11ArcherEpisodes That Helped Make the Show a Cult Favorite

The tenth ( and plain final ) time of year of Archer , theretro sci - fi theme Archer : 1999 , kick off this week on FXX . It ’s been a longsighted route to get the gang to out space ( or back to out outer space , technically speaking ) , and while recent seasons have n’t seen the spy show in top form , 1999 looks potential to terminate the serial publication on a eminent note .

With that in intellect , here are some of our favorite Archer episodes from seasons past . To list every favourite moment , pun - tastic revilement , wacky frolic , and fame cameo would be akin to writing an cyclopaedia — this show escape a mile a mo , loves to make uproariously unnoticeable reference , and has been on the air since 2009 , with over 100 episodes to date — but we ’ve picked out some highlight from over the years , with an eye toward installments that helped shape the show and its characters .

1. “Skytanic,” season 1, episode 7

squad ISIS ( an acronym the show afterwards did away with , for obvious reasons ) boards the initiative voyage of the helium blimp Excelsior to inquire a bomb threat . Of course , it ’s soon revealed the threat was called in by a jealous Malory Archer — but as it turns out , there in reality is a turkey on base , set by the dissatisfied blimp captain , who skydives out after it ’s discovered . Sterling Archer and Lana Kane phone up fellow agent Ray Gillette back at ISIS headquarters , and he talks them through unarm the bomb calorimeter in a conniption that illustrates both Archer ’s entranced skewering of undercover agent thrillers as well as the kinetics between some of its key characters . Namely Archer ( whose dimwitted reading of the serial number—“M … as in ‘ Mancy’”—leads Ray to tell him to snip the awry wire ) and Lana ( who shoots him in the leg for being annoying ) . at last , Lana and her on - again , off - again beau Cyril Figgis end up shoving the bomb overboard … and circumstantially bombing Wales .

2. “Placebo Effect,” season 2, episode 9

With Dr. Krieger ’s help , Archer recognise the dear chemotherapy drugs he ’s been take away for his breast cancer are faux . His quest for retribution — both on his behalf and ( in an uncharacteristically tender move ) an senior fellow patient he befriend who ends up give in to the disease — leads him to the Irish Maffia , guns and grenades blazing , despite the side effects when he starts getting literal chemo ( of losing his hair , he remarks to Lana , “ it was my fifth - good feature article ” ) .

Meanwhile , we learn a little more about Krieger ( wrench out he ’s a Boys From Brazil - style son of a Nazi scientist who came to Malory and ISIS when he was just a teen ; in later season , we meet Krieger ’s clones ) as well as Malory ’s relationship with Archer , or lack thence , as we see when she flips through an record album of family photograph that show she was n’t present at any milestones of his life history . With his cancer in subsidence , Archer ’s back to his selfish ego by the ending , but “ The Placebo Effect ” is the rarified Archer sequence that , between all the jokes , fag a little deeper into its characters on an emotional level .

3. “El Secuestro,” season 2, episode 10

In which ISIS learns that the agency ’s secretaire , whose first name be given to more or less change agree to her whimsey ( in this episode , at least , it ’s Cheryl ) , has been keep her last name a secret all this time , with in effect cause : “ Tunt ” reveals she ’s a billionaire heiress . The truth come out when ISIS head of HR Pam Poovey is accidentally nobble in her place ; Cheryl ’s monumental riches and eccentric extended mob ( including her sidekick , Cecil , who pops up on the show from clock time to time ) have been a go back Archer melodic theme ever since . “ El Secuestro ” also showed a new side of Pam , who lets it steal that she was a bare - knuckle boxer back in college , then uncover her flighty raiment of back tattoos — admit a Lord Byron quote that begins “ For the Angel of Death spread his wing on the blast / And catch one’s breath in the face of the enemy as he passed”—while threaten to beat up Malory for lowballing her ransom .

4. “The Man From Jupiter,” season 3, episode 4

Of all the Archer voice cameos over the year , this one ’s at the top : Burt Reynolds , playing himself , or at least a interpretation of himself . Archer ’s delectation at receive his idol turns to scandalize when he realizes that the whiz of Gator , The Longest Yard , Deliverance , and so many of his other favorite movies is … dating his female parent . Naturally , even though he ’s currently being targeted by a Cuban hit squad , Archer ’s main objective is to break them up at any cost . The scenes between Archer and Reynolds are pure comedy atomic number 79 — but the effective moments come in when Reynolds urges Archer to see Malory as more than just his mother , but a soul with genuine wants and pauperization ( a conversation that unfolds while they ’re involved in a high - amphetamine chase , of course ) . Reynolds saves the day in every way potential , and the episode is Archer ’s ultimate protection to one of its fame touchstones , just barely edging out the time of year five episode where Kenny “ Danger Zone ” Loggins pops up to execute at Lana ’s child shower .

5-6. “Space Race” season 3, episodes 12-13

The two - part season three finale — which riffle on James Bond ’s Moonraker , as well as sci - fi classics like Star Wars and Aliens — sees the ISIS agents ( plus Malory and stowaways Pam and Cheryl ) summoned to stop a mutiny on the space station Horizon . Turns out it ’s a trap , and “ these nut sacks want to take us to Mars to make us baby mill , ” as Pam put it , though Lana — who expend most of the episode in her underwear , wearing stickers as pasties — is their main target .

“ Space Race ” has some nifty here and now ( love life that heated discourse of Animal Farm in a second of crisis ) , but it ’s mostly include in this list for dividing line , because it looks nothing like what Archer : 1999 has in store , despite the standardized setting . In keeping with seasons eight and nine , which really take plaza in Archer ’s comatose mind , season 10 will feature versions of the character native to their new environment , like a version of Pam that ’s actuallya gargantuan rock monster .

7. “Fugue and Riffs” season 4, episode 1

ActorH. Jon Benjamin ’s two most iconic articulation rolesintertwine in this inevitable ( but still cunning - as - hell ) mash - up with Bob ’s Burgers , in which an amnesiac Archer drops out of sight , only to resurface a few month after running a diner with his newly - acquire wife and kid ( who look just like they do onBob ’s Burgers , except re - tooled in the mode of the Archer characters ) . At any charge per unit , ISIS entrance on when “ Bob ” has a chronicle of Violence moment on the job , surprise himself with his badass scrap moves when KGB agent barge in while he ’s tack patties . The rest of the episode sees Archer ’s fellow agent gently trying to even up his memory without causing a total mental freakout , a programme that goes typically sideways when the KGB show up again . Weirdly , this episode is also full of fresh - relevant Shazam references .

8. “The Rules of Extraction,” season 5, episode 8

At the root of time of year five , ISIS gets shut out down by the U.S. administration , and Archer transforms into Archer : Vice as the former spy wrick their aid to a different , yet equally parlous business domain : sell monumental amount of poorly - gotten cocaine . By episode eight , things have gone haywire enough that Archer , Cyril , and Ray get themselves stranded in the South American jungle , where Ray finally grow the hazard to confront Archer about his constant use of nonchalantly lay everyone in peril , simply because he know things work out for him most of the time . It ’s an reflexion that ’s basicallya meta - commentaryon one of Archer ’s longest - run themes . Also , Archer puzzle the opportunity to arrive face to face with one of his openhanded fears — crocodile — in a scene that ’s as screamingly funny as it is luridly gory . Eat a dick , hobo camp !

9. “Vision Quest,” season 6, episode 5

This brilliantly ego - contained , dialogue - heavy episode obtain the team — now work freelancer for the CIA after the events of Archer : Vice — report for a compulsory former - cockcrow coming together at Malory ’s insistence , only to get stuck on the elevator on the way up to the office . The impression of noetic problem - solving vaporise almost at once when cell phones break down , the elevator phone fails , everyone decide they ’re starving ( except for Pam , who gobbles her bear claw so she wo n’t have to partake it ) , and long - simmer frustrations and conflicts bubble to the surface . topsy-turvyness come down , bodily functions allow loose , graffiti referencing a macabre elevator shot in The Untouchables gets splashed on the rampart , and Malory — who appears just as the ordeal is ending — doesn’t quite reveal that she orchestrated the entire affair as a team - work up exercise .

10-11. “Deadly Velvet,” season 7, episode 10

Season seven took inspiration fromMagnum , P.I.and uprooted the work party from New York to Los Angeles , where they become private tec . Almost directly they ’re tangled in a showcase involving a sultry movie star whose motivations are not what they seem — and in this , the two - part time of year finale , we see how and why Archer came to be floating face - down in her swimming pool , permeate with bullet train , as glimpsed in the time of year premiere . move ahead , making the show about Archer ’s coma dreaming let the show to change to an anthology formatting , opening up the possibilities for setting and new spins on familiar characters .

Season eight ’s noir exercise Archer : Dreamland kept the legal action in Los Angeles but in the class 1947 , with Archer as a private eye and Malory as a kingbolt nicknamed “ Mother , ” among other kink . Season nine ’s less successful Archer : Danger Island jumped a X prior and dress the action in the South Pacific , with Archer and Pam as boozy , treasure - hunt pilots . Archer : 1999 , as we ’ve mentioned , will see the crew zipping through the galaxy — and while nothing will substitute the show ’s spy - fi bloom ( season two , three , and four in finical ) , all those alien and cause of death space automaton look poise to issue some new Graeco-Roman moment .

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A scene from the first half of the seventh season’s two-part finale, “Deadly Velvet.”