Archer/YMMV

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• Better on DVD: The Running Gag and Call Back quotient gets higher and higher the longer the show goes on, so you're going to miss a lot of jokes if you don't watch them in order.
• Cargo Ship: Barry and his gun
• Complete Monster: As of season 3, BARRY. Once he passed that Moral Event Horizon, he just kept on going.
• Ear Worm: That pirate computer virus. "Hunch hunch...what whaaat?" never sounded so catchy.
• Foe Yay:
  • Malory and the heads of various rival organizations, including ODIN and the KGB.
  • The Honey Pot seems to be a fairly common tactic used by ISIS.
• Genius Bonus: Every episode is littered with really obscure literary and cultural references. For example; Pam has The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron tattooed on her back.
  • This is a trademark of Adam Reed shows, since Frisky Dingo and Sealab 2021 are similarly littered.
• Ho Yay: Double Deuce is dripping in it.
• Incest Subtext: Sterling obviously has a lot of issues from his childhood which make him yell out his mother's name during sex, amongst other things.
  • It becomes clear that Malory actually encouraged this, to some extent (she out-and-out says at one point she did her best to make sure he couldn't love anyone or anything but her)... while still mocking and raging at Sterling for any sexual desire he showed towards anything, ensuring maximum fucked-up-ness.
• Iron Woobie: Barry's transformation in the season 2 finale makes him a literal example.
  • Well, he was for about 5 minutes. Then we see him laugh at Archer's face over his wife's Senseless Sacrifice.
• Jerkass Woobie: Archer, and considering the childhood he had, it's clear he has a heckova Freudian Excuse.
  • One example in particular is Archer's flashback to boarding school where he, as a young boy, sits alone in athletic sweats by an empty field, holding a lacrosse stick. That not even the kids at boarding school would play lacrosse with him was kind of heartwrenching.
• Magnificent Bastard: Gillette actually refers to Lana with this moniker after she explains her plan involving all the employees of ISIS getting bragging rights about sleeping with her...which they never actually get to do.
  • Security cameras filmed Archer switching blood samples to get out of the paternity suit over the Wee Baby Seamus. The test turned out positive anyway, so Barry altered the security footage and let Archer get nailed in court. And since Archer waived his rights...
  • Cyril, of all people, became a Magnificent Bastard (at least, temporarily) in the episode "El Contador".
• Moral Event Horizon: As of the second episode of the second season Archer has put a faulty Russian Mind Control device in Len Trexler's brain and may have caused permanent brain damage. Even he feels bad about it.
  • In Double Deuce Archer wins "Father of the Year" for Letting the Wee Baby Seamus eat the celery from his bloody Mary, play with his straight razor, and drink his Martini.
    • Giving him a tattoo was probably over the line.
  • The second season finale could be considered this for Barry after his attempted murder of Archer results in the death of Archer's fiancee Katya.
    • And if that didn't get you for Barry, just wait until he kills Jakov in season three.
      • And if THAT didn't somehow do it, Barry screwing his revived wife (long story) in front of Archer. probably does. Okay, Barry is a dick.
  • Malory crosses it in season 2 & 3 flashbacks. In one episode it's revealed that when Archer was a child she swindled all of his Halloween candy in a game of poker, then got him drunk and berated him for not being able to hold his alcohol. In another episode it's revealed she bought him a bike for his 8th birthday, then arranged to have it stolen to teach him a lesson. There's a reason Archer is so messed up.
    • Put it this way: eventually you will not only understand why Archer popped a semi at the idea of his mother being dead, you will likely share his feelings on the subject.
• One True Pairing: Lana/Cyril. Subverted on the show with Lana/Archer as far as Lana's hatred for Archer leading to her SHOOTING HIM TWICE and only getting him life-saving medical treatment after his mother OKed it.
  • Season Two has them start backpedaling a bit with Sterling/Lana. They sleep together again, and Sterling comes very, very close to telling her he loves her. Second season in general had a lot of Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other moments for Sterling and Lana... and only subverted about half of them.
• Squick: There is a lot of often-disturbing sexual activity/references in the show. This is bound to pop up at any time.
  • Sterling's attitude towards any sexual implications involving his mother.
• Tear Jerker: In "Crossing Over", Barry kills Jakov and deliberately sets up the circumstances to be as heartwrenching as possible. You weren't expecting this trope to come up in this show, now were you?
• The Woobie: Poor, poor Woodhouse.
  • Also Brett, Pigley, and Goatley.
    • Brett less so, since he likes to laugh at cancer victims.
  • Archer is this in his childhood flashbacks.