All the Best Parts: Archer s06e02 “Three to Tango”

Needless to say, there are spoilers ahead. If you haven’t already watched Season 6, Episode 2 of Archer, you should be doing that right now. Seriously. It’s one of the funniest shows on TV and you’re going to want to get on that. Otherwise, please enjoy reliving All the Best Parts of Archer

Hey, remember that one time way back in the first season when Conway Stern (not his real name) – the whisper drive-stealing, uncircumcised, black-jewish, diversity double whammy – stabbed Archer in the back (literally)? Archer sure does! Although he begins to worry he’s been misusing the word “literally” his entire life when Mallory accepts a new mission from their new CIA boss, (just) Slater (“It’s a mononym, like…”), to extract a freelancer who’s had his cover blown on secret mission in Buenos Aires and that freelancer is none other than…. wait for it…. Conway Stern. Turns out the whisper drive was a phony the CIA wanted the Chinese to have so they hired Stern to dupe them. That doesn’t really explain the whole back stabbing thing, but we’ll put a pin in that one for now.

Later, on the ground in Argentina, Archer initiates the episode’s subplot by arguing with Lana about what to do with Baby AJ if something should happen to the both of them on a mission. He suggests his mother and Woodhouse, which, if you’ve watched any of the show’s previous five seasons, you’ll likely agree with Lana that an alcoholic narcissistic shrew and the junkie butler she pays to mind her son would be terrible parent material. Their discussion is cut short when they arrive at Conway’s location:

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Lana: Can you promise that even though Conway…
Archer: Literally…
Lana: …stabbed you in the back, that you won’t do anything revengey and stupid when he opens the door?
Archer: Hmm… I… wanna say… REVENGE RAMPAGE!

Commence extended mano y mano fight between Archer and Conway during which Lana prepares to make tea and Archer discovers that Conway’s hand (pulled off by Lana in the first season) has been replaced by a bionic one.

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Archer: Oh good, you’re making tea… because I could use some… with honey and lemon… and bourbon. But actually without the honey and lemon… and the tea
Lana: So just bourbon.
Archer: Yeah but I doubt the robot has any bourbon and I’m not in the mood for a WD-40 and Coke… unless that’s literally the only thing to drink.

Cue commercial break.

While Archer downs a Yerba mate and Caña smoothie with a WD-40 float out of a vase (perhaps to avoid having bionic Barry and Katya flashbacks), Lana deduces that Conway’s cybernetic arm was installed by Krieger (Archer: Jesus Christ! Will he not rest until we’ve all been enslaved by Skynet?) and Conway further reveals that he still has to get computer files that contain the real identity of every US agent in Central and South America and which the Argentinians are threatening to deliver to the Soviets. Luckily, Conway’s got a plan to break into the Argentine Secret Service…

Meanwhile back at the office.

Baby AJ is missing. Mallory assumes baby hating Cheryl has something to do with it and threatens to choke it out of her in the bathroom. Cue Pam stripped down to her bra because… well I don’t know:

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Pam: Hey! Is it too much to ask during the goddamn work day for two separate sessions of 80 uninterrupted minutes each of quality dump time?
Cheryl: I mean… I’m not a labor attorney?

Meanwhile, back in Argentina.

Conway’s plan (or as Lana calls it: “Brazilian minstrel show meets Trading Places“) unfolds involving carefully crafted disguises and back stories, but no agreement on who is in charge (Archer: Colonel Lando Calrissiano de la Fuerzas Especiales doesn’t work for you!… although he has nailed his back story…). And, at the first sign the plan is going to unravel (right away thanks to Archer’s bungling), Archer decides to “Archerize” it, which is basically a a variation on a Revenge Rampage and entails him first bluffing and then fighting, like, 10 Argentinian guards in a parking garage all by himself.

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Lana: What? No. no. Uh-uh. You cannot make yourself a verb. I will not allow it.
Archer: I’m a verb now Lana, deal with it. Also, cover me please.

Another epic battle commences while Lana and Conway canoodle in the car….

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Conway: So, uhhhhh, how come you and I didn’t hook up last time we worked together?
Lana: Well, A, you were too busy banging Cheryl or Carol or Cristal or…
Conway: Oh! Right! Yeah, yeah, yeah. The crazy Jew Santa chick.
Lana: And, B through Z, because you’re a large diameter dickhole.

…and Archer emerges bloody (and minus one “ridorkulous face rug”) but victorious. Several Gomer Pyle USMC references ensue including a shout out to Gomer’s best girl Lou Ann and… Ok, listen, I can’t pretend I totally understood where the Gomer Pyle bit came from or why it was supposed to be funny, so I’m just going to put it in a little bag (along with an earlier line from Slater about how righting a wrong was as “rare as getting called up to the majors from single A ball”) and toss it in a river where it will struggle for a little bit as it slowly floats downstream before finally going under to sleep the big sleep.

Meanwhile, back at the office.

Mallory and the others track Abbiejean to Krieger who may or may not be trying to figure out how to incorporate the baby’s skeleton into his new Teddy Bear invention, the TB-8000, aka Cyberneddly Teddly. Mallory puts a stop to that of course, threatening to shoot Krieger in the genitals while sipping an Amontillado sherry and watching him bleed to death.

Meanwhile, back in Argentina.

Archer, Lana and Conway make their way into the computer room, download the file and… Conway double crosses them and then shoots Archer in the back five or six times (Archer: “Called it!”). Conway drops a David Caruso CSI reference and then tries to parachute out the window, but not before Lana cuts off his other hand… the one holding the computer files. He jumps anyway and, parachuting away, reveals that he lied at the end of the Season 1 episode and that this time Conway IS his real name. A large diameter dickhole by any other name, I guess…

Lana helps the bleeding Archer to street level where (just) Slater rolls up in a hearse to carry them to safety. Lana explains to Archer that he does not factor into the equation and that if anything happens to her, Baby AJ will be raised by Lana’s parents or sister.

Archer s06e02 "Three to Tango"

Archer: You have a sister?
Lana: Ugh, yes Archer. I have a sister.
Archer: She… younger? OWWWWWW!!!!

Cue Mel Young’s “The Killer”

<<<For the Previous Episode “The Holdout”

 

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