8x01 No Good Deed

[7.6/10] A very nice start to the new season. I appreciate the way the show commits to the 1947 Los Angeles setting and finds a nice mix between the usual Archer vibe and the trappings of old school noir. “No Good Deed” does a nice job of establishing the new setting and character dynamics for all of the major characters, and acclimating the audience to Archer’s new little world.

I particularly appreciate how each episode more or less pairs up Archer with a different woman in his life. I loved the back-and-forth between him and “Mother” in the first act, which did a tremendous job of meshing the rhythms of a classic noir film with the rhythms of Archer dialogue. It had the right balance of peppy back-and-forth with the profane/wordplay stuff this show does so well.

By the same token, the second act paired up him and Lana for some contentious chemistry that feels like a throwback version of their usual vibe, with a side dish of Krieger doing his typically great Krieger stuff. And the third act gives us Archer and Pam, his best friend, there to be at his side to help out with the big action set piece. The two make for a nice pairing, and it sets up the tangled web involved Len Trexler (who’s a mob boss) and Dutch Dylan (Barry, a hitman who, of course, loses his ankles), disrupting a sale of a bunch of Asian women as sex slaves.

In addition, the flashbacks to Dreamland Archer’s war past do a nice job of hinting at him being haunted by the combat – real and/or dreamed up, that he’s been through to lead him up to this point. The show’s art direction is really good here, selling the noir vibe completely.

Overall, a fine start to the new season with crackling dialogue and a half-reboot that gives the show plenty of places to go in Dreamland.