Bye, `Archer.'
With sharp writing and voice work, the series transcended its spy parody origins
Sterling Archer is rude, selfish and addicted to sex, booze and danger. He also occasionally shoots his co-workers.
But we will miss him when he's gone.
The final episode of the FXX animated series “Archer” will air Wednesday, and that will be the last adventure of the world's greatest secret agent — his words — and his group of twisted coworkers. Since 2009, “Archer” has won a devoted fan following, along with multiple Emmy nominations, for its sharply animated, ruthlessly funny, deeply inappropriate comedy. Archer thrived while other adult cartoons — does anyone remember “Glenn Martin, DDS”? “The Goode Family”? No? — withered and died.
Workplace comedy
Created by Adam Reed, “Archer” is an office sitcom centered on the premise that James Bond would be a terrible guy to work with. Sterling Archer (voice of H. Jon Benjamin, who also does Bob on “Bob's Burgers”) is the star operative at a spy agency — originally called ISIS, later changed for obvious reasons — owned and operated by his mother, Malory Archer (the late, great Jessica Walter), herself a former spy.
At first, “Archer” relied on raunchy jokes and parodies of spy-movie clichés. Archer, while “great in the field,” is a disaster of a human being. He drinks too much, ignores sexual harassment guidelines and takes a fairly cavalier attitude toward his own life and everyone else's.
He was caught in a love-hate relationship with his ex, fellow agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), and abused and insulted agency receptionist Cheryl/Carol (Judy Greer), human resources manager Pam Poovey (Amber Nash) and comptroller Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell).
The dialogue was rapid-fire, clever, mean and utterly inappropriate. It must have been hard to work references to Lord Byron's poetry, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” J.R.R. Tolkien and the discoverer of blood types in among all the sex jokes, but the writers made it look easy.
A growth spurt
If he'd sounded as handsome and arrogant as he was drawn, Archer would have just been a jerk. But Benjamin's unique, deadpan delivery somehow made what Archer said easier to take. (“I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my thundering awesomeness” is a line only Benjamin could sell.)
Still, the show probably wouldn't have lasted this long if it stayed stuck in its early premise. There's only so much you can do with a guy who's a complete tool, even if he is a super-spy.
But something happened as “Archer” went on. The humor became grounded in the show's characters and their relationships while still making crude jokes about them. And Archer, despite trying to remain shallow and selfish, began to change.
The turning point came in Season 2, Episode 8, when Archer was diagnosed with breast cancer, the inevitable result of too many encounters with stolen plutonium. Although he still managed to murder most of the Irish mob for replacing his chemo drugs with Zima, he was forced to admit he needed the people around him. After that, he began to show a little more empathy to the other agency employees, if not actual friendship.
We also learned more about his upbringing by Malory, and it became easier to explain, if not excuse, Archer's behavior. For instance, when he was 9, she moved without telling him, leaving him stranded when he came home from boarding school. (“Crying for his mommy in that police station like a little girl! What does that tell you?” asks Malory, displaying the parenting skills that helped make Archer who he is.)
Meanwhile, Pam revealed her after-work hobbies included bareknuckle death matches and street racing and grew into the closest thing Archer has to a best friend. Cyril recovered from sex addiction and binge eating before collapsing into his old pathologies again. Cheryl turned out to be a billionaire heiress before she became Cherlene, a country music star. Agent Ray Gillette (Reed) confronted his redneck past as a gay man with bionic legs, while resident mad scientist Dr. Krieger (Lucky Yates) came to terms with his identity as a cloned offspring of Hitler.
There was never any hugging at the end, and no one would have ever called them a family, but Archer and his crew looked out for each other, if only because nobody else would. They all grew, as much as cartoon characters can, anyway.
Career opportunists
Now, after seasons that reimagined them as drug dealers, detectives, a starship crew (at least in Archer's coma dreams) and spies again, time is finally catching up with them. Creator Reed stepped down as full-time showrunner after Season 10, and the past few seasons have sometimes felt like an extended farewell tour.
The biggest change came when Malory left the agency, after the death of Walter, in a touching coda that saw her escape to a tropical island with her husband, Ron (played by Walter's real-life husband Ron Leibman, who died in 2019). Archer no longer had his mother to blame or to bail him out.
Since then, he's made peace with his rival Barry, the agentturned-cyborg-killing-machine. He and Lana have settled into co-parenting détente around their child, AJ. The one new thing in his life is a fresh recruit named Zara, played by Natalie Dew, who is even more reckless than he is. Archer is forced, for the first time, to be the responsible one. It's not a lot of fun for him.
It seems impossible, but Archer might be on his way to a graceful exit. Or at least, a somewhat dignified retirement of tropical drinks and liver failure.
Then again, he might just sacrifice himself to save the people around him. Not because he likes any of them, of course. But because he's awesome, and that's how the world's greatest spy has to go out.