Archer – Swiss Miss
Strap yourselves in, we are about to return to the danger zone. That’s right, Archer is back and better than ever (and that’s saying something). The season premiere follows the entire Isis crew as they are forced to protect the head of video tech and his nymphomaniac daughter who seems to want nothing more than to put Archer in jail. As you can imagine, hilarity ensues.One thing I want to get out of the way right now is the fact the animation has been greatly improved. It’s not that the last season had bad animation, but this season is such a huge step up. You wouldn’t see it at first, but as soon as we reach the chase sequence towards the end, you can see that a huge amount of money has been added to the animation budget. It’s a great scene and the improved visuals made it all the more better.The story for the episode wasn’t particularly special, but everything within it is what makes it genius. All of the characters get at least one moment to shine; something that the first season was lacking was the side character stuff. We saw them a couple of times, but we never really had enough to satisfy. Even if it was for a few seconds, every character (except Krieger who was only in the background of the first scene) gets at least one scene where they get to stand out and be funny.
Taking the sexual side of Archer (and Pam) and turning them on their heads made for some great comedy. It’s good to know Archer has some boundaries, if he didn’t, he would have become completely unlikable. The side plot involving Marilee trying to get the funding for Isis and being prepared to do anything (whore out) seemed typical her, but the way it turned out was very surprising. This episode does a great job in taking the characters we’re used to and putting the complete opposite portrayal of them. And this is only the 11th episode. We probably could have afforded to wait a few episodes before doing this kind of thing, but it’s good to kickoff the season by letting the viewers know that this will be a very different experience.
As Archer has come to be known for, this episode had such great one-liners, including: “Is Germany the Alabama of Europe?” and my favorite line of the week “A blowjob is what a grown up does when he loves another”. Archer’s sophomore year is getting off to a good start. We know very little about what’s coming and what to expect at all, and that’s exactly how it should be. Kick back with your glass of green Russian and brace yourself for some of the worst human beings in animation.
