I think it may be salvagable because its almost like the past seasons where the plot was that they were actually secret agents and going on missions.
The best comedy came from Archer’s womanizing-yet-somehow-being-a-super-agent, his back-and-forths with Lana about the mission and life, and going “undercover”.
Also magically changing Carol/Cheryl into a country singer is stupid. Who actually sings her though? The Actress?
This season it’s like a bad Simpsons episode where they’ve written themselves in a hole and it seems like every episode is just them struggling to get out of it.
Since FX just renewed Archer for two (!!) more seasons I am hoping that they somehow go back to the ISIS plotline and being actual secret agents again.
That doesn’t mean they’ll stick with ‘Archer Vice’ - next year it could be ‘Archer CSI’ for all we know. Adam Reed has shown he doesn’t care about convention, consistency, or canon. And I’m totally fine with that, so long as the end result is funny.
The problem with this season so far is that they’re just not doing anything with this new direction. The characters are just wandering around doing very little that’s interesting. I’m hoping the creative crew is still just getting their sea legs and that this season will still coalesce into something better.
And I totally agree about Lana’s pregnancy. What a useless character change! She went from being Amazon warrior-spy to being a whiny character who just stands around and bitches about everything. Mallory’s character has gone in the same direction now that she has no control over anyone.
I’m also trying to make sense of what Kreiger was doing with the cocaine thing. Near as I can tell, he invented a new crypto-currency (the Kriegerrand) for the sole purpose of selling cocaine to himself? And he took a huge risk and sent hundreds of ounces of cocaine through the mail system and back to himself. Why? Was it just a joke? Maybe I missed something, but that whole plotline never made any sense to me once we found out that Krieger wasn’t actually selling it to anyone.
And if no one bought the coke, where did Mallory get all the money she spent on the party? She implied that she was no longer broke because of the coke sale, but that never happened. So… confused.
One other thing… After all the build-up about Kenny Loggins and the country version of ‘Danger Zone’, I thought it actually kind of sucked as a song, and whoever was singing the Cherlene part wasn’t helping. Kenny Loggins himself was fine on the episode. But I thought we were going to get a real kick-ass country version of that song, and that certainly wasn’t it.
Good episode, IMO. Limited the Cherlene nonsense, showed Archer and gang out in the field, Lana being pregnant is still a distraction that is not needed and limiting her character. I hope they regret the decision to make her pregnant.
I think I must be the only person on the planet who is really loving Archer Vice and I’m glad they are done being a shady secret agency. I think it’s been great so far.
I don’t have an issue with the shady agency. I just don’t think the storylines revolving around Pam, Charlene, and Lana have been very interesting or funny and yet are getting most of the screentime. I liked this past episode and uncoincidentally Pam, Charlene, and Lana were at a minimum.
Pam’s addiction to cocaine is wearing thin for me, though it doesn’t actively annoy me. I am absolutely loving all of Lana’s quips about how she is pregnant though. And I really am digging the Cherlene thing too.
I’m surprised, to be honest. I came into Archer the beginning of Season 4, then ate up Seasons 1-3 online in a couple days. But this season has just been slow for me. I just don’t find myself laughing every 15-30 seconds anymore. I can’t quite articulate what it is, but the writing just doesn’t seem to be as clever and dense as the last few seasons.
I think I’ve been able to pinpoint it. It’s not that I have always loved Archer as much as you guys did, and continue to love it just as much, rather, I’ve never enjoyed it as much as y’all have, and I still enjoy it as much as I do, which is probably about how much y’all are enjoying it now.
That is to say, the show took a huge dip in quality for everyone else, and for me, I never thought it was as extremely funny and consistent as everyone else did this whole time.
Much better episode. I think the reason the episodes based out of Cheryl’s house aren’t working is because they aren’t about anything. In earlier seasons, ISIS is pretty much just an office so Archer worked as a workplace comedy taken to insane lengths, but now the episodes based at Cheryl’ house are just a buch of crazy stuff that doesn’t fit together.