After a few episodes worth of abuse, the cast is finally starting to show more than a passing concern for Pam’s tendency to eat cocaine. Besides the fact that it’s, you know, very harmful, it’s also part of the reason why the group is already down 125 kilos, for which they’ve made pretty much no profit. What ensues is a hilarious exchange about the metric system, used, according to Lana, in every country in the world except for the U.S., Liberia and Burma.
This quickly leads Malory to wanting to do something about Pam’s addiction, which has now actually made her thinner. Pam, of course, doesn’t want to go to rehab, and threatens to go to the police. Woodhouse (apparently now escaped from the gym) remedies the situation by knocking her unconscious, and the gang ties her up to a chair.
Pam being Pam, she hulks out and breaks free of her bondage, then goes and “kidnaps” Cheryl. Krieger then shows up and reveals that he’s upgraded his mind control device (the one that turned Len Drexler mental) and it can be injected into the bloodstream. Malory wants Krieger to use it on Cheryl, who can forget her stage fright and become a country music singer, while the obvious choice seems to be Pam, to cure her of her addiction.
As if “coke-strong” Pam isn’t enough, FBI agent Holly returns to the house to check up on everything, which he can legally do because Woodhouse invites him in. Everyone races to prevent Pam from destroying the place, and from letting Holly discover their stash of drugs.
Amidst the chaos comes two big moments. The first is between Malory and Ron. After he was shot last episode, Ron seems to have done a lot of thinking. The mention of Len Drexler seems to seal the deal; he decides to leave Malory, one of the few things that seems to truly devastate her.
Meanwhile, Lana begins musing out loud about the possibility of going into witness protection, at which point Sterling gets involved and shows a bit of maturity — he learns about every possible complication a woman could have with her pregnancy. As Lana and Sterling debate her possible actions, she finally comes out with it: she can’t leave Sterling behind. The admission was certainly a long time coming.
While not central to the plot, “phrasing” seems to have gone by the wayside, as Sterling even asks “Are we not saying ‘phrasing’ anymore?” He tries to replace it with “Said Ripley to the android bishop,” a joke that fails on all three occasions it’s attempted.
In other revelations, Krieger casually lets it slip that the CPU in Ray’s bionic legs just needs to be rebooted for them to work again, even though Ray has for months been under the assumption that he’s paralyzed for life.
Finally, at the end of the episode, Krieger and Cyril are presented with the choice of who to inject with his mind-control chip. The answer becomes painfully obvious as Cheryl, now calling herself Cherlene, marches from her room in full country-singer attire.
Will Pam ever stop being coke-strong? Will Cheryl succeed as a music singer? Will Ray finally get his life back on track? All these questions won’t even be entertained for another three weeks, when Archer returns after the Olympics.
Lines that made the episode
“Next time remind me to get shot in the head.”
Pam: “What are we doing?” Sterling: “Stabbing science into your brain!”
Krieger: “You could be famous!” Cheryl: “I could be lettuce!”
“Welcome to Nazi Canada.”
“What’s this door made of, mithril?”
“How? I inhaled skeleton!”
“Good, because I’ll be watching you like a hawk. That’s been bred with an eagle to produce some sort of eagle eyed super hawk, with a badge!”
“I’m not a doctor…oh, I’m definitely a doctor. So I think we’re good now, yep yep yep.”
