ARCHER: Episode 1, Season 5 “White Elephant” (airing Monday, January 13, 10:00 pm e/p). Someone dies. Someone who has been with the ISIS crew from the beginning. And then things get crazy. Written by Adam Reed. Pictured: (L-R) Pam Poovey (voice of Amber Nash), Sterling Archer (voice of H. Jon Benjamin), Cheryl/Carol (voice of Judy Greer). FX Network
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Archer is back with its Season 5 and it is the most shocking yet. It is by far the biggest and most dramatic change to the series and it all starters with Season 5 Episode 1 White Elephant.
With that being said, Spoiler’s do lie blow. If you don’t want to spoil it, I suggest you come back after you have watched the episode White Elephant.
Now, on to the thoughts of the brand new season of Archer as the description of the episode puts it, “things get crazy”. By the end of the first episode, we have an outline for the new season. It opens up with the classic ISIS building, but everything changes quite quickly. Adam Reed and Matt Thompson decided to change things up, gone is the repeating scenarios of spy missions and espionage, now we move over to crime. Specifically as drug dealers and a music superstar thrown in to the mix. From the moment the office explodes, thousands of questions will begin going through your head. The creators, along with FX, did a phenomenal job if explaining these changes and giving an outline for the season. Sometimes giving away some points for the rest of the season, is not the correct way to go about things, but in this case for such a big change, it is needed and works great.
The great comedic sense is in motion right from the beginning and the person lost is a beloved character. It is somewhat caused by Archer’s thinking and questioning, Brett is lost. After that we learn that the FBI and the US government has finally caught up with ISIS. Like that ISIS, the beloved spy agency that we’ve come to love and know for four seasons, is gone. You are then left wondering, what will come about? Before that Malory comes through and save the entire ISIS team, only after most of them give in and rat everyone out. This works great and gives each character of the show, a great amount of time and we learn more about them. As well as see there funny and humor sides come out, that we have seen these past seasons.
After Malory bails them out, well actually bails them out twice, we see where the season is going. Everything from last season comes back again, we learn more about Lana’s pregnancy yet again and the tension between the characters is still there. Plus, Ray Gillette still doesn’t have working legs, after Archer did some damage in the submarine. Then we are left with, what everyone will do, the jobs and ISIS in a whole is completely gone. Then Sterling decides to remember something that is hidden in Malory’s office. At the same Cheryl keeps her dream of being a country singer a live, and Archer reprises his professional lacrosse dream, which is crushed by Lana. Everyone begins to think of ideas for what they will do next. He remembers the literal “white elephant” in the room, a ton of cocaine and then Lana brings up the idea of forming a cartel. Then from there, you can guess what will occur.
Fans of Archer will find this change as a very big surprise, a very big one. Having the timeline at the end of the first episode, gives them some closure and a taste of some country lyrical genius. While the spy theme of the show was a fun and interesting one, at sometime it does begin to get stale and receptive, it certainly would have been hard to keep thinking of new missions. But drug dealing can’t be any easier to build a plot around, but from the first episode we see that Adam Reed is back at again, but this time we are under the codename Archer Vice.
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