Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 7, 2011
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Archer, “Jeu Monégasque” (Season 2, Episode 11) [Stream on Netflix]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Given its subject matter, as a show about a cocky but mostly inept international spy, Archer‘s most memorable episodes happen in some of the world’s most exotic locations. Or, okay, sometimes they take place in Florida swamplands, but other times they’re jetting off to Monte Carlo, where Archer’s ignorance of French, card games, and the properties of bearer bonds put the team in a sticky situation.
Picking out standout episodes of Archer is tough, because it’s a show that excels when it is at its most typical. Special event episodes or extra high-concept stuff tends to distract or take away from what’s great about the show: the rapid-fire dialogue, withering put-downs, all banal corporate-speak, all delivered on a tight spiral that coils its way through whatever spy storyline is happening this week. The Monte Carlo episode of Archer is one of its best, but you can’t explain why simply by reciting the plot. It doesn’t really matter what’s happening in Monte Carlo — in this episode, Mallory needs to blackmail some shadowy figure (for a recurring storyline regarding sex tapes that nobody, least of all Archer, should linger on for too long), and Archer ends up losing all $4 million of the blackmail money in a drunken evening of gambling, all while the gang back at the home office realize that it’s $4 million worth of their drained 401(k)s — because the fun is in the way that Archer, Mallory, Lana, and Ray all snipe at each other. Or in Ray dressing up in Mallory drag and clocking a criminal over the head with her clutch.
Or in Archer’s inability to hear the name “Benoit” without following it up with “balls.”
Or in Archer’s utterly inappropriate sexual reaction to driving race cars.
As always with Archer, it’s the little things.
