[8.4/10] Far and away my favorite of the season so far. Just the premise of Mr. Deadly, a polite, sentient doomsday device that wants nothing more than to explode, is hilarious. Matt Berry does a great job giving the character a dry affect, and his constant efforts to get people to say the phrase “please detonate” is great. Even better are Lana’s efforts to convince him that life is worth living, because (1.) he’s a sentient creature who deserves the joys of life (2.) that way he won’t explode and kill millions of people and (3.) to prove Archer wrong.
As I’ve said in prior write-ups, we’ve gotten a lot of good Lana/Archer material in this one, and Archer criticizing her need to fix things as the cause of their break-up, while she turns it around and blames it on his constant extramarital schtupping, is more digging into the pair’s relationship, past and present.
It’s also an episode with great setups and payoffs galore. Lana’s quest to prove that life is worthwhile to Mr. Deadly culminates in her taking a bullet for him, which is a nice place to build to after butterflies and whiskey. All of Krieger’s demented Q-style gadgets come into play in fun ways. And Archer’s fear of black holes comes back a cool, character-worthy fashion as well.
Plus the stuff on the margins is great too. It’s nice to have Thomas Lennon back as Rudy (this time in steel-nosed, Tycho Brahe-esque bounty hunter form). The gags about Mallory trying to sell Mr. Deadly on the black market are fun (and Pam and Krieger’s mix tape cracked me the hell up). Cheryl’s death wish/sexual fixation on dying went to the usual insane but amusing places. And Pam’s pastafication/pasta vacation gags are the kind of dumb but sublty brilliant humor that I love from Archer.
There’s also the part of me that loves how this one riffs on well-worn sci-fi tropes, like doomsday devices in general, and semi-sentient defense mechanisms from long-defunct alien civilizations in particular. The original Star Trek went to that well all the time, and it’s fun to see this spoof of the idea.
Overall, this is a clever, well-written, and above all else very funny episode of the show.
I spent the whole episode thinking "Where have I heard this voice before", to finally realize Mr. Deadly is Prince Merkimer from Disenchantment - great voice work there! Cheryl/Carol was absolute gold on this one
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-09-12T02:16:56Z
[8.4/10] Far and away my favorite of the season so far. Just the premise of Mr. Deadly, a polite, sentient doomsday device that wants nothing more than to explode, is hilarious. Matt Berry does a great job giving the character a dry affect, and his constant efforts to get people to say the phrase “please detonate” is great. Even better are Lana’s efforts to convince him that life is worth living, because (1.) he’s a sentient creature who deserves the joys of life (2.) that way he won’t explode and kill millions of people and (3.) to prove Archer wrong.
As I’ve said in prior write-ups, we’ve gotten a lot of good Lana/Archer material in this one, and Archer criticizing her need to fix things as the cause of their break-up, while she turns it around and blames it on his constant extramarital schtupping, is more digging into the pair’s relationship, past and present.
It’s also an episode with great setups and payoffs galore. Lana’s quest to prove that life is worthwhile to Mr. Deadly culminates in her taking a bullet for him, which is a nice place to build to after butterflies and whiskey. All of Krieger’s demented Q-style gadgets come into play in fun ways. And Archer’s fear of black holes comes back a cool, character-worthy fashion as well.
Plus the stuff on the margins is great too. It’s nice to have Thomas Lennon back as Rudy (this time in steel-nosed, Tycho Brahe-esque bounty hunter form). The gags about Mallory trying to sell Mr. Deadly on the black market are fun (and Pam and Krieger’s mix tape cracked me the hell up). Cheryl’s death wish/sexual fixation on dying went to the usual insane but amusing places. And Pam’s pastafication/pasta vacation gags are the kind of dumb but sublty brilliant humor that I love from Archer.
There’s also the part of me that loves how this one riffs on well-worn sci-fi tropes, like doomsday devices in general, and semi-sentient defense mechanisms from long-defunct alien civilizations in particular. The original Star Trek went to that well all the time, and it’s fun to see this spoof of the idea.
Overall, this is a clever, well-written, and above all else very funny episode of the show.