Archer/Headscratchers

Where does the name Archer come from? Mallory tells Sterling that his father was named "John Fitzgerald Archer" and presumably that the name comes from him... however, no such man exists. Did Mallory adopt a complete false name or simply bank on Sterling never wondering about his mother's maiden name?
- Pretty sure Pam and/or Cheryl have addressed Malory as "Ms. Archer," meaning the latter. Given the level of parental neglect it's completely conceivable that Sterling never cared enough to find out about his maternal grandparents.
- Archer probably is her maiden name, since as established that she was just bullshitting him about his father's name. And it's probably not that Sterling never cared about his grandparents, she probably hates her parents and told Sterling they're dead, whether they are or not.
In the pilot, why didn't Mallory know about the mole? They touched on it but just let it go.
- ...because he's a mole? If Mallory knew about him, he wouldn't be a mole anymore. He'd just be some dead guy who used to be an enemy agent.
  - The point was that she said "I would have known..." presumably because of her relationship with Nikolai. See the next point for an explanation, though.
- I think it was sort of used to develop the relationship btwn Mallory and Nikolai. Later, in "Skorpio," we found out that while she tells him all things ISIS, he doesn't share all KGB details with her because he finds it "unprofessional."
  - Indeed, part of the joke is that Mallory is a mole.
- At the end of El Contador, Cheryl is wearing a cardboard box as a halter top. Now, I didn't watch it carefully, but I think the box was still whole and neither re- taped nor glued. Since it fit her chest, it is physically impossible that she got her shoulders or her hips through it. How did she put it on?
"Benoit balls". Is this a pun or a reference or something? Could someone please explain the joke? Or is the running gag simply that Archer is obsessively committed to a joke that isn't funny to anyone else including the audience?
- There's a type of sex toy called "ben-wa balls."
When exactly is the show set? Or is it just stylistically everywhere? 60's fashions, 80's tech, 10's pop culture.
- Modern day, with some retro stylings.
- It's pretty much everywhere. Its set during the Cold War, with 60's fashions, 80's tech aesthetics, 10's tech capabilities, and 10's pop culture.
- Doesn't Archer explicitly refer to the years 2008 and 2009 when he's listing recent alligator attacks?
  - No. He just refers to the attacks as happening 'last year' and 'two years ago'.
- I'm thinking that it's impossible to tell, simply because of internal contradictions. For example, Burt Reynolds' appearance with silver hair would imply that the show is set in the present day. However, the episode "Double Deuce" implies that Archer was born around 1938 or 1939, although he appears to be in his early 30s. Furthermore, if that episode were in the present day, Woodhouse and his squadron-mates would be at least 110 years old. Not impossible, but not very likely, either. Perhaps They Just Didn't Care about the Anachronism Stew. Besides, it is an Alternate History.
- It basically should be the late 1970's, given that Wodehouse is a WW 1 vet, Malory is a WW 2 vet, and the Cold War is still going. But none of the tech or anything else fits with that so roll with it.
- There's absolutely nothing that says it shouldn't be modern. ISIS looks non-modern because they're a shitty agency and Mallory won't spend the money to upgrade them. Anything that points to things not being set in modern day is just things being outdated in the modern day, style, or a parody of the genre.
In "Jeu Monegasque", Mallory says "Thankfully Gambling is one of the vices Archer doesn't have." And Archer's reaction to winning a hand confirms this. But...it was shown in the first episode that Archer was blowing money from his Operations Expense account on gambling. It feels kind of weird in a series high on Continuity Nod.
- Archer being shown gambling doesn't mean he has an actual gambling *problem*.
- His reaction to winning, though, heavily implies that he is unfamiliar with the very concept of gambling.
  - Maybe it's that he's unfamiliar with the concept of winning.
Did they accidentally name the wrong cat in the script? Archer notices Cheryl's pet Ocelot...and says look at those tufted ears. Is he thinking of a Caracal or a Lynx?
If Calzado keeps exotic animals for the thrill of hunting them, why does he have two sloths?
- For the sake of Irony.
Were they really planning to populate Mars with only one woman? The inbreeding would have caused problems, eventually.
- It's pretty clear they aren't all there in the head.
It's been demonstrated that Pam is a veritable sex goddess. She gave Archer the best sex he's ever had, and he's had sex with, among other things, two princesses at the same time. So how come Lana's never had any similar revelation, or at least once referred to their season 1 finale sex-capades?
- Well, there are two options here: either Pam isn't as great at homosex as she is at heterosex, or Lana just doesn't blab like certain others.
In the episode where they ride on the blimp, it turns out that Malory faked the bomb threat in order to get a free ride on the maiden voyage, but then there really was a bomb, placed there by the captain. So if the captain planted the bomb, why would he have called in ISIS in the first place? It would have been smarter to not respond to the bomb threat at all, since he wanted the blimp to blow up anyway, and Malory couldn't have butted in because technically she wouldn't even have known about the bomb threat if she didn't make it herself and if the captain didn't say anything.
- Perhaps he decided to make the phoney bomb-threat a real once it was called in; ISIS isn't known as being the best agency, so it would have been a convenient cover.