Hi folks! Welcome the to our weekly recap of Archer’s third season, on the Multiversity Summer TV Binge 2021. This week we blast off with the first episode of the season and it’s part of a trilogy! “Heart of Archness: Part 1”, let’s dive right in.
1. RIP Jessica Walter
First of all, let’s take a time to mourn the loss of a great one, Jessica Walter passed away on March 24. The 80-year-old actress appeared on over one hundred and seventy productions, in movies, TV, and Theater; besides Archer, she is best known for her hilarious role as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, a true masterclass con comedy acting. She will be sorely missed.
Fortunately, Deadline reports that she had already recorded all her lines on Season 12, which means we are having more of Mallory for at least one last season; although it is not known yet what will happen to the character then, we can hope that she has a proper sendoff and surely the season will be dedicated to her.
2. What happened on season two?
Well, you can read all of our previous writing about the series right here. But on the meantime here’s a brief recap of what happened last year: Archer was sexually harassed in the Alpes, had a baby that turned out to be really Cyril’s son; he almost died of cancer and when he discovered that he was receiving fake chemo he went on a revenge rampage; we learned that Cheryl is a billionaire and in his quest to find out who his dad is, Archer traveled to Russia and fell in love with a fellow spy named Katya Kasanova that was murdered by cyborg-Barry.
This season begins three months after that happened and Archer has disappeared, ISIS is turning a profit and there are far less harassment complaints for HR, so, Mallory wants her son back and her agents cannot find him, she’ll have to call…
3. Rip Riley
An ex-lover of Mallory and an ex-spy that worked for ISIS, now turned manhunter, Riley finds Archer working as a bartender and having affairs with newlywed women in a tiny island on the French Polynesia.
Ripley punches Archer and manages to take him in his ‘Loosey Goosey’ and old-time seaplane pulled out of the 1930’s, Archer manages to use a ruse on him and now he is in control of the ship.
4. Turns out Autopilot is not the same as self-driving
Archers takes a nap, shaves himself and then Ripley awakens to the surprise that the plane has been on autopilot for who-knows how many hours, and understandably, the ship falls.
Archer manages to rescue Ripley and some bottles, but when a shark comes for Ripley he has no other option but let go of his precious alcohol and shoot a shark in the head, so now, they are stranded on a lifeboat without provisions (because Archer ate them) and nothing but a distress beacon and a flare gun.
Meanwhile, back on New York… things are the same, Mallory is being abusive towards her employees, particularly Bilbo the tech guy; and the team is doing nothing, as usual. But when Mallory sees that the distress signal is off, she uses ISIS’ Black Card™ to pay for a flight for Ray and Lana to recover Archer.
5. Turns out, pirates are real
On the boat, they see a ship and Archer asks for help, but it turns out to be a pirate ship and now they are going to become slaves. But the pirate king sees that Archer has a nice watch and is going to ask for a ramson, thankfully, the watch is the Omicron Spymaster and manages to escape and kill a bunch of pirates.
But when they get ready to keep fighting, they discover that the pirates are not fighting anymore and Noah, a slave-pirate tells them that now that he killed the pirate king, Archer is the new king, and he is going to enjoy the perks that come with it…
6. Changing the genre
This is the first “deviation” of the show, as you know, the series is known for changing its setting regularly, we have Archer: Vice on season 5, Dreamland, Danger Island and 1999 in seasons 8, 9, and 10, respectively, and this thee-part episode is the first test run for those changes. Later, we’ll have more shenanigans, like going into space and under the sea.
Continued belowThat’s what makes Archer such a dynamic and incredible show; personally, I don’t know of any other series where the genre is changed so drastically and yet, it still is the same show; it’s something almost magical seeing a spy show turn into a pirate adventure, a noir drama and a sci-fi epic and yet still use the same setup and have the same characters doing all kinds of different things, some argue that those seasons are not that great, but I loved seeing those changes, because now that we had season 12 with Archer awake and everybody has a new life, the dynamic is different, the show went back to it’s spy roots, but it got a refreshing new perspective on the world.
Today I learned: When Archer discovers that Riley has an emergency distress beacon, Archer thanks inventor Guglielmo Marconi for it; Marconi is, indeed, the man credited as the inventor of the radio.
Joke of the week:
Archer: So, excuse me for needing time to grieve!
Ripley: By tending bar and banging newlyweds?
Archer: Apparently, that’s my grieving process.
And that’s it for this episode, overall, a great episode to start the season, but I’m sad that we’ll have to wait a whole week to come back for the second part. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 302, “Heart of Archness: Part 2”.
