Kind of an odd episode, no? Lana and Archer take a trip to Wales in “Achub Y Morfilod,” which was penned with the input of guest actor Matthew Rhys (who plays a spy on another FX show, The Americans). It’s not the romantic getaway Archer envisions … but thanks to the usual “idiot Archer shit,” it’s his own damn fault.
Spoilers follow.
We open with Archer driving through the countryside, complete with hat and driving gloves. He seems to be alone, until a groggy Lana pops up from the back seat. She’s confused (“Seriously, what is this, the Shire?”), and then, when she realizes she’s wearing just lingerie under a trench coat, and is somehow in a foreign country (actual road sign they pass: “Llanflwnyddwndllwnmawr”), with the man she caught with a VAGINA IN HIS SINK, she is royally angry. Even more than usual. She is nuclear-level, make-Archer-crash-the-car pissed.
Archer, who is wearing LITERALLY the tightest turtleneck on the planet, claims he’s merely whisked her away “someplace neutral to work things out,” but admits the scheme did include a tranquilizer and a private CIA plane. But! But! The countryside is lovely, “like a fairy tale!” he insists.
Lana: “A fairy tale in which the heroine is drugged and kidnapped!”
Archer: “You realize that’s, like, every fairy tale.”
Archer begs his case, admitting that Katya was at his place, but that nothing happened. And besides that, he wasn’t the one who contacted her in the first place. It was “the idiots.”
Back at the office, said idiots (again relegated to a tiny sliver of the episode … sigh) are huddled around an operating table, making terrible jokes punning off a certain appendage. “Can we have a show of hands? Who thinks this is getting out of hand?” Naturally, the task is sewing a new robot hand onto Ray’s woeful stump, though talk soon turns to M.A.S.H. and race, a conversational direction that only becomes clear in the episode’s closing scenes.
Meanwhile, in Wales, the ep’s title (which translates, apparently, to “Save the Wales” … har, har) becomes clear when the uneasy lovers are interrupted by a pair of brothers, a giant who’s wounded, and a chatterbox (voiced by Rhys). They’re members of the “Free Wales Army,” and oh yeah Lana, there’s a “work component” to this fairytale getaway: smuggling “George and Lenny” out of the country and away from MI5, who’d like very much to speak with them about that dam they tried to blow up. (But aren’t England and the US buddies? Yeah, only Slater knows what’s up with that.)
As it happens, MI5 is hot on the brothers’ trail, and a polite agent pulls up to the romantic fairytale cottage/Welsh-separatist safehouse. As usual, only Lana knows how to take control of the situation, and as usual, her best efforts are undermined at every turn. Suffice it to say, it involves Archer’s hilariously over-developed secret identity (“culinary bad boy” Randy Randleman); Archer’s intense jealous streak (“Closet rampage!”); Rhys’ dude-bro American accent; a lot of confusion over what farm-to-table is (and what Michelin stars are); and Lana’s bangin’ body, coupled with her ability to deliver a skull-busting kick clad only in underwear and towering high heels.
Archer’s season six is winding down, with a two-part episode titled “Drastic Voyage” slated to begin next week. This week, we didn’t really get anywhere; Lana’s still afraid to trust Archer, though perhaps that will change? Also, Ray now has one darker-skinned robot hand, whatever they’re gonna make out of that.
Quotes (and one quibble) of note:
Malory’s obsession with baby AJ’s weight was kind of funny, once … now it’s just creepy.
“Glengoolie … for the best of times”
“Deliverance was just a movie”
“I’ll have your hide as boots … and the rest of you as curry!”
“It was NSFWales”
“Frodo P. Griffyndor”
“Cows are our friends. They may be our best friends.”
Image via The Work Print.
