Archer: The Archer Sanction Recap

Summary of 6×03: Archer messes up before a mission even starts by not remember who the person they’re assassinating is. No one knows where Malory is with AJ. Everyone gets super drunk for Cheryl’s birthday.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

I know that the cast of Archer are dipshits by their very nature, but it’s not every week watching the show that I end up facepalming, sighing, and whispering “What a bunch of dipshits,” like I did watching ‘The Archer Sanction.’

The episode starts with Archer, Lana, and Ray driving up through the Swiss Alps to join a climbing party to assassinate an assassin. Lana has some reservations, but Archer tries to convince her that it’s fine since they’re preventing others from being assassinated. He also yells at Ray for not bringing gum and gets excited about creating a drink called a Peppermint Patty. I have to admit that it actually sounds pretty awesome compared to the Green Russian introduced a few seasons ago.

The three roll up to the cabin when Archer reveals a particular fact about the case: He doesn’t know who the mark is. He skimmed the mission dossier, but left it back home. He does remember one fact about it though: the mark is from an Axis power during World War II.

The three are greeted by the group leader Crash McKerrin (Rob Huebel), who Lana and Ray immediately have boners for. He introduces them to the rest of the climbing group, which consists of a German man, a Japanese woman, and an Italian man. Wow, way to really narrow that one down, Archer.

After a night of drinking, flirting and being told the mountain they’re about to climb kills one out of every eight climbers, Lana declares that they need to use the satphone to get a hold of Malory to find out who the mark is. Archer does it so Lana won’t be declared agent in charge, but Malory finally gets one over on him by having an elaborate voicemail of her own. Ouch. Way to go, Ms. Archer.

Since Malory is watching over Abbijean, Lana is immediately concerned. She calls Cheryl and asks where Malory is and she claims that Malory left early. I’m assuming this is the truth because everyone is hanging out in the Japanese hot tub that was installed during the renovations two episodes prior for Cheryl’s birthday. They’re also getting hilariously drunk on watermelon margaritas and Krieger is scuba diving in the bottom of the tub for something.

The climbing group heads out the next morning up the mountain, where Lana tries to get a hold of the office group again. They’re still in the office massively hungover to the point they’re still drunk, which prompts Lana to ask them to go out to Malory’s apartment. The four of them head out and Krieger and Cyril try to bust down the door of the apartment with a plant. However, Pam and Cheryl have keys back from when Ron and Malory were trying an open marriage. The response when asked if they both slept with Ron? “Don’t worry about it.” Cheryl passes out in the doorway and there are uncomfortable allusions to Pam potentially raping her. *sigh*

Out on the mountain, Crash warns Lana to keep her phone out because he has a bad feeling with the Axis group. However, he doesn’t get a chance to elaborate when the Japanese woman Michiko trips and send the group sliding down the side of the mountain and she falls into a crevice. If you needed more proof of the expanded budget of the show, this definitely proves it. Holy hell, that was great to watch.

Crash goes down into the crevice to rescue her, but it turns out that her neck was broken and she was already dead. With a blizzard rolling in, the remainder of the group needs to set up for the night. Crash instructs them to strip down and sit three to a tent and three to a bag. Lana and Ray try to get with Crash, but the German and the Italian end up with him. This causes Ray to be “the DMZ” between Lana and Archer.

The next morning, Lana tries to get a hold of the group again, even going so far to contact Krieger. It turns out that not only does Krieger have a ringtone about white butts similar to the infamous ‘Mulatto Butts’ tone, but that the group has been throwing up in Malory’s apartment all night. Cheryl blames the ceviche Cyril made, but Krieger realizes that it may not be that. It may just be the fact the apartment is being fumigated.

Lana, Ray, and Archer get out of their tent to find Crash making coffee, but that the Italian and the German are dead. Crash claims they died of hypothermia, but Ray finds belts around their neck. That’s when Archer remembers something about the dossier: the mark was Irish. If you’re like me or Lana, you’re probably wondering how he got Axis power out of an Irish name because Ireland was neutral during World War II. 

Since Crash has Lana by knifepoint, Archer holds a gun to him. Crash informs him that if he shoots the gun, it’ll easily cause an avalanche. Of course, Archer being Archer, he doesn’t listen and fires off that gun. He’s also super psyched to get caught up in a super deadly landslide of snow because it’s on his weird bucket list.

Miraculously, the three of them survive with Crash nowhere to be seen. The three decide to declare him dead, but I have a feeling that’s going to come back and bite them in the ass. Lana does manage to get a hold of Malory, who tells her that she had Abbijean at the Plaza all weekend and she’ll call her back after dealing with the idiots currently breathing from oxygen tanks. Well, that last part was unsaid. Lana asks Archer one more time how he got Ireland mixed up with the Axis, and he admits that he probably got them mixed up with Romania while spitting off some serious World War II knowledge. Never change, Sterling.

This episode was pretty fun in the fact that it lets the characters be even more inept than usual. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time the characters were this bad and that’s saying a lot for this show. Not to mention the bigger budget definitely shows in the animation. Bless Floyd County, and bless FX for throwing money at them. Sorry Chozen didn’t work out.