Archer 7x1 'The Figgis Agency': New Frontier

Archer 7x1 continues a slight downward trend of comedy, but stays funny enough to compliment its fresh new experimenting.

Reviewed while enjoying Ghosts of Paraguay.

The challenge of a show so self-referential and cyclical is to stay fresh as the years roll on. The first four seasons of Archer are near flawless, but we as an audience had begun to expect what would be said in every moment by the characters. Which was fine, because part of the humor for this particular show was to laugh at their emotional and psychological ineptitudes. Every character working for the group formerly known as ISIS (That’s true, that was their name) is either a downright horrible sociopathic human being, or else hopelessly arrested in development (get it?) such that they do terrible things because they don’t know better. I never took issue with the show’s stagnation in plot and growth, or the episodic mission of the week format.

But naturally, Archer had to shake things up before even the horribleness of the characters was no longer funny. Nip it in the bud, so to speak. So what we have is a rather fair trade off: the show has been less funny, less witty, and at times a struggle the past two seasons. But it still feels fresh and exciting as we explore our inept spies doing things other than spying. That may sound like a raw deal for a comedy, but there is humor that remains, and Archer has grown exponentially in overall production value (Barry’s robot graphics last year were- wait for it- AMAZZZIIINNNNGGG).

So we come now to even newer territory: private investigating. And the cold open immediately hits us in the gut with the reveal of Archer dead in a pool before rolling back three days. It’s a pretty smart move. Even if the humor winds up lacking as we learn what exactly happened, we’ll stick around to find out what did happen. To be clear, ‘The Figgis Agency’ is an overall funny episode (the infrared dogs and Archer’s reaction was priceless). But humorwise it doesn’t hold a candle to classic Archer. Some of the self-referencing is again too obvious, though the reference to ‘Mancy’ was damn near perfect. And the plot is a little bit forced with a famous movie actress hiring the group’s services to retrieve a tape, which may or may very well not be a sextape. And it turns out the woman who hired them was an impostor (SPOILER ALERT). What the issue at times may be is that the characters are TOO comfortable with each other and their banter doesn’t seem as natural as it used to, because they’ve heard each other’s stories and quirks time and again. So have I. I just didn’t care before.

Yet still, there’s just such appeal to an Archer episode that remains. And I can only attribute it to the experimenting of plot and format of the show. If the characters are too familiar with each other and you can’t have them develop, because that’s not the genre of comedy, then what you change is the setting and circumstance, and see how they react to no longer being spies or even more drastically being blacklisted from espionage completely. More intimately, you see how they react as they discover how much they actually rely on and care about each other. It’s strange watching ‘Figgis’ from the perspective of not caring as much about drop-dead funny jokes and a little bit more about the chemistry of the characters on a deeper level. Lana chastising Archer for being an idiot while still admitting her deep care for him. Malory admitting her son is good at something (which speaks volumes). And just the overall Archer/Pam friendship in the past few seasons. It provides a heart onto the humor, but there is still humor. As they are effectively burglars in this episode, the stakes are high constantly, but the characters don’t realize that and manage to provide enough humor to keep us in the comedy genre.

What the premiere does is rev up the stakes while reminding us that the stakes aren’t too serious, no matter how high they are, because this is still an absurd comedy show. Archer’s alleged death is 1) a cliffhanger to continue on into the next episodes, and 2) not too traumatic because we knew within the context of this world Archer will most likely survive somehow. And if he doesn’t? Well… The other impressing thing about the last two seasons has been the growth of relationships between the characters and the emotional resonance. We care about Archer and Lana, now parents. We get a fuzzy when we think about Archer’s growing love and respect for Pam. And everyone else is starting to at least have a strange respect for Codename Duchess. If he were to die, the show would go into uncharted territory of seriousness. And that might not be such a bad way to go. Especially if the show ends this way. It would never have gotten stale, and we will have the fond moments of brilliant writing and exciting animation on top of the fresh experimentation and emotional growth of the past few seasons. I’m still guessing Archer will survive whatever happened in that cold open. But either way, what we have in Archer these days is the trade-off. A little bit less comedy for a little bit more experimentation and, above all, heart. It’s a bold move. But so far I’m still gripped to what might be my favorite comedy of all time.

Grade: B+

When I got sidetracked

Ummmm... I didn't really? Idk, Archer demands my full attention at all times.

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