Archer Pushes Boundaries

     Oh, Archer. The humor of FX's animated show crosses lines sometimes, but this week's season premiere, "Swiss Miss" went pretty far. And yet, all I can do it say, "Oh, Archer," and shake my head in feigned annoyance. That's because the show and the characters are as funny and charming as any series on television, and I delighted in the wrongness.

     This week, with Isis running out of money, Malory (Jessica Walter) took several of the team to a ski resort to provide protection for a billionaire potential investor and his almost-17 year old daughter. Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) immediately declared the daughter hot. When told her age, he backed off, but she sure didn't. The rest of the episode, the girl tried everything to get Archer in the sack, including removing clothing. To his credit, Archer saved her from bad guys several times, and only touched her bare breasts with his heavily gloved hands when said body parts were threatened by frostbite.

     Meanwhile, the billionaire took a liking to Pam (Amber Nash), as he was a chubby chaser, and they bonded over their shared experience of growing up on diary farms. When Malory came to the man's hotel room to talk money, she ended up in a pretty disturbing threesome with the pair.

     Archer may appear to be a spy show, but it's really a raunchy sex comedy, that just has spy missions in there to distract you. The main story this week was about Archer and the girl, and the billionaire, Malory, and Pam. Whether or not the assassins were stopped was barely relevant. In fact, had they succeeded in killing the girl, I don't think viewers would have cared much. And that's OK.

     What Archer does, it does well. It can easily be forgiven for crossing the line, because it makes you laugh so hard while it does it. Please, please watch Archer Thursday nights at 10 p.m. on FX.

Article first published as TV Review: Archer Pushes Boundaries on Blogcritics.

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