Good ol’ box 12 on the W-2. You know, that spot on your annual statement that shows your post-career future? Imagine checking on it one day and finding a big fat donut. You’d probably freak out. And if you found out that your boss took the money you’d earned over the years to Monaco for God knows what, well you’d probably be harboring feelings of homicidal rage. And who would really blame you? But nothing like that really happens, right? I mean, no one has a boss that is that much of a bitch. Oh wait, there is Malory Archer, my bad.
Welcome to the Monaco Gran Prix, where the qualifying heat was won in order by Bell, Bivens and DeVoe (yeah, they went there). Sterling, Malory, Lana and Ray are here to make a clandestine deal. Problem is that Lana and Malory’s suites have been booked to other guests so they have to room with Ray, who is kind enough to let them stay with him. Meanwhile Archer has the royal suite because he comped four million in bearer bonds, which happens to be there entire ISIS workforce’s 401K, sans Malory’s money. Cyril notices this and everyone at ISIS starts going nuts. He calls Lana and tells her, and she and Ray confront Archer who has already lost 3.2 million of the money in the hotel’s casino. After they threaten to kill him, Archer reveals that he plans to steal the money back from the hotel’s vault. But first, they have to make the exchange they actually came for, which everyone figures is another of Malory’s sex tapes.
And this is where things start to get twisted. The trio keep Malory occupied by getting a duke to sleep with her and at the exchange they pull the same stupid Muffin trick that Cyril and Archer pulled back in the “Tragical History” episode. The twisted part is that since Malory was um, indisposed, they had Ray dress as her for the exchange. Let it be known that while Ray may be gay, dressing in drag is not his thing. The guy they were making the exchange with is named le Cheuf and their double cross works as they take out all of his guard and knock him out. Now they move on to the hotel heist. Problem with this is the host Benoit (whom Archer has been calling Benoit…Balls all this time) has stolen the bearer bonds and makes his getaway in one of the gran prix F1 racers. Archer and crew steal three more cars and race after him. Le Cheuf has not given up and attacks them all in an assault chopper armed with gatling guns and a rocket launcher. The action heavy scene ends with Archer hopping onto Benoit’s car, snatching the bonds and hopping onto Lana’s car and Benoit flying off a ramp into le Cheuf’s chopper. When Malory learns what has happened, she just wants to redeposit the money ASAP, before the crew back home does something “stupid.” You mean…stupid like giving all of ISIS’ equipment to crooks on the promise that they would pay them back once the merchandise is fenced? Yeah well, we already knew the ISIS crew was stupid, so cue credits.
Somewhat hard to believe that an episode like this is filler. Archer is about a spy in a spy agency, so occasionally there have to be some actual spy missions. The bad is that this episode did absolutely nothing to push the current storyline The good is that it did make note of previous episodes and was much better than the last filler episode “Pipeline Fever.” The Formula One race brings to light what may not be very apparent with the art style of the show: Archer is created completely in CG. Fortunately, next week looks more promising in terms of continuity. Season 2 of Archer has been phenomenal and I want it to go out on a high note.
