Plot
Synopsis
Archer tries to find an elusive villain at an exclusive resort, while Lana learns some explosive truths about running a spy agency.[1]
Summary
The episode starts out with Lana explaining the gang's mission to them. This time they will be headed to a luxury plastic surgery resort in Costa Rica to catch a criminal, El Cambiente. The only intel on this criminal is that every 5 years he changes his face; hence the mission taking place at the resort, to catch him before he changes his face again. Pam repeatedly says that it is gonna be a vacation, not a mission, and Zara informs the crew that she gets Botox all the time for "touch ups". She says Archer should have done that when he was young so he wouldn't look like he does now.
After the intro, we pick up with the gang reporting what they want the plastic surgeon, Dr. Spencer, to do to them to make them "better". Archer starts off and says he really doesn't want anything as he has been told that he looks too perfect. He later says that he would like to know the ages of all the guests, for sex reasons, as he doesn't wanna kill a lady who is 60 but looks 30. After him is Pam who tells the doctor she doesn't want anything done because she thinks she's perfect. Third is Zara who comes with a complete list of what she already knows she wants done. Next Krieger comes in with no intention of getting anything done, rather, he wants to know what the craziest thing the doctor has put inside someone is, and what the craziest thing she wants to put inside someone is. Finally Cyril comes up, and is naked when he walks into the doctors office as he thinks the doctor will come up to him, inspect him, and circle all his problem areas. After this we cut back to Archer, the doctor is telling him that even if he wanted it she wouldn't preform surgery on him as his body is too weak and she doesn't think he would survive anesthesia, Archer takes this roughly.
We cut back to Lana talking to Ray in the office. Lana says it is the beginning of a new era at the office. After this Cheryl walks in and says that's a bad idea for today because today is "Blackmail Bribe Day"[2]. Apparently the agency's agents aren't that good at stealth and so Mallory used to pay off everyone who saw something they shouldn't have seen, or been shot, or etc. once a month. Lana looks into the office waiting area and sees a bunch of interesting looking people and says that she will not go along with this.
After cutting to Pam and Zara sitting by the pool mid-mission, Pam points out that they haven't done anything for the mission yet. Zara lists off her observations, everyone near them is either too old, too young, or too tall. Cyril walks up to them using a walker and informs them that he got calf implants as he has always had issues making them bigger, no matter how much he exercised. One of them then asks what Krieger has been doing. Apparently he has been getting really close with the doctor there, and we see him talking to her while drinking a cocktail. Next Cyril notices Archer by the water, staring out into it. When Pam goes over there, Archer informs her that he is worried about the doctors outlook on him.
We then cut to Pam, Cyril, Zara, and Archer standing by a bar waiting for the waiter to open a coconut. They begin discussing the mission more. Zara asks where Krieger is and we cut to Krieger hyping up the doctor to preform a particularly odd surgery on a patient that would require the doctor to graph a horn onto them, Krieger gets her to do this. Eventually Pam leaves with Archer and talks him up by saying that the doctor was lying to him in order to get him to want her to fix him. Pam says that Archer has to realize that he isn't a young agent anymore, and that he is now the old, bitter, and seasoned member of the agency. After that we cut to Cyril standing behind 2 big men. The big men say a few troubling lines that make it seem they are there for a mission similar to the teams. This causes Cyril to gasp and Cyril explains this off by saying he has a gasping disorder.
Cutting back to the office shows Lana, Ray, and Cheryl looking over the offices budget. Lana notices that half of it goes into bribes and blackmail. Ray says that one client, Gary, has yet to leave so Lana goes out to talk to him. This man refuses to leave, and after Lana returns to the office her, Ray, and Cheryl look out the window to see the Costa Rican embassy be bombed, followed by the Panamanian embassy, Leading Lana to have some doubts about not paying the bribes.
Back at the resort, The gang manages to find El Cambiente, he has been the bartender the whole time! Cambiente begins to run and eventually the group chases him to a zipline. He takes the only harness so the rest of the gang are forced to use their belts. Half way down the 2nd zipline, Archer runs into a sloth, and after stopping to talk to it for a second, the sloth attacks Archer, causing him to fall 50 feet onto ridged rocks. We cut to black and when we come back we see Archer in a hospital bed. Zara gives him a breakdown on what he just survived, causing Archer to stand up, excited that his body was not as close to death as Dr. Spencer had led him to believe. Archer thinks he's invincible. After Krieger tells Archer about his stiches and the nano-bots he put into him, Krieger begins to wonder to himself if unlocking the doctors most inner thoughts was a good thing.
Cutting back into the office, we see Lana and Ray watching the news. Newscasters are baffled and so is the agency as they didn't think all of this would happen so quickly. After Cheryl gets a call about assassination from the Yakuza, Lana asks Ray for a breakdown. Ray reveals that he found out that all of this could be solved by one bribe to Gary who had earlier refused to leave. Lana says she won't pay Gary for moral reasons.
Back at the resort hospital, the crew thinks they have found El Cambiente. As they are taking his body away, the 2 big men from earlier begin to shoot at them as they want to kill the man. Once the gang becomes cornered, Archer kicks bed containing the body they thought might be El Cambiente to the men shooting at them, and Archer reveals that the body was too short to be their target. When the enemy gets the body, after taking off the facial bandages, they are shot dead. El Cambiente and his crew round the corner and inform the gang that he was suppose to get his surgery there earlier, but he heard of the people there to kill him and decided to wait and find the assassins first.
As El Cambiente and his guards begin to shoot at the gang, we cut back to the office where members of a Chechnian terrorist group walk in. As they get ready to shoot Lana, Gary walks in front of the barrel of their gun and reveals the chain of bribes, hush money, and deals that links their cause to him getting bribed. Lana realizes that she is screwed and thus pays the agency's debt to Gary, who says he will see them next month.
Cutting back to the crew getting shot at, we see Krieger burst out of a room tangential to the hall everyone is shooting in, and slam the door behind him. Eventually the door to said room is broken down and we see Dr. Spencer combined with some sort on monster. After Krieger runs further from the door, some of El Cambiente's men rush in front of the door where one throws up and is then pulled in by the monster and killed, the other one is also pulled in. While this is going on Pam rushes over and grabs one of their guns, allowing the gang to rush through the door which had been blocking their escape. After rushing through the gang gets into what appears to be a spa. In the spa Zara takes out some guards and Pam the others before El Cambiente and 2 of his guards go into a sauna. Archer follows after them and once he is in the door gets jammed closed, making it impossible to get in from the outside. While in the sauna Archer manages to knock out all three of the others, while taking a pretty bad beating. Right after this the rest of the gang breaks in and after Archer brags about this being his luckiest mission yet and how he will never change his methods, he sits down and passes out. At this point the rest of the gang looks at him and Pam remembers the monster Krieger turned Dr. Spencer into. Krieger pulls out a detonator and we hear a bang in the distance.
Cast
- H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer
- Judy Greer as Cheryl Tunt
- Amber Nash as Pam Poovey
- Chris Parnell as Cyril Figgis
- Aisha Tyler as Lana Kane
- Natalie Dew as Zara Khan
- Adam Reed as Ray Gillette
Cultural References
The Target's name, El Cambiente, translates to "The changing", a node to the teams intel which says he changes his face every 5 years.
Cheryl says Archer has crows feet, or laugh lines around his eyes.
After Zara gets mad that no one is tipping the waiters, Pam says to Zara that she thought "Brits didn't tip"[2]. This used to be true, but recently tipping in the UK has been gaining steam, although the % they leave is a lot less then is custom in the US.
Krieger asks the doctor "Can't? Could Picasso can't? Could Kant can't"[2]. Picasso is obviously the artist most known for his odd works. On the other hand, Kant, or Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who lived back in the 16th century.
After Lana returns to her office after trying to get rid of the her last bribe client, she sees the Costa Rican embassy bombed, followed by the Panamanian embassy. There is actually a rivalry between these two countries, dating back to the 1500s and arriving at its apex during the Coto War in 1921.
After getting punched in the appendix by El Cambiente Archer wheezes "In the appendix? That's how Houdini died."[2] Houdini did in fact die to Appendicitis, which is caused by the appendix rupturing.
Archer refers to Trastevere, a place in Rome. Trastevere is in Lazio Rome and is very old.
Archer names the sloth he met on the zip line Norman, after the character Norman Soth from the video game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. When the sloth attacks him, Archer questions why the sloth is so fast as there is "a whole sin about it"[2]. This is a reference to the sin of sloth (laziness), one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
While chaos is reigning in the city, Cheryl gets a call from the Yakuza about the agency's thoughts on killing the Australian ambassador, a possible reference to Japan's ideas to take over Australia's during WWII.
Running Gags / Callbacks
When Ray wheels in his connections board to Lana's office it shows a bunch of documents and pictures. One of said pictures is of a Yakuza member (top right) which we saw in Drift Problem. Another picture is possible of Conway Stern (mid-top left), but said picture is too blurry to be certain.
Continuity
Archer befriends a sloth while going down a zipline, continuing Archer's love for animals.
Locations
- Costa Rica
- New York HQ
Gallery of Images
