It used to be very easy to descibe Archer, the animated dark comedy now entering its fifth season, to those unfamiliar: “Arrested Development meets James Bond.” Now it’s not that simple, as ISIS, the spy agency that employs Sterling Archer (and his incredibly dysfunctional co-workers), is no more.
The episode starts with a dreamlike, music-filled scene that features no dialogue. Sterling takes the elevator up to ISIS, brings out a bouquet of roses and is given gifts and high-fives by all of his colleagues. The sequence is then interrupted by the sound of a bomb going off, after which it cuts to the opening credits, which now includes Lucky Yates (the voice of Krieger) to the main cast.
What follows is an intense firefight between the ISIS agents and a group of black-clad, masked men. In typical Archer fashion, the fact that potentially everybody in the office could be killed is offset by Sterling’s neuroses — he suddenly has an inescapable need to figure out the name of the boss of Beaker, the famous nonsense-talking Muppet. His asking an office employee the question costs the poor man his life, ending a long-running series joke.
Eventually, it turns out that the shooters are none other than the FBI, who have come to arrest everybody in ISIS for treason. As it turns out, Mallory Archer had zero United States government authority to do any of the missions ISIS has done. As they’re hauled off to jail, Mallory tells everybody that she can get them out, but that they have to not rat each other out.
What follows is a well-edited sequence in which everybody, except for Sterling and Lana, recount the events of what went down in Archer‘s first four seasons, and described all in one place, the things that ISIS has done would be considered absolutely insane, as Cyril points out at the end.
Without spoiling too much, ISIS is considered gone forever, but then Sterling pulls up a wall in the office to reveal a ton of cocaine, with a street value of at least $50 million. The new goal of the former spies is now to sell it off and give themselves a new life.
Though the core premise of the show has now changed, Archer itself is still the same uproariously funny show it has always been, only now, the cast is not bound by a duty to serve their country (even if they were never technically serving it in the first place). Cheryl and Pam are as unhinged as ever; Cyril continues to be the office punching bag (a scene where he talks about an alternate career he could pursue meets blank stares from his fellow agents); and Mallory is as selfish and uncaring as ever (“Just put it on my crime tab, or something,” she says in an attempt to escape kidnapping charges).
There is marked character growth as well. As Lana and Sterling discuss Lana’s pregnancy via donor, Sterling suggests Lana marry him and that they run off together. After a brief pause, Lana says she would rather lose the baby than marry him. Lana is given a new set of priorities this season, and as she will no doubt be a part of the smuggling scheme, it will be interesting to see what her motivations will lead to.
The final four or so minutes act as a trailer for what’s to come, and it looks like this season could be crazier than all of the others combined. Insanity is of course nothing new, as ISIS missions brought Sterling and Lana to places like Tanzania, Canada and Switzerland to name of a few. And as the season three trilogy “Heart of Archness” proved, the show is just as funny when things are shaken up. We’ve seen Sterling as a pirate, and soon we’ll be seeing him as a drug runner. It’s likely that his skill in the latter will be as much as he had in the former (ie. little).
The “trailer” moved at such a fast pace that it was hard to absorb everything — Sterling with a tiger on his desk, Cheryl becoming a top 20 country music star, Lana’s water breaking, Ron Cadillac being shot, just to name a few events — but it will prove to be a gleefully delightful ride.
