Who doesn’t love a good surprise on their birthday – I said good surprises, so keep your sob stories about finding your wife in bed with your brother to yourself. Archer is a selfish and self-centered jerk. Remember that this is the guy that took Woodhouse’s last chance to see his brother away from him. About the only thing of import he has ever said and meant was when he told Lana he loved her and he managed to screw that up by getting engaged to a Russian defector. Even still, the bastard deserves to have a happy birthday which can only mean it is going to be another “special episode” of Archer.

^{BETTER THAN BIRTHDAY SEX!} Woodhouse makes an awesome birthday breakfast for Sterling, only to accidentally ruin it with the surprise confetti and balloons he drops on him. Archer tries to maintain his happy attitude as he figures there will be a party at ISIS. Happy turns to pissy quick when he sees that everyone is working on sorting paperwork, more so when they expect him to do his share. And his anger reaches its peak when Malory announces the quarterly fire drill and he has to carry Ray out of the building (remember, no elevator during a fire drill). All is forgiven when he gets outside and sees that the whole office was in on the surprise – Malory presents Archer with a brand new Dodge Challenger and it is a spy car to boot. Archer is on top of the world until he gets home and his car is stolen. Now he is in a race against time to retrieve it before his mother finds out. Like I said earlier, it’s gonna be another special episode….

^{RAMPAGE REVISITED} Archer is determined to get his car back but he does not know where to start looking. Pam suggests that the Yakuza would have stolen it. The always amazing George Takei lends his voice talent to this episode as the leader of the Yakuza, Moto-san. Pam’s tip is all Sterling needed to hear to put him back into rampage mode. It’s amazing how no matter what Archer does, Lana will always help him. That girl has it bad. Fans on the other hand, have a great time basically watching a remix of the Placebo Effect episode. A good handful of the jokes and sight gags from that episode are reused here. Unfortunately, I think Archer should only go on a rampage when he is battling cancer because the one getting beaten in the head & ass this time is him. Guess he’s not too old for birthday punches after all.

^{TRUCKASAURUS MUCH?} I had to rewind this part a couple of times and even Archer said “yikes” in response to Lana popping the top off a sealed soda with her bare thumb. No one can deny that Lana is freakin’ hot; even Ray has gone on record saying “Nobody’s that gay.” Her hands though, they are a big WTF. She flipped a freakin’ pop top off a bottle with her thumb, who does that? Maybe you should not do things like that if you don’t want people to make fun of them bear mitts, sweetie. She could turn carbon into diamond with them things! Sorry, I had to mention that, time to continue.

^RED-HANDED I have said it on several occasions. I have provided all kinds of evidence but nothing gets done. In fact, the only member of ISIS that has ever been sent to a mental institution is Cyril. No one except maybe Pam seems to understand that Cheryl is batshit crazy. Every time she gets upset she threatens to burn the building down. Now she actually tried to do it and if Malory had not walked in at the above moment, well, let’s just say ISIS better be insured. I have a feeling that there is going to be a new ISIS HQ in the near future.

^{“MOTHER” OF THE YEAR} We already knew that Malory was lacking in the category of parental talent. We also knew that Archer has several emotional scars from her that have been untreated since his childhood. So there is no surprise when we find out why Sterling goes nuts trying to recover the car. What is a surprise, or not so much really, is when we discover that it was in fact Malory herself who was responsible for the theft. She calls herself “teaching Archer responsibility.” by taking the car and giving it away (to Popeye, of all people). She apparently did the same thing when he was a boy and got a bike for his birthday. So, just to keep score, Malory stole the Dodge and hid it from Archer, letting him go on his rampage and almost get killed by the Yakuza. Malory Archer, you are truly a winner.

So Archer, what did you do for your birthday? Well, my mother bought me a brand new car. Wow! That’s incredi-and then she proceeded to have it stolen from me and gave it away to the pimp that runs the dry cleaners storefront at my office. Oh, and she neglected to tell me any of that, so I ran around like a madman trying to find the car, got into a fight with the Yakuza where I killed a bunch of them and probably made some new nasty enemies. Oh, so um….how about them Yankees? What would you say to someone who had a birthday that crappy? You figure that out of the 365 days in the year, you may have a whole bunch of lousy ones but your birthday would be the shining gem at least. There’s always next year for Sterling, but then again, next year Malory will still be his mother.

P.S. Pam has no right whatsoever to be pissed about her car getting shot up. It was her mouth that set Sterling after the Yakuza to start with. When Moto-san mentions that they only steal drift cars and she says “Right-hand drive, duh!,” she forfeit all rights to bitch about anything that happened that night.