part of Archer's mind created him as a guide.

I also liked when Archer saw himself as a little boy, who still loved alligators (that's a little shocking).  He was alone on his birthday and a strange man brought him a stuffed alligator.  Apparently it was his father!  We didn't get to see his face, nor did Archer remember him once he awoke, but it brought us closer to that mystery than we have been before.  Archer might be able to rack his brain and recall that memory once again.  After all, he has to have it somewhere in his subconscious.

Besides Archer's death visions, I liked when Cyril was trying to communicate that Archer had been bitten by a snake.  However, the word for "snake" was the same for a few other words that the soldiers (or whatever they were) kept mistaking it for.  Ray's frustration at this gave me a good laugh:

How's it the same word for bread and snake and Friday and that damn dog?!

Sounds like a pretty damn confusing language, if you ask me.  Then again, if you learn any language long enough, you'll find something that doesn't quite make sense to you.

I didn't really like what was going on back at ISIS.  I felt kind of bad that Carol (or whatever her name is) could see right through Lana like that.  And what she saw was pretty depressing.  I can't disagree with her analysis, though.  Lana does raise a lot of objections, but she ends up doing things she doesn't agree with all the time.  I think that her love for espionage will tether her to ISIS no matter what sort of horrible things they get involved with.  Lana will hate herself for it, but she won't be able to walk away either.  That's just like Carol to see the darkest part of someone's soul.  She's so damn twisted.

This was a pretty good episode.  I really like seeing into Archer's past, even though it wasn't anything pleasant.  I don't ever expect to see anything good concerning how he became the Archer he is today, anyway.  There's no way he could have had a great childhood with the way his mother is and how he turned out to be.  I just wonder if he'll try to figure out who his father is again, knowing that he had that memory in his head.  I don't know how important that still is to Archer.  As far as Lana is concerned, I wonder if she'll try to find something beyond her job to fill her life.  It'd be really sad if she ended up in such a depressing fate as Carol had predicted.

Getting Katya Back Back-Fires

Archer, S04E05

Archer ran at the chance to hook up with Katya, who begged him to help her find Barry.  Archer pretended to want to rescue him and asked Krieger, Pam, and Cheryl to help him.  Although, Archer's plan was to fool Katya into thinking Barry was cheating on her to win her back, Katya was playing him for her own purpose.

I didn't like too much seeing Lana back with Cyrill, even if it was just for sex, but I liked that Archer seemed to be the only one around the office who didn't have a date.  He made a pathetic attempt to get Lana back, but forgot about her in a second when Katya called him.  It's like he was from low to lower.  He really has no shame.  I guess, though, it's not completely pathetic that he ran to Katya because he does generally love her.  Not enough to bring back Barry just for her sake.  Luckily, with all of his scheming and creating that fake tape of Barry's confession to cheating, Katya was just using him to get Barry back from the beginning.  That was pretty smart because I don't know how Barry would have made it back the way he kept killing the scientist who were trying to help him.  I just wonder if Katya is going to help out Archer and keep Barry from murdering him the second he lands on Earth.

It was kind of disturbing the way everyone was reading these like octopus/sea-life porn throughout the episode.  Not only that, but Ray and Cyrill woke up from being knocked up and found themselves naked and with an octopus.  Since Pam was also in that bathroom with a camera, I can only assume she violated them somehow with that thing while they were out and filmed it.  Man, they are into some gross stuff at ISIS.  I wouldn't dare go into a bathroom around there.

I liked this episode, mainly because Archer was acting so desperate at the slim chance of getting back with Katya.   Also, I liked that Barry managed to get off the space station and is heading for Archer's location.  It ups the excitement in this show because it's well-known that Barry is crazy as hell and murderously hates Archer.  I don't know how Archer will manage to stay alive.  His only hope might be that Katya seems to have taken Barry's place as the head of the KGB.  I'm eager to see what she'll do while in power and what Barry's reaction will be to her taking his place.

Archer Thinks Of Others! ...Just Kidding

Archer, S03E10

Yesterday we got to see the season finale of Archer.  Since they don't have that many episodes to begin with, it seems to have gone by really quickly.  I think that it ended pretty well with ISIS managing to take down the traitor faction, get a little revenge on Barry, and return home alive (I emphasize "alive" and not "unharmed").  For a moment, I thought that Archer had seen the light, if not only for an appropriate time (the time being until they were back to Earth in one piece), but Archer remains Archer in the end.

Despite that Archer resisted against their captors (his best being when he attacked Wu while shouting "Woo!"), it was pretty clear that if Drake had offered Archer an alcoholic drink, he might have easily joined their side.  When they didn't seem to be offering him anything tempting, he first suggested that since they only wanted Lana (apparently they looked up all her information and thought she would make the best babies for Mars), he asked for the men to be let go and then just himself (of course).  I hadn't thought that they specifically wanted Lana to be "The Mother of Mars," but thought that they just happened to hire ISIS and figured that a spy female was the best they were going to get for their re-population schemes.  As creepy as their plan was, Lana had to be a little flattered that they thought her DNA was the best stuff around.

I didn't appreciate that Lana had to be nearly naked for most of the episode, but I liked that she was so vain about her boobs.  When Archer suggested that they were getting saggy, she just couldn't let it go, even in the midst of a fight.  The ISIS crew managed to get away from their captors to only be captured once again.  They were pretty unimpressive in their escape attempt.

I think the badass medal for this episode should go to Pam who was not only smart enough to prepare to attack if Drake and his men tried to get on the ship, but also managed to sneak up on Drake and get him at gunpoint while Carol was busy being a "whordiot," letting the enemies into the ship.  That stupid little bitch.  Pam should have been made an operative instead of freaking Cyrill.  At least she increased the chance that they would return to Earth, while Cyrill, shooting off madly after Drake blasted off his own head, killed Kellogg, the only other person who was unquestionably qualified to fly them back home.  After Cyrill screwed up right after Pam had saved the day, I didn't easily see how they would make it back home.

When Barry started approaching them on a space ship, I was really thinking that he might be the one to "save" them, even though there was no doubt he came to space to kill Archer again.  I'm not sure why he needed to do so when he already stole his fiancee, but I guess when Archer is concerned, he can't suffer enough (at least while he is alive).  Barry was pretty funny in the way he kept taunting Archer to come play with him, but Archer held back his pride and refused to open the doors.  It was really amazing for him.  I also wondered that if somehow Barry's revenge had turned into a necessity for him, in the sense that he would never kill Archer for real because then he would have no one to chase after anymore.  I mean, he followed him off the planet--is it really that serious?

Archer's seemingly change of heart paid off when he cheered Cyrill on to land them safely home; Cyrill turned the ship around so that the fire from the engine would destroy Barry's ship.  Ooo...  How is he going to get home?  I don't worry too much about him because he's sneaky, a cyborg, and there are many, many people around on Horizon that they will probably find a way for him to return to Earth.  After all, if Barry's not around, who is going to be Archer's annoyingly persistent arch-enemy? (Archer-enemy, if you will allow a bad pun)

I felt a bit of relief when Archer stopped acting so unselfishly and nearly killed them all when Cyrill was just about to land the ship safely to Earth.  I'm not sure how Archer managed to get off without a scratch on him!  Lana was using crutches, someone had an eye patch, and Ray was back in his wheelchair (for real this time, I'm sure).  I liked that the episode ended with him acting like an ass because that's what this show is all about.  I wouldn't have minded a little cliffhanger to make us anticipate the next season (I hope there will be one, FX!), but this ending is just as well.

The sky is really the limit for next season, and I can't wait to see what ISIS is up to next time.  I wonder if Lana and Archer would ever get back together.  They seem to hate each other, but I feel like deep down, they still protect each other in non-obvious ways.  I'd like to see less of Mallory's attempts to get laid, and less of Pam's naked body.  The thing I'd most like to see is the return of Barry and a more equal fight between he and Archer.  They have to make a really epic (although Archer hates that word) battle between them soon.  Guess I just have to be patient and see if that happens next year.