Archer S04E08: Coyote Lovely, Review

Agent Sterling Archer is extremely bored. Here he is wasting away in a Texan sun with only excreting scorpions in his sniper’s scope left to amuse him. Below his camped out high ground, Lana  and Cyril argue about whether or not Archer has undiagnosed atypical autism while they play a stranded couple with a station wagon on the side of the road. “You’re mic’s on,” Archer mutters through their communications system like someone just made fun of his Lacrosse playing at prep school again. “I know,” Lana responds with all the sweet condescension of his mother. It is just another dry day of stacking rocks in descending order for Codename Duchess…until she appears.

It has only been a week since we got an episode of Archer screwing up a mission, but I am happy to say the writers have already returned to his well of incompetence. Oh, who am I kidding? It is more like a large lake or a small sea worth of incompetence. The show even opens in initial flashback as Mallory has Lana and Cyril debrief a retro tape recorder on how things got so FUBAR. Apparently, the three were sent down to Texas thanks to Mallory’s shady Border Patrol connections. They were supposed to apprehend Mexico’s most notorious of illegal immigrant smugglers, El Coyote (apparently Spanish for people smuggler…and coyote, as Archer points out). Besides Archer’s bruised ego, things go well until El Coyote turns out to be a delicious Senorita in tight leather pants with plenty of midriff. Archer, already pissed at Lana for making fun of him and her surprising racism against Hispanics, comes to Coyote’s aide. “I mean it’s not like your ancestors had…y’know…papers,” Archer defiantly says of the mocha skinned Lana. Keep up that sterling reputation, Archer.

When Cyril pulls a gun on Archer for being a big meanie, Archer ends up beating Cyril to a pulp and accidentally elbowing Lana into unconsciousness. Cyril still tries to prevent Archer from completely ruining the mission, but after he stupidly admits he has Kevlar on, Archer puts five slugs in his chest. Coyote, more perplexed than enamored with Archer’s chivalry, gets in his station wagon along with about 20 immigrants. Thus while Lana and Cyril lick their wounds at Isis and Mallory creates new mental ones, Archer spends the rest of the episode on an odyssey of self-discovery with his pals from down South. This will include getting shot twice in the back by Border Patrol and being operated upon by an unlicensed veterinarian. When the vet needs Archer’s tequila to steady his hands before the procedure Archer whines, “Ooh, c’mon Katie Hepburn!”

This is another classic episode of Archer. Not that it really moves any of the characters forward (though it inexplicably and shockingly gets rid of one, but more on that in a moment). It is just a series of hilarious screw-ups that does Isis proud. Little surprises me about the kind of arrogance and idiocy associated with Sterling, but even I can still be shocked when he shoots Cyril in the chest five times at point blank range. Archer ruining a mission is expected, but sending Lana to the hospital with a concussion is so absurdly out of left field that the shock value continues to work. Plus, they blunt it with the slyest of political incorrectness. Archer, always the cheerfully oblivious racist, is a supporter of immigration reform and Lana, the politically correct straight man to his pigishness, is the racist who assumes all immigrants are cartel drug mules here to leach off our public school system. It makes their momentary falling out all the more acceptable; though the show still reminds us, lest we forget, that Sterling will always snort  as he schools sweet elderly immigrant Lupé on how Americans only IMPLY racism.

Another great episode of Archer craziness that ends with Duchess not getting the girl. However, he does discover that it was all a set-up by Mallory who was paid by the REAL El Coyote to throw Border Patrol off the sent. Oh, and the Hobbit, the large Tolkien-obsessed computer wizard, died of a heart attack after Mallory shame slapped him for his insubordination. The last frame of the show is Krieger sneaking his body to his underground labs for experiments. Ay yi yi!

Quotes from THE DANGER ZONE:

“Because I’ve been lying in scorpion piss for two hours in this sun blasted shithole that is Texas waiting for a stupid truck stuffed with smallish brown people who JUST WANT A JOB!” Archer describing why he is bored.

“Apologize to my tinnitus!” Archer crying after Lana yells into his ear link.

“How is a Lorax-blowing Tree Hugger like you anti-immigration?!” Archer to Lana.

“So?” Archer asks when Cyril tells him that he probably gave Lana a concussion. “You get like six freebees!”

“Yeah, I think you’re ready…” Pam taking off her overhauls in a flashback so that her family farm’s cow milking immigrant can move on to her.

“Hey Lupé!” Archer yelling at an elderly immigrant after she calls Muslims terrorists in Spanish. “C’mon, you’re in America now! You just imply it.”