“Going into the season, I was somewhat concerned about how far Archer might drift from its roots with the reboot. Looking back, I’m now unsatisfied with how little the show actually changed.” — Warren Zhang

One of the most remarkable accomplishments of “Palace Intrigue: Part I” is that it crams an insane amount of plot into an episode almost entirely dedicated to extended bits of free-flow comedy.

Take, for instance, the President of the fictional San Marco’s introduction. It efficiently sets up the character as an egomaniacal loon while indulging in an extended piece of absurd dialogue between the President and a military commander.

“Palace Intrigue: Part I” positively zips through its 20 minute runtime, blowing through an entire season’s worth of setup and jokes without a minute to spare. The ISIS gang have stumbled into a CIA arms for cocaine deal with the war-torn Central American nation of San Marco.

The episode opens with Ray flying through a storm into the country. They land and nearly get arrested, but they’re saved at the last minute when it turns out that the President of San Marco is a huge fan of Cherlene.

They get invited back to his castle and the group splits up. Mallory and the President go through some awkward, halting “negotiations” while drinking Ben Franklin’s wine. Archer unknowingly has un-casual, un-anonymous sex with the President’s wife (she was dressed as maid). Krieger stumbles upon clones of himself working in the President’s laboratory, and Pam goes looking for a god damn ice machine.

That’s palace intrigue, under the table geopolitical conspiracies, sci-fi and country music in one episode of Archer. Whew.

Somehow, “Palace Intrigue: Part I” is bogged down by the amount of plot it has to cover. It finds the time to be mercilessly funny regardless of the explosions happening around the characters.

As this is the first chunk of a two-parter, “Palace Intrigue: Part I” doesn’t have much of an ending, but the episode still picks a natural, goofy place to end, with the civil war reaching the President’s doorstep. “Palace Intrigue: Part I” constantly escalates, and its ending at the peak of its insanity is oddly perfect.

Not every joke is a winner — the meta “phrasing” gag has gone back around to annoying — but the jokes come too fast and too furious for you to notice. Archer hasn’t hit these kind of comedic heights since season three.

But as good as this episode was, it create a weird narrative split in the season. For all of the advance marketing pumping up the vice part of Archer Vice, this season abandoned the whole Miami Vice shtick shockingly fast.

Though Archer has never been a series that relies heavily on plot, the meandering story told in the first half of the season felt at odds with the conceptual gambit Archer Vice took. It remains to be seen if any of the cocaine subplots — especially Agent Hawley — pay off in the last couple episodes of the season, but too much of Archer Vice felt like only a moderately fun waste of time.

Most troublingly, this season of Archer hasn’t reinvigorated the series, which started stagnating towards the end of season three. Archer is still quite adept at playing off its terrific ensemble, but it’s largely stuck to the same wheelhouse of stories for five years now.

Going into the season, I was somewhat concerned about how far Archer might drift from its roots with the reboot. Looking back, I’m now unsatisfied with how little the show actually changed.

Taking the ISIS out of Archer hasn’t solved the mid-life crisis faced by the show. It’s actually deepened it, suggesting that the core of Archer’s increasingly played out form runs bone deep, and that there might not be any way to keep the show feeling fresh and exciting.

I’m still eagerly anticipating the season finale, but I’m not longer terribly interested in Archer season 6.

Tidbits:

  • “I love that you took that as a compliment.”
  • “Shut up you baboon faced baboon.”
  • “You have fallen victim to the sinister gay cabal.”
  • That sight gag of all the Cherlene records was sublime.
  • Now that we’re nearing the home stretch, where did half of the season teaser go? We’ve hit a lot of the beats, but we’ve still got Cherlene’s legit country tour and Agent Hawley’s reappearance to cover in only 3 episodes.