8.9/10. Archer is a hard show to review, because what can you talk about really? The story? The show seems slightly more serialized this season, with "The Handoff" picking up more or less where we left off last week with a new mission to recover the same disk via a handoff with a biker gang working for who knows who. Of course, things go awry and Archer and Lana have to figure out a way to save their bacon, revealing to the their client's lawyer that they were the ones who stole it in the first place. That's neat enough, but not really why the episode was so good.
It's the jokes! And the characters! And you can only talk about why each of those is funny for so long without devolving into just repeating lines. But let's give it a try anyway. It is a godsend to have Jessica Walter back as a heavier presence on this show. Her acerbic wit was sorely, sorely missed last season, and she had two of the best lines of the night -- her comment to Cyrill that he could be anyone he wanted to now, so why would he be himself, and her impression of a parrot doing Archer's voicemail.
That voicemail was another comedic highlight. There's an art to doing these long, almost anti-comedy gags where the joke is everyone's non-reaction to the horrible stuff they're hearing because they think it's another trademark Archer put-on. The way Mallory goes and gets more ice, or Cyrill cleans his glasses were the perfect little touches to keep things funny, and artfully communicate what was happening without describing or even showing it. To the same end, some of the funniest bits of the episode were what was happening back at the office (which was mostly nothing). The way the entire group was just twirling around in their chairs and only half-paying attention to what anyone was saying or doing had a wonderful slack charm to it, and side gags like Cheryl and Pam's slap/punch routine, or Krieger being turned on by old ladies had just enough vaudevillian flair to them to keep the comedy humming.
For the actual action, Archer and Lana's back-and-forth is down so pat at this point, with her understandable jealousy over Archer's attraction to their client, that you can pretty much just set it, forget it, and laugh. Case-in-point, their trunk-pun names is classic Archer. Throwing Patton Oswalt into the mix, with Archer playing to type and messing up his secret identity in Oswalt's near-monologue about the break-in, worked like gangbusters. Even the little visual touches like Archer bonking him on the head with a shovel, or his frantic little air-kicks were delightful.
Overall, this is a show that can tell some surprisingly effective stories, but really makes its hay from the trademark banter, humor that varies from dumb-as-hell to smart and/or esoteric, and has well-established, surprisingly complex characters. Glad that it's 2-for-2 so far this season!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-04-13T15:33:54Z
8.9/10. Archer is a hard show to review, because what can you talk about really? The story? The show seems slightly more serialized this season, with "The Handoff" picking up more or less where we left off last week with a new mission to recover the same disk via a handoff with a biker gang working for who knows who. Of course, things go awry and Archer and Lana have to figure out a way to save their bacon, revealing to the their client's lawyer that they were the ones who stole it in the first place. That's neat enough, but not really why the episode was so good.
It's the jokes! And the characters! And you can only talk about why each of those is funny for so long without devolving into just repeating lines. But let's give it a try anyway. It is a godsend to have Jessica Walter back as a heavier presence on this show. Her acerbic wit was sorely, sorely missed last season, and she had two of the best lines of the night -- her comment to Cyrill that he could be anyone he wanted to now, so why would he be himself, and her impression of a parrot doing Archer's voicemail.
That voicemail was another comedic highlight. There's an art to doing these long, almost anti-comedy gags where the joke is everyone's non-reaction to the horrible stuff they're hearing because they think it's another trademark Archer put-on. The way Mallory goes and gets more ice, or Cyrill cleans his glasses were the perfect little touches to keep things funny, and artfully communicate what was happening without describing or even showing it. To the same end, some of the funniest bits of the episode were what was happening back at the office (which was mostly nothing). The way the entire group was just twirling around in their chairs and only half-paying attention to what anyone was saying or doing had a wonderful slack charm to it, and side gags like Cheryl and Pam's slap/punch routine, or Krieger being turned on by old ladies had just enough vaudevillian flair to them to keep the comedy humming.
For the actual action, Archer and Lana's back-and-forth is down so pat at this point, with her understandable jealousy over Archer's attraction to their client, that you can pretty much just set it, forget it, and laugh. Case-in-point, their trunk-pun names is classic Archer. Throwing Patton Oswalt into the mix, with Archer playing to type and messing up his secret identity in Oswalt's near-monologue about the break-in, worked like gangbusters. Even the little visual touches like Archer bonking him on the head with a shovel, or his frantic little air-kicks were delightful.
Overall, this is a show that can tell some surprisingly effective stories, but really makes its hay from the trademark banter, humor that varies from dumb-as-hell to smart and/or esoteric, and has well-established, surprisingly complex characters. Glad that it's 2-for-2 so far this season!