“Taking Pam’s addiction to coke so lightly feels a little weird and icky, but the show hasn’t crossed the line yet. I am a little worried that Pam’s coke buzz will stop being funny a few episodes down the road, but, then again, I never thought I’d laugh at “Danger Zone” so many times.” —Warren Zhang
Credit where credit’s due: Archer Vice is a ballsy move to pull with a show so reliant on continuity and callback. The problem with the early batch of episodes this season stems from the extended trailer affixed to the season premiere.
Because we have an inkling of where the show is heading, the self-contained escapades of the second and third episodes have lacked a certain weight, making all the world building and plot advancement in the background all the more apparent.
Fortunately, despite being an unmistakably minor blip in this season’s overarching storyline, last night’s “House Call” is still the funniest half hour of this season thus far.
The episode opens with Pam going coke-feral and snatching away Cheryl right around the same time FBI Agent Holly shows up with a sneaking suspicion that the ex-ISIS gang may be up to some Yakuza-flavored drug shenanigans.
The plot owes a great deal to season three’s “Lo Scandalo” – the basic premise is the same (the gang is stuck in a house with law enforcement and a hugely incriminating entity) – but “House Call” makes for a more exciting, if less tightly constructed episode.
As opposed to the deliberate pacing of “Lo Scandalo,” “House Call” is propelled by a frenzied series of near screw ups and barely averted catastrophes. The episode principals (Pam and Cheryl, Archer, Lana, Mallory, Krieger and Cyril) get separated early on, leading to god damn A, B, C and D plots running through the episode.
To the episode’s immense credit, none of the excessive plot development ever becomes overwhelming. “House Call” manages to inch along the whole Archer Vice storyline while giving a number of conclusions to multiple side plots.
Mallory and Ron Cadillac have a rough argument and may no longer be married by the episode’s end. Cheryl gets a brain implant that removes the stage fright inhibiting her country music career. Krieger could’ve fixed up Ray’s busted robo-legs with a quick reboot, but wouldn’t he appreciate them so much more after going through all that wheelchair-bound agony again?
All the while Archer remains still surprisingly concerned about the well-being of Lana’s baby and Agent Holly is wandering the mansion, spouting accidental sexual innuendoes.
The only character to get short-shrift is, weirdly enough, Pam. She starts the episode as a coke addict, and she ends the episode as a tranquillized coke fiend. Making Pam addicted to cocaine is a fairly reasonable development, but it’s starting to feel as if the writers don’t have much in mind for addict Pam aside from the jokes.
Taking Pam’s addiction to coke so lightly feels a little weird and icky, but the show hasn’t crossed the line yet. I am a little worried that Pam’s coke buzz will stop being funny a few episodes down the road, but, then again, I never thought I’d laugh at “Danger Zone” so many times.
By the end of the episode, though, the characters haven’t moved any more cocaine except into Pam’s stomach; the ex-ISIS gang are at least closer to selling all their coke. With all the storylines this season has already started, it’ll be interesting to see how Archer Vice juggles both the broad Miami Vice riff and all the character work in the background.
At its best, Archer has always delivered some surprisingly effective character moments alongside the insane, post-modern jokes the show is known for. Hopefully, Archer Vice will be no different.
Tidbits:
- Even though I’ve been a bit harsh on the season’s early episodes, there have been a lot of great moments. That bit in “A Kiss While Dying” with Cheryl’s country music playing over Archer and Ramon sneaking into Charles and Rudy’s home? Perfect.
- “Oh my god, and little kids eat it?”
- The running gag with Archer being ignorant of many Internet porn fetishes sounds about right.
- “Said Ripley to the android Bishop”
- One of this season’s more annoying tendencies is to have characters explicitly remind us of something that happened in earlier seasons. Len Trexler got the mention last night.
- Poor Woodhouse gets a lot of physical abuse tonight: getting tranquilized and getting knocked out can’t be healthy at that age.
