Cyril becomes the new president of San Marcos, Cherlene becomes the first lady of country music and Archer becomes a resistance fighter.

Though “Filibuster” is ostensibly not part of “Palace Intrigue” or the finale episode, it certainly doesn’t function as a separate entity. It, like the back half of Archer Vice, is a heavily serialized part of a larger puzzle, ending on yet another cliffhanger.

The episode opens with Archer, the President and the former first lady in prison three weeks after Cyril took over as President of San Marco (or the end of the previous episode). Soon enough, Cyril forces the former first lady into marriage, and Cherlene replaces her in the prison after she declares herself the First Lady of (Outlaw) Country.

Surprisingly, Cherlene has managed to sneak a key into the cell with her, and soon Archer, Cherlene and the President are hightailing it out of there, only making a brief pit stop at an abandoned zoo.

Archer gets to stare in awe at a glorious tiger, sharing a lovely, tender moment with the luminously drawn beast. He names the tiger Shane and is just about ready to leave when Cherlene decides to take matters in her own hands. She releases Shane from his cage, much to Archer and the President’s distress. The tiger then proceeds to maul the President to death to no one’s surprise, thus ruining the lovely moment Archer had with the tiger.

Archer and Cherlene continue onwards towards the rebel-held airport, where they are immediately captured by the rebel army.

Meanwhile, the clone Kriegers start prepping their nuclear missile for launch. Our bowtie-wearing Krieger, on the other hand, has begun doubting this plan. He tries to reason with the other Kriegers before starting a fight that ends with one concussed Krieger running back to Cyril and the other Kriegers dead.

Archer Vice deliberately omits whether or not our Krieger has survived, a decision made explicit by Pam’s ramblings about the current Krieger being a vampire and how she’s going to drive a stake through his heart.

Unfortunately, one of the clone Kriegers managed to start the launch sequence — an impossibly slow 190-minute countdown — before dying, and the surviving Krieger can’t (not won’t) stop the launch sequence.

Lana convinces Cyril that their only hope is to bring Archer out of captivity, and Cyril finally acquiesces whereupon they realize all of their prisoners have escaped. Lana drives off to find Archer at the airport.

At the airport, Archer finds out FBI Agent Holly is actually CIA Agent Holly, and that the CIA is actually the entire rebel army. Before any of them gets any further, Lana shows up, and, just as they finish explaining to her the CIA switcheroo, her water breaks. Cue credits.

There’s honestly not that much to talk about with “Filibuster.” Curiously, for an episode with some pretty high stakes, it feels inconsequential. Stuff just happens, some of it funny, some of it not.

Adam Reed mentioned his intent to “deboot” Archer Vice for season six, but even if he didn’t, everything now just feels like a long march toward the reboot button. Counterintuitively, the higher the stakes, the more obvious it is that everything will work out for the ISIS crew.

This is a problem inherent to television comedies: Characters have to grow, but they can’t ever really evolve past a certain point. Archer Vice has taken a more laidback approach to permanent character development — Archer will always be Archer even if he’s a little more considerate than the day we met him — and now, as a result, all of this incident lacks excitement or power.

“Filibuster” marks the point where this San Marco narrative has devoted more time to complicated plotting than jokes or funny business. Without this backbone of pitiless humor, Archer Vice starts to lose my interest.

Plot structure has really been Archer Vice’s Achilles heel. The first half of the season meandered too much, using the premise to drive extended riffing while the second half of the season has lost itself in the ineffective high drama.

I’ll obviously reserve judgment until next week’s finale, but it’s impossible to escape the feeling that Archer Vice might’ve be more of an admirable attempt at rejiggering the formula than a genuinely exciting change.

Tidbits:

– “I’m sorry Lana, but I didn’t go to Rabbinical school.” – Mallory on Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine

– Ray’s church didn’t really do Jesus.

– The Clone Bone has really grown on me. Inapprops, on the other hand…

– “George Borewell…”