Television Review: "Archer" Episode 4: Killing Utne

By our guest blogger, Travis Harvey

This week’s episode of "Archer" was one of the most entertaining I’ve seen so far. Thankfully, the show is getting progressively better as each week goes by. In this episode, Malory, Archer’s mother, has a dinner party to guarantee a defense contract with the United Nations, and to do so she must bribe the person in charge.

Archer’s relationship with his mother is weird, to say the least--they bicker like an older sister and her little brother. This is one of the dynamics that make the show what it is, a dirty version of something you’d see on primetime ABC.

Malory hires Germans to stage a fake assassination attempt on Utne, the United Nations contractor. But unbeknownst to her, the Germans have a plan of their own, which is to actually assassinate Utne and pretty much anyone else at the part.

Some of the best aspects of this week’s episode were the jokes about Lana’s man hands, or “truckasaurus” as they are called. When everyone begins to make fun of her, it shows that although she’s one of the roughest characters, she has a flaw that people pick at.

When Archer meets a woman outside, he makes the decision to make her his date and he has no clue, nor does he care that she’s actually another German spy sent as backup in case the other two fail.

The only thing that I had a problem with in this episode is that it ended with no real resolution in sight--with the fake assassination gone bad, we still don’t know if ISIS will receive the UN contract. I still haven’t decided if I like the fact that you can miss one of the episodes and still be caught up no matter where they are in the season. Because there is no straight plotline, it allows viewers to come and go as they please, enjoying the show the way they want.

I will say this--"Archer" brings a new element to FX network and for that I congratulate them. "Archer" will allow a young adult audience to be drawn to the show and the network as a whole, which for FX is a much-needed improvement. So, I’m looking forward to seeing the jokes the rest of this season hold.  Who knows?  Maybe other shows rise to the surface and make me laugh as "Archer" does.