Archer
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
James Bond if MI6 were a dysfunctional family business and Bond were a narcissistic alcoholic with mommy issues who calls every mission a phrasing problem. Sterling Archer is the world’s most dangerous spy and the world’s least professional person, and Adam Reed’s writing built the most quotable animated comedy of its generation on one engine: a man with perfect confidence and zero self awareness, protected by people who are better at the job than he is and cannot prove it.
The spy seasons, one through five, from Mole Hunt through Vice, are the peak: anesthetized turtlenecks, the tinnitus, Danger Zone Kenny Loggins playing from the fridge. H. Jon Benjamin delivers every line like a man being shot at in a slow room, and Jessica Walter’s Malory Archer is the great late career triumph, a mother who has emotionally defunded every employee she has ever had. The later genre seasons (Las Vegas, Dreamland, the sci fi runs) prove the voice team could carry anything, and the running continuity gags are the reward for the loyal.
Season 5 remains the single best animated comedy season of the 2010s. Start there if five is a commitment; otherwise the whole run pays rent.
Our score: 8.5/10.
