Archer: Three to Tango Recap

Synopsis of 6×02: The CIA sends Archer and Lana on a mission to extract Conway Stern from Argentina. Archer asks Lana who’s going to raise Abbijean if something happens to the two of them. Malory loses track of Abbijean while the two are away.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Well, we’re officially two weeks into the season. How are things settling in at the former ISIS office? At least no one makes any transphobic quips this week.

Slater swings by the former ISIS office to talk to Malory about a potential mission. At first he refuses, since all he sees is Malory and Cheryl screaming at each other, but he’s convinced to stay when Lana pulls some fake seductiveness on him. Slater informs them that a CIA agent has had their cover blown in Argentina and needs an immediate extraction, though he’s hesitant to send Archer and Lana in on this. However, he really has no other choice because Lana and Archer already know him: Conway Stern aka the agent who literally stabbed Archer in the back during the season one episode “Diversity Hire.”

As you can imagine, Archer is not thrilled about it. Nor is Lana too thrilled about seeing the man whose hand she ripped off, but she takes it slightly better than Archer, as usual.

Archer and Lana end up taking the mission and fly down to Buenos Aries together to extract him. Archer wonders if that’s a good idea because who would be left to take care of Abbijean if something happened to the both of them? Lana refuses to answer, especially when Archer insists that it should be Malory and Woodhouse, but she tries to make Archer promise he won’t do anything stupid. He doesn’t and immediately goes into Stern’s apartment screaming “REVENGE RAMPAGE!” While him and Stern fight it out in an astoundingly impressive fight scene, Lana casually walks in to make tea before knocking Stern on the back of the head with a kettle for not having any sugar. Smooth as always.

The two are ready to extract Stern, but he’s not ready to leave yet since he’s waiting to obtain a file that has the real identities of all CIA agents in South and Central America on it. Considering that Argentina wants to sell it to the Soviets, it’s now up to them to obtain the disc. The three decide to go down to the embassy as the Brazilian president, first lady, and a driver in the Argentinian special forces, but Archer pretty much blows their cover right away because his cover name is “Lando Calrissian.” Jesus, man.

After busting into the compound, Archer decides to “Archerize” the situation by taking on the guards. Lana begs for him not to make himself a verb, but as usual, Archer doesn’t listen. He asks Lana and Conway to cover him, but he ends up locking the car on accident, making it impossible for the two to get out. This ends up being one of the funniest action scenes I have seen on Archer just for the complete madcap nature of it all as Archer gets his ass kicked before actually kicking ass along with Stern inappropriately hitting on Lana.

The three manage to get in while Archer tries to bring up the Abbijean conversation again. Lana continues to avoid it as they go to grab the disc. Stern easily types up the code to retrieve it, which immediately raises Lana’s suspicion. Archer just tries to make a quip about the code being Gaius Baltar’s zip code, but Stern shoots Archer in the back and starts to make with the disc to sell to the Soviets. As he escapes out the window, Lana begins to ask him questions like why he even bothered taking the two of them along and why he didn’t shoot her too. His response is that he wanted revenge, but he’s not a complete monster. He tells Lana to call him when she loses the baby weight and in a fit of rage, she slams his right wrist in the window, severing his hand from it. Full circle, everyone.

Lana and Archer make with the disk as she tries to keep him from bleeding out. Slater comes around to extract them, where he reveals that yeah, he knew that Stern was likely to betray them and that he wasn’t going to leave those two alone on the mission. Archer rolls up the partition and asks Lana again about Abbijean. She hesitates, but finally reveals why she wouldn’t answer the question: she didn’t want to hurt Archer’s feelings because she’s already agreed that if something happened to just her, custody of Abbijean would go to her parents and then her sister. Oh.

Archer is obviously hurt by this, but can you blame him for being told that he wouldn’t have custody of his daughter if something happened to Lana? However, I do agree with Lana for making that decision. Archer is really only the father in name (and sperm donation) and has barely been able to take care of himself over the past several years. How can you trust him with a child?

Of course, Archer goes and kills the moment by asking if Lana’s sister is younger. She promptly bares down on his back, causing him to scream as well as some of the best facial expressions I’ve ever seen on the show.

Though, it’s probably good Malory won’t have custody of Abbijean if something goes wrong as the b-plot shows because she ends up losing the baby inside of the office. Her first instinct is to blame Cheryl and strangle her in the bathroom, but Cheryl swears that she hasn’t done a thing with her. Malory, Pam, and Cheryl begin to tear up the office looking for her and the rest of the team is appalled that Malory lost sight of her. As Malory begins to retrace her steps though, she realizes that she didn’t lose Abbijean. Krieger got a hold of her. She grabs her gun and the team goes down to Krieger’s lab where they find Abbijean just chilling on the table and a sketch of a baby skeleton. Krieger claims that he’s only doing market research for a robot bear he’s making, but that doesn’t stop the rest of the team from taking Abbijean back and Malory threatening to shoot Krieger’s junk off and sip sherry as he bleeds out if he even goes near her again. Wow… go Geebaw Archer!

After the opening episode, ‘Three To Tango’ settles back into the spy and office antics wonderfully, but it isn’t afraid to shy away from the hard stuff now that Lana’s a mother. I think this season might be good for exploring the more emotional stuff the series has only kind of gotten slightly below the surface level at this point, but as always, we’ll see. For now, enjoy it for Archer as a verb and the way Lana’s hair looked messy when she took the headdress off. It’s the little things about this show sometimes.