Hi folks! Welcome back to our weekly recap of Archer’s fourth season, on the Multiversity Summer TV Binge 2022. This week’s episode is named “Coyote Lovely” and here, we get political on the migration theme, let’s cross the border right in!
1. The Coyote
This week’s mission is to catch Mexico’s most famous coyote, and while Archer gets bored with his rifle, Lana and Cyril have to stay under the desert heat as bait for the trap. In their typical arguments and fights during the mission, Lana openly expresses that she thinks Archer might have a severe developmental disorder or even be autistic/have autism; in fact, several times during the chapter, they play with the idea of Archer’s neuroatypicality.
To be honest it’s not a kind of joke that I really enjoy, people with neural differences deserve respect, but it does make you wonder if Archer is on the spectrum, because of his weird way of socializing with the rest of the world, an example of this is the relationship he develops with the migrants during their escape, compared to his perceived arrogance with people who, arguably, are in the same social standing as him.
2. Archer is… nuanced?
The mission is interrupted by Archer’s hornyness when he realizes the coyote is Mercedes Moreno, a very attractive woman.
During the migration debate, Archer is oddly empathetic towards migrants, on the one hand he is interested in having sex with Mercedes, but he also shows nuance in his ideas, considering that they are people who are only searching for a better life and job opportunities, though of course he doesn’t let go of his usual casual racism.
Archer knows Spanish and develops friendly and even affectionate relationships with the migrants as they flee from the Border Patrol, in particular with old Lupe, to whom he even yells that he already has a mother and apologizes for being in pain and taking it out on her.
One of the ideas that I’ve talked about the most when reviewing Archer is that he’s an asshole, but weirdly enough, one with a heart who cares about people in need.
3. Lana’s ideas
Interestingly, Lana is against migrants, I think it’s weird because she belongs to a minority that has been constantly affected by stereotypes and prejudices, but a cruel reality is that the system of oppression in which we live was designed to put minorities against each other… if there is no solidarity there is no social struggle. This same phenomenon is reflected in other moments of the episode, for example when Lupe blames Muslims for terrorism.
But the reality is that the talking points that Lana spouts are nothing more than white supremacist propaganda, it has been proven over and over again that it is a lie that migrants do not pay taxes or take advantage of social programs, a very easy debunk is that , in order to access some of those public services you need to prove your legality in the country, so they pay for things they cannot even get!
If you are more interested in this topic, I have these two facts for you: immigrants pay taxes, in fact they pay more than 11 billion dollars in state and municipal taxes alone and take much less from social programs than what they contribute.
4. ‘La Migra’
This episode involves the Border Patrol, who receive a very acid mockery for their actions, they are depicted as two white men with homosexual tendencies, and as such, that should not be a joke and can be perceived as homophobic, but I think the The production team did a deliberate act to hurt the susceptibility of real-life actors, who are homophobic and conservative, they would be offended to see themselves depicted in this way… Or am i stretching too much this justification?
They are also seen as incompetent, unable to catch a single old car, they missed many shots and didn’t count their ammunition, so they got easily caught. I think it’s clear that the Archer team are not fond of the agency dedicated to detaining people and creating an inhospitable environment along the border, and honestly, neither I am, f- them.
Continued below5. As always, the team loses
In the end the team messed up, as usual, Archer couldn’t have the sexual encounter he wanted with the coyote; the Border Patrol agents who didn’t catch migrants that day and won’t even be able to arrest Sterling; Cyril and Lana were left severely injured, her by being knocked out by Archer, and Cyril by being shot in his kevlar vest…
But hey, at least someone did receive a profit from the mission, it turns out that all this time Malory was manipulating the team in favor of Maria, the Real Coyote an mother of Mercedes, who escaped with a flotilla of trucks full of migrants while Malory made off with a bunch of pesos to remodel her office.
Joke of the Week: This time it’s visual:
And that’s it for this episode, I think this has been one of my favorites of the season so far, and the theme her was particularly striking to me. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 4×09, “The Honeymooners.”
